Is Airbase or Bench better?

Neither clearly leads. Airbase starts at $29/month and Bench at $299/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Airbase or Bench?

Airbase starts at $29/month and Bench at $299/month.

Does Airbase or Bench run on more platforms?

Both run on Web, Ios, Android, so platform support will not decide this one for you.

What is Airbase best used for?

Airbase is most often used for a company that has outgrown one shared company card and needs per person and per subscription cards with real limits, a finance team where supplier invoices arrive in an inbox and approval is whoever replies, with no record afterwards, a controller trying to close the month without rebuilding card and expense coding from statements every time, an organisation that wants spend approved before it is committed rather than discovered when the invoice arrives. Of those, a company that has outgrown one shared company card and needs per person and per subscription cards with real limits and a finance team where supplier invoices arrive in an inbox and approval is whoever replies, with no record afterwards are not what Bench is typically brought in for.

What can Airbase do that Bench cannot?

Airbase covers Corporate cards, Virtual cards per vendor, Bill payment, Expense reimbursement. Bench covers Dedicated bookkeeper, Monthly financial statements, Bank reconciliation, Tax preparation.

Accounting · head to head

Airbase vs Bench

Airbase

Accounting

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

From: $29/month
Rated: -

Full review Website

Bench

Accounting

America's largest bookkeeping service for small businesses

From: $299/month
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Each has a real cost: 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.; Bench recent bankruptcy and acquisition by Employer.com creates uncertainty about product roadmap and support continuity
They diverge on capability: Airbase covers Corporate cards, Bench covers Dedicated bookkeeper.
Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Airbase and Bench actually diverge.

Attributes where Airbase and Bench differ
Attribute	Airbase	Bench
Starting price	$29/month	$299/month
Pricing model	subscription	Unknown
Founded	2017	2012

Identical on both: 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 Airbase

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

Only in Bench

Dedicated bookkeeper
Monthly financial statements
Bank reconciliation
Tax preparation
Expense categorization
Stripe
PayPal
Square

What people use each for

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

Airbase

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

Bench

Bookkeeping outsourcingnot Airbase
Tax preparationnot Airbase
Financial reportingnot Airbase

Where each one falls short

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

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.

Bench

Recent bankruptcy and acquisition by Employer.com creates uncertainty about product roadmap and support continuity
Higher starting cost at $299/month compared to self-service accounting software like Wave or QuickBooks Online
Requires manual connection of financial accounts and ongoing coordination with bookkeeping team, less automated than software-first solutions
Tax services limited to US income tax returns; no support for complex entity structures or multi-state taxation
History of burning through capital rapidly, raising concerns about long-term business sustainability

Pricing, plan by plan

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

Bench

$299/month

No published plan breakdown. See the Bench review.

Which should you pick?

Choose Airbase if

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

Airbase review

Choose Bench if

You need dedicated bookkeeper.
You work on Web, Ios, Android.
You also want monthly financial statements.

Bench review

Questions people ask

Is Airbase or Bench better?: Neither clearly leads. Airbase starts at $29/month and Bench at $299/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Airbase or Bench?: Airbase starts at $29/month and Bench at $299/month.
Does Airbase or Bench run on more platforms?: Both run on Web, Ios, Android, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
What is Airbase best used for?: Airbase is most often used for a company that has outgrown one shared company card and needs per person and per subscription cards with real limits, a finance team where supplier invoices arrive in an inbox and approval is whoever replies, with no record afterwards, a controller trying to close the month without rebuilding card and expense coding from statements every time, an organisation that wants spend approved before it is committed rather than discovered when the invoice arrives. Of those, a company that has outgrown one shared company card and needs per person and per subscription cards with real limits and a finance team where supplier invoices arrive in an inbox and approval is whoever replies, with no record afterwards are not what Bench is typically brought in for.
What can Airbase do that Bench cannot?: Airbase covers Corporate cards, Virtual cards per vendor, Bill payment, Expense reimbursement. Bench covers Dedicated bookkeeper, Monthly financial statements, Bank reconciliation, Tax preparation.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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.

Bench: What happened to Bench Accounting?

Bench shut down abruptly on December 27, 2024, filing for bankruptcy in Canada with $65 million in debt. The company was acquired by Employer.com on December 30, 2024, and resumed operations in January 2025 under new ownership.

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.

Bench: What are Bench's current pricing plans?

Bench offers Bookkeeping at $299/month (billed annually) and Bookkeeping + Tax at $599/month (billed annually). Both include automated bookkeeping, real-time financial statements, and a dedicated team of bookkeepers.

Source

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.

Bench: Does Bench include tax preparation services?

The Bookkeeping plan includes monthly bookkeeping and year-end tax-ready financial statements. The Bookkeeping + Tax plan adds one-on-one income tax consulting and annual income tax return filing.

Source

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.

Bench: How does Bench's bookkeeping work?

Bench combines proprietary software with human bookkeepers. You connect your financial accounts to automate data entry, and Bench's team handles bookkeeping and provides year-end tax-ready statements. Customers can reach their dedicated team within 24 hours.

Source

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.

Bench: Can I access real-time financial data with Bench?

Yes, Bench provides real-time reporting, allowing you to access or download updated income statements and balance sheets at any time.

Source

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.

Airbase vs Bench

Airbase

Bench

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Airbase

Only in Bench

What people use each for

Airbase

Bench

Where each one falls short

Airbase

Bench

Pricing, plan by plan

Airbase

Bench

Which should you pick?

Choose Airbase if

Choose Bench if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Airbase

More on Bench

Keep looking

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