Softwr

Accounting · head to head

Airbase vs Rutter

Airbase logo

Airbase

Accounting

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

From
$29/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Rutter logo

Rutter

APIs

One API across accounting, commerce, payments and advertising platforms

From
On request
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.; Rutter a unified schema exposes only the fields common across platforms, so the platform-specific detail underwriting models want usually requires passthrough calls and per-platform code, which is the work the unified API was bought to avoid.
  • They diverge on capability: Airbase covers Corporate cards, Rutter covers Accounting and ERP.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Airbase and Rutter actually diverge.

Attributes where Airbase and Rutter differ
AttributeAirbaseRutter
Starting price$29/monthOn request
Pricing modelsubscriptionquote
PlatformsWeb, Ios, AndroidWeb, API
CategoryAccountingAPIs
Founded2017Unknown

Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated).

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 Rutter

  • Accounting and ERP
  • Commerce data
  • Payments data
  • Advertising data
  • Write operations
  • Passthrough requests
  • Observability tooling
  • Sandbox

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

Rutter

  • A revenue-based lender that must pull a merchant's sales, payouts and general ledger before pricing a facilitynot Airbase
  • A spend management product that needs to push bills and journal entries back into whichever accounting system its customer runsnot Airbase
  • A B2B payments platform reconciling invoices across customers using four different ERPsnot Airbase
  • An insurance or benefits provider that needs verified business financials without asking the customer to upload PDFsnot 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.

Rutter

  • A unified schema exposes only the fields common across platforms, so the platform-specific detail underwriting models want usually requires passthrough calls and per-platform code, which is the work the unified API was bought to avoid.
  • Write operations into accounting systems are where these products break, because each system validates differently, and a rejected journal entry surfaces as a support ticket against you rather than against the ERP.
  • No pricing is published beyond a sandbox trial, so cost cannot be compared against alternatives without a sales process, and pricing tends to scale with connected accounts.
  • QuickBooks Desktop and other on-premises systems require a local connector or hosted agent, which introduces installation steps your customers must complete and support burden you inherit.
  • Sync freshness varies by platform and by customer authorisation state, so a product promising near real-time figures will find some connections update far less often than the marketing implies.

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

Rutter

On request
  • Starter$undefined/month
    • Thirty day sandbox trial
    • Test integrations with QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks and Zoho Books
    • Documentation and workflow guides
  • Full Access$undefined/year
    • Production access across all platforms
    • Includes NetSuite, QuickBooks Desktop and Sage Intacct
    • Write operations and passthrough

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 Rutter if

  • You need accounting and erp.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want commerce data.
Rutter review

Questions people ask

Is Airbase or Rutter better?
Neither clearly leads. Airbase starts at $29/month and Rutter at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Airbase or Rutter?
Airbase starts at $29/month and Rutter at On request.
Does Airbase or Rutter run on more platforms?
Airbase runs on Web, Ios, Android. Rutter runs on Web, API.
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 Rutter is typically brought in for.
What can Airbase do that Rutter cannot?
Airbase covers Corporate cards, Virtual cards per vendor, Bill payment, Expense reimbursement. Rutter covers Accounting and ERP, Commerce data, Payments data, Advertising data.

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.

Rutter: Does Rutter support QuickBooks Desktop?

Yes, which distinguishes it from unified APIs that only cover cloud accounting, and matters because many small businesses still run 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.

Rutter: Can Rutter write data back?

Yes. Invoices, bills and journal entries can be pushed into supported accounting systems, not only read.

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.

Rutter: Is there a free tier?

There is a thirty day sandbox trial with test data. Production access requires a paid plan with quoted pricing.

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.

Rutter: What if the unified model lacks a field I need?

Rutter supports passthrough requests to the underlying platform API, though using them reintroduces platform-specific code.

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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