Softwr

Accounting · head to head

Airbase vs Zip

Airbase logo

Airbase

Accounting

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

From
$29/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Zip logo

Zip

ERP

Procurement intake and orchestration that sits on top of the systems you already run

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.; Zip it is a layer on top of systems you already pay for, so the business case rests on adoption and cycle time rather than replacing a licence, and that is harder to defend to a finance director cutting software spend.
  • They diverge on capability: Airbase covers Corporate cards, Zip covers Unified intake.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Airbase and Zip actually diverge.

Attributes where Airbase and Zip differ
AttributeAirbaseZip
Starting price$29/monthOn request
Pricing modelsubscriptionquote
PlatformsWeb, Ios, AndroidWeb, iOS
CategoryAccountingERP
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 Zip

  • Unified intake
  • Approval orchestration
  • Vendor onboarding
  • Contract repository
  • ERP write-back
  • Renewal management
  • Spend visibility
  • AI request handling

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

Zip

  • A company that owns a source-to-pay suite nobody uses because employees cannot navigate itnot Airbase
  • An organisation where every software purchase needs security, legal, privacy and finance sign-off and currently does it in email threadsnot Airbase
  • A finance team that keeps discovering contracts that auto-renewed because nobody owned the renewal datenot Airbase
  • A business needing an auditable record of who approved a third-party engagement and on what evidencenot 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.

Zip

  • It is a layer on top of systems you already pay for, so the business case rests on adoption and cycle time rather than replacing a licence, and that is harder to defend to a finance director cutting software spend.
  • Value depends entirely on integration depth into your specific ERP and ticketing tools, and a shallow connector reduces it to a workflow tool that someone rekeys out of.
  • Pricing is not published and is structured around company size and integration scope, so buyers cannot benchmark without peer references.
  • If procurement policy itself is unclear, Zip encodes the confusion: the tool routes requests according to rules someone must first write, and organisations without that clarity see slow implementations.
  • It does not do sourcing, auctions or spend analysis, so organisations expecting a full procurement capability will still need a suite or specialist tools alongside it.

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

Zip

On request
  • Zip$undefined/year
    • Intake and approval orchestration
    • Vendor onboarding and diligence workflows
    • Integrations with ERP, contract and ticketing systems

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 Zip if

  • You need unified intake.
  • You work on Web, iOS.
  • You also want approval orchestration.
Zip review

Questions people ask

Is Airbase or Zip better?
Neither clearly leads. Airbase starts at $29/month and Zip at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Airbase or Zip?
Airbase starts at $29/month and Zip at On request.
Does Airbase or Zip run on more platforms?
Airbase runs on Web, Ios, Android. Zip runs on Web, iOS.
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 Zip is typically brought in for.
What can Airbase do that Zip cannot?
Airbase covers Corporate cards, Virtual cards per vendor, Bill payment, Expense reimbursement. Zip covers Unified intake, Approval orchestration, Vendor onboarding, Contract repository.

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.

Zip: Is this the buy now pay later company?

No. This is Zip at ziphq.com, a procurement orchestration platform, unrelated to the payments company of the same name.

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.

Zip: Does it replace Coupa or Ariba?

No, and that is the point. It sits in front of them, providing the intake and approval experience employees actually use, and writes back into the suite.

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.

Zip: What does it cost?

Not published. Quoted by company size, modules and the integrations you need. Get peer benchmarks before negotiating.

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.

Zip: What is the prerequisite for success?

A written procurement policy. Zip automates the routing rules you give it; if nobody can say who approves what, implementation stalls.

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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