Accounting · head to head
Airbase vs Zoho Expense
Airbase
Accounting
Spend management combining corporate cards, bill payment and expense claims, now part of Paylocity
- From
- $29/month
- Rated
- -
Zoho Expense
Accounting
Expense reporting and travel management at three dollars per user per month
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Only Zoho Expense has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- 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.; Zoho Expense aI receipt scans are metered per user per month rather than unlimited, so heavy claimants exhaust the allowance and either scan manually or push the organisation to a higher tier.
- They diverge on capability: Airbase covers Corporate cards, Zoho Expense covers Receipt OCR.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Airbase and Zoho Expense actually diverge.
| Attribute | Airbase | Zoho Expense |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $29/month | Free |
| Pricing model | subscription | Per user per month |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
| Founded | 2017 | Unknown |
Identical on both: 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 Zoho Expense
- Receipt OCR
- Corporate card reconciliation
- Per diem and mileage
- Approval workflows
- Travel requests and booking
- Policy engine
- Multi currency and multi entity
- Accounting integration
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 Zoho Expense
- A finance team where supplier invoices arrive in an inbox and approval is whoever replies, with no record afterwardsnot Zoho Expense
- A controller trying to close the month without rebuilding card and expense coding from statements every timenot Zoho Expense
- An organisation that wants spend approved before it is committed rather than discovered when the invoice arrivesnot Zoho Expense
Zoho Expense
- A mid market company replacing spreadsheet expense claims without a five figure annual software budgetnot Airbase
- An existing Zoho One customer extending the suite so expense data lands in Zoho Books without integration worknot Airbase
- A business with staff travelling across several currencies that needs automatic exchange rate handling on claimsnot Airbase
- A services firm rebilling project expenses to clients and needing them coded to projects at the point of claimnot 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.
Zoho Expense
- AI receipt scans are metered per user per month rather than unlimited, so heavy claimants exhaust the allowance and either scan manually or push the organisation to a higher tier.
- Zoho Expense does not issue cards, so policy enforcement is retrospective and out of policy spend is caught after the money has left rather than declined at the terminal.
- Additional users who create expenses are billed at the monthly rate rather than the annual rate, which makes a large population of occasional claimants more expensive than the headline three dollars implies.
- Support quality is the recurring complaint across Zoho products, and at three dollars a seat there is no commercial room for the account management that mid market finance teams expect at renewal or during an audit.
- Deep configuration such as complex approval matrices and custom fields is workable but fiddly, and there is no meaningful professional services organisation to hand implementation to.
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
Zoho Expense
Free- FreeFree
- Up to 3 users
- Receipt capture with limited AI scans
- Basic expense reports
- Standard$3/month
- Billed annually, minimum 3 users
- Corporate card reconciliation
- Approval workflows
- Premium$5/month
- Billed annually
- Travel requests and self booking
- Advanced approvals and policy rules
Which should you pick?
Choose Airbase if
- You need corporate cards.
- You work on Web, Ios, Android.
- You also want virtual cards per vendor.
Choose Zoho Expense if
- You need receipt ocr.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, iOS, Android.
- You also want corporate card reconciliation.
Questions people ask
- Is Airbase or Zoho Expense better?
- Neither clearly leads. Airbase starts at $29/month and Zoho Expense at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Airbase or Zoho Expense?
- Zoho Expense has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $29/month for Airbase and Free for Zoho Expense.
- Does Airbase or Zoho Expense run on more platforms?
- Airbase runs on Web, Ios, Android. Zoho Expense runs on Web, iOS, Android.
- Can I use Zoho Expense for free?
- Yes. Zoho Expense has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Airbase starts at $29/month.
- 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 Zoho Expense is typically brought in for.
- What can Airbase do that Zoho Expense cannot?
- Airbase covers Corporate cards, Virtual cards per vendor, Bill payment, Expense reimbursement. Zoho Expense covers Receipt OCR, Corporate card reconciliation, Per diem and mileage, Approval workflows.
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.
Zoho Expense: Is the free plan usable in production?
Only for three users. Beyond that you move to Standard, which has a three user minimum anyway.
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.
Zoho Expense: Does Zoho Expense issue corporate cards?
No. It reconciles card feeds but does not issue cards, so you need a card programme elsewhere if you want spend blocked before it happens.
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.
Zoho Expense: What is the real cost for a hundred users?
Around three thousand six hundred dollars a year on Standard annual billing, plus higher monthly rates for any additional occasional claimants beyond your licensed count.
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.
Related pages
More on Zoho Expense
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