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Accounting · head to head

Airbase vs Vena Solutions

Airbase logo

Airbase

Accounting

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

From
$29/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Vena Solutions logo

Vena Solutions

Accounting

FP&A planning that keeps Excel as the front end and puts a database and workflow behind it

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.; Vena Solutions vena publishes no pricing and contracts are modular, so two organisations of similar size can pay very different amounts and neither can benchmark without going through procurement.
  • They diverge on capability: Airbase covers Corporate cards, Vena Solutions covers Excel add-in interface.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Airbase and Vena Solutions actually diverge.

Attributes where Airbase and Vena Solutions differ
AttributeAirbaseVena Solutions
Starting price$29/monthOn request
Pricing modelsubscriptionquote
PlatformsWeb, Ios, AndroidWeb, Windows, Excel add-in
Founded2017Unknown

Identical on both: free tier (No), 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 Vena Solutions

  • Excel add-in interface
  • Central multidimensional database
  • Workflow and approvals
  • Rolling forecasts
  • Close management
  • Power BI integration
  • ERP connectors

Both cover

  • Audit trail

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

Vena Solutions

  • A finance team that wants governance and audit over budgeting but refuses to give up Excel formulasnot Airbase
  • Replacing a shared drive full of departmental budget workbooks with routed templates and tracked submissionnot Airbase
  • Consolidating actuals from more than one ERP into a single reporting set without a data warehouse projectnot Airbase
  • Running monthly rolling forecasts where the model is complex enough to need real spreadsheet logicnot 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.

Vena Solutions

  • Vena publishes no pricing and contracts are modular, so two organisations of similar size can pay very different amounts and neither can benchmark without going through procurement.
  • Implementation services for data integration and template configuration typically make up a large part of first-year cost, often exceeding the licence, and that figure only appears in the proposal.
  • Excel dependency is structural: organisations on Google Workspace, or staff working only in a browser or on Chromebooks, cannot use the primary interface as intended.
  • Because it accepts existing spreadsheets, it can preserve years of undocumented logic and circular workarounds rather than forcing the clean-up that a rebuild on a purpose-built modelling tool would require.
  • Model performance degrades with very large dimensional models, so organisations that grow into genuinely large planning problems eventually hit the limits of the spreadsheet-first design and face a second migration.

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

Vena Solutions

On request
  • Vena Professional$undefined/year
    • Core planning platform and Excel add-in
    • Workflow, audit trail and version control
    • Standard support
  • Vena Complete$undefined/year
    • Everything in Professional
    • Power BI integration
    • Premium support and a customer success manager

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 Vena Solutions if

  • You need excel add-in interface.
  • You work on Web, Windows, Excel add-in.
  • You also want central multidimensional database.
Vena Solutions review

Questions people ask

Is Airbase or Vena Solutions better?
Neither clearly leads. Airbase starts at $29/month and Vena Solutions at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Airbase or Vena Solutions?
Airbase starts at $29/month and Vena Solutions at On request.
Does Airbase or Vena Solutions run on more platforms?
Airbase runs on Web, Ios, Android. Vena Solutions runs on Web, Windows, Excel add-in.
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 Vena Solutions is typically brought in for.
What can Airbase do that Vena Solutions cannot?
Airbase covers Corporate cards, Virtual cards per vendor, Bill payment, Expense reimbursement. Vena Solutions covers Excel add-in interface, Central multidimensional database, Workflow and approvals, Rolling forecasts. Both handle Audit trail.

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.

Vena Solutions: Do we have to give up Excel?

No, that is the point of the product. Excel is the interface, backed by a central database and workflow.

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.

Vena Solutions: Is pricing published?

No. Vena quotes per organisation based on users, modules and services.

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.

Vena Solutions: How much is implementation?

It is quoted separately and commonly forms a large share of first-year cost. Get it itemised before comparing against Anaplan or Adaptive.

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.

Vena Solutions: Does it work without Microsoft Office?

Not properly. The Excel add-in is the main working surface.

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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