Softwr

Accounting · head to head

ADP vs Airbase

ADP logo

ADP

Accounting

Always Designing for People

From
$29/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Airbase logo

Airbase

Accounting

Spend management combining corporate cards, bill payment and expense claims, now part of Paylocity

From
$29/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: ADP no pricing is published; every quote is custom and driven by employee count and which services are taken; Airbase card issuing and bill payment are built around United States entities and United States bank accounts, so a group with subsidiaries abroad keeps running local card and payment processes alongside and does not get the single ledger of spend that justified the purchase.
  • They diverge on capability: ADP covers Payroll, Airbase covers Corporate cards.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which ADP and Airbase actually diverge.

Attributes where ADP and Airbase differ
AttributeADPAirbase
Founded19492017

Identical on both: starting price ($29/month), pricing model (subscription), free tier (No), platforms (Web, Ios, Android), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Accounting).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in ADP

  • Payroll
  • Tax services
  • HR management
  • Time & attendance
  • Benefits administration
  • QuickBooks
  • Sage
  • Oracle

Only in Airbase

  • Corporate cards
  • Virtual cards per vendor
  • Bill payment
  • Expense reimbursement
  • Unified approval policy
  • Purchase intake and procurement
  • Automated coding
  • Receipt collection

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

ADP

  • Payroll processing and tax filingnot Airbase
  • HR administration and employee recordsnot Airbase
  • Time and attendance trackingnot Airbase
  • Benefits administrationnot Airbase
  • Talent management on the mid-market and enterprise productsnot Airbase

Airbase

  • A company that has outgrown one shared company card and needs per person and per subscription cards with real limitsnot ADP
  • A finance team where supplier invoices arrive in an inbox and approval is whoever replies, with no record afterwardsnot ADP
  • A controller trying to close the month without rebuilding card and expense coding from statements every timenot ADP
  • An organisation that wants spend approved before it is committed rather than discovered when the invoice arrivesnot ADP

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

ADP

  • No pricing is published; every quote is custom and driven by employee count and which services are taken
  • Split into three separate products by company size, RUN for 1 to 49 employees, Workforce Now for 50 and above, and Lyric HCM for enterprise, so growing across a threshold means changing product rather than plan

Airbase

  • Card issuing and bill payment are built around United States entities and United States bank accounts, so a group with subsidiaries abroad keeps running local card and payment processes alongside and does not get the single ledger of spend that justified the purchase.
  • The value depends on nearly all spend flowing through the platform, which makes partial adoption almost worthless and means the rollout is a change management exercise across every budget holder rather than a finance department deployment.
  • Paylocity's acquisition in 2024 reorients the roadmap towards a human capital management suite, so expense reimbursement is likely to be well served while procurement and the more finance specific features compete for attention with payroll and HR priorities.
  • Pricing combines a platform fee with tiering on features and users, and part of the economics rests on interchange rebates from card spend, so a company that puts most of its spend on transfers rather than cards pays the fee without earning the offset.
  • The general ledger sync is a mapping you own, so a chart of accounts change, a new department dimension or a ledger migration means reworking the coding rules, and a bad mapping quietly posts correct approvals to the wrong accounts.

Pricing, plan by plan

ADP

$29/month
  • Essential$79/month
    • Payroll
    • Tax filing
    • Direct deposit
  • Enhanced$139/month
    • HR tools
    • Background checks
    • Job posting

Airbase

$29/month
  • StandardFree
    • Corporate cards
    • Expense reports
    • Bill pay
  • Premium$10/month
    • Advanced approvals
    • NetSuite sync
    • Procurement
  • Enterprise$undefined/month
    • Custom workflows
    • API access
    • Dedicated support

Which should you pick?

Choose ADP if

  • You need payroll.
  • You work on Web, Ios, Android.
  • You also want tax services.
ADP review

Choose Airbase if

  • You need corporate cards.
  • You work on Web, Ios, Android.
  • You also want virtual cards per vendor.
Airbase review

Questions people ask

Is ADP or Airbase better?
Neither clearly leads. ADP starts at $29/month and Airbase at $29/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, ADP or Airbase?
ADP starts at $29/month and Airbase at $29/month.
Does ADP or Airbase run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, Ios, Android, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
What is ADP best used for?
ADP is most often used for payroll processing and tax filing, hr administration and employee records, time and attendance tracking, benefits administration. Of those, payroll processing and tax filing and hr administration and employee records are not what Airbase is typically brought in for.
What can ADP do that Airbase cannot?
ADP covers Payroll, Tax services, HR management, Time & attendance. Airbase covers Corporate cards, Virtual cards per vendor, Bill payment, Expense reimbursement.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

ADP: How is ADP pricing organized?

ADP organizes pricing by business size: Small Business (1-49 employees), Midsized (50-999 employees), and Enterprise (1,000+ employees). Each segment receives customized pricing tailored to specific business needs.

Source
Airbase: Does it work for companies outside the United States?

Partially. Some international spend and reimbursement is supported, but card issuing and the payment rails are strongest for United States entities. Confirm coverage for each country you operate in before assuming it replaces local processes.

ADP: Is there a current promotional offer for ADP payroll?

ADP currently offers 3 months free when signing up for small business payroll (promotion ends 9/24). Contact sales at 800-225-5237 for details and to request pricing based on your employee count.

Source
Airbase: Does Airbase replace our accounting system?

No. It manages spend and pushes coded transactions into the ledger. QuickBooks, NetSuite or whatever else you use stays.

Airbase: What changed after the Paylocity acquisition?

Ownership and roadmap direction. The product continues, now positioned alongside Paylocity's payroll and HR products. If procurement is your main reason to buy, ask directly about investment in that module.

Airbase: How is it priced?

A platform subscription with tiers, plus usage and user dimensions, partly offset by rebates on card spend. Because the rebate depends on card volume, model your own mix of card versus transfer spend before accepting a payback figure.

Airbase: Can we use it for accounts payable only?

You can, but the approval consistency argument weakens considerably. Most of the reported benefit comes from cards, bills and reimbursements sharing one policy and one coding process.

Airbase: Will our auditors accept the approval records?

The per transaction record of approver, receipt and coding is generally what auditors want to see for spend testing. Agree the sampling approach with them early, particularly around any spend that still happens outside the platform.

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