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Accounting · head to head

Airbase vs Circula

Airbase logo

Airbase

Accounting

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

From
$29/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Circula logo

Circula

Accounting

Expense, travel and employee benefit management for German speaking finance teams

From
€15/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

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.; Circula the module pricing stacks: expenses at fifteen euro per licence plus ninety nine euro for cards plus a hundred and forty nine euro for accounts payable means a fifty person company pays well over a thousand euro a month before add ons.
  • They diverge on capability: Airbase covers Corporate cards, Circula covers German per diem engine.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Airbase and Circula actually diverge.

Attributes where Airbase and Circula differ
AttributeAirbaseCircula
Starting price$29/month€15/month
Pricing modelsubscriptionPer user per month
Founded2017Unknown

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 Circula

  • German per diem engine
  • Receipt capture and OCR
  • Corporate credit cards
  • Employee benefits
  • Accounts payable
  • Mileage and travel
  • DATEV and ERP export
  • Approval workflows

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 Circula
  • A finance team where supplier invoices arrive in an inbox and approval is whoever replies, with no record afterwardsnot Circula
  • A controller trying to close the month without rebuilding card and expense coding from statements every timenot Circula
  • An organisation that wants spend approved before it is committed rather than discovered when the invoice arrivesnot Circula

Circula

  • A German company that must apply statutory per diem rates and meal deductions correctly to avoid payroll tax exposurenot Airbase
  • A finance team wanting card spend, expense claims and benefits in one DATEV exportnot Airbase
  • An employer offering the tax free monthly benefit allowance and needing auditable records of itnot Airbase
  • A mid sized business replacing spreadsheet mileage claims with rule enforced distance calculationsnot 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.

Circula

  • The module pricing stacks: expenses at fifteen euro per licence plus ninety nine euro for cards plus a hundred and forty nine euro for accounts payable means a fifty person company pays well over a thousand euro a month before add ons.
  • A minimum of ten licences excludes small teams, and the flexible licensing model for occasional claimants makes monthly cost harder to forecast than a flat per seat price.
  • Strength is in German tax rules, so companies with significant operations outside the DACH region gain little from the feature that justifies the price.
  • The accounts payable module includes only a hundred invoices per month, so invoice heavy businesses face metered overage on top of the platform fee.
  • Card issuing carries a per card transaction ceiling and depends on partner issuing, so high value procurement spend can hit limits that a bank issued corporate card would not.

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

Circula

€15/month
  • Employee and Travel Expenses$15/month
    • Per licence, billed annually
    • Minimum 10 licences
    • OCR receipt capture
  • Credit Cards$99/month
    • Platform fee, unlimited cards
    • Per card spend limits
    • Transaction limit of EUR 750,000 per card
  • Accounts Payable$149/month
    • Platform fee
    • Includes 100 invoices per month
    • Supplier invoice capture and approval
  • Benefits$1/month
    • Per licence
    • Tax free benefit allowances
    • Mobility and meal benefits

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 Circula if

  • You need german per diem engine.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want receipt capture and ocr.
Circula review

Questions people ask

Is Airbase or Circula better?
Neither clearly leads. Airbase starts at $29/month and Circula at €15/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Airbase or Circula?
Airbase starts at $29/month and Circula at €15/month.
Does Airbase or Circula run on more platforms?
Airbase runs on Web, Ios, Android. Circula runs on Web, iOS, Android.
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 Circula is typically brought in for.
What can Airbase do that Circula cannot?
Airbase covers Corporate cards, Virtual cards per vendor, Bill payment, Expense reimbursement. Circula covers German per diem engine, Receipt capture and OCR, Corporate credit cards, Employee benefits.

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.

Circula: Does Circula calculate German per diems automatically?

Yes, by destination country and trip duration, including meal and accommodation deductions, which is the main reason DACH finance teams buy it.

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.

Circula: What does it actually cost for fifty employees?

Roughly seven hundred and fifty euro a month for expense licences alone at the fifteen euro rate, before the ninety nine euro card platform fee and any accounts payable module.

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.

Circula: Is there a minimum commitment?

Yes. A minimum of ten licences and annual billing on the published rates.

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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