Is Circula or Stigg better?

Neither clearly leads. Circula starts at €15/month and Stigg at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Circula or Stigg?

Stigg has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at €15/month for Circula and Free for Stigg.

Does Circula or Stigg run on more platforms?

Circula runs on Web, iOS, Android. Stigg runs on Web, Cloud, BYOC, BYODB, API.

Can I use Stigg for free?

Yes. Stigg has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Circula starts at €15/month.

What is Circula best used for?

Circula is most often used for a german company that must apply statutory per diem rates and meal deductions correctly to avoid payroll tax exposure, a finance team wanting card spend, expense claims and benefits in one datev export, an employer offering the tax free monthly benefit allowance and needing auditable records of it, a mid sized business replacing spreadsheet mileage claims with rule enforced distance calculations. Of those, a german company that must apply statutory per diem rates and meal deductions correctly to avoid payroll tax exposure and a finance team wanting card spend, expense claims and benefits in one datev export are not what Stigg is typically brought in for.

What can Circula do that Stigg cannot?

Circula covers German per diem engine, Receipt capture and OCR, Corporate credit cards, Employee benefits. Stigg covers Real-time credit enforcement, Financial-grade credits, High-scale metering, Budget governance.

Accounting · head to head

Circula vs Stigg

Circula

Accounting

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

From: €15/month
Rated: -

Full review Website

Stigg

Accounting

Usage runtime platform for credits and entitlements

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Only Stigg has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
Each has a real cost: 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.; Stigg free tier limited to 10,000 entities and 5M events per month
They diverge on capability: Circula covers German per diem engine, Stigg covers Real-time credit enforcement.
Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Circula and Stigg actually diverge.

Attributes where Circula and Stigg differ
Attribute	Circula	Stigg
Starting price	€15/month	Free
Pricing model	Per user per month	Freemium with usage-based and custom tiers
Free tier	No	Yes
Platforms	Web, iOS, Android	Web, Cloud, BYOC, BYODB, API

Identical on both: 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 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

Only in Stigg

Real-time credit enforcement
Financial-grade credits
High-scale metering
Budget governance
Flexible deployment
Billing platform integration
Data warehouse integration
CRM integration

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Circula

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

Stigg

Managing token and credit usage for AI productsnot Circula
Enforcing spending caps and budget controlsnot Circula
Implementing prepaid credit systems with expirynot Circula
Real-time entitlement verification for feature accessnot Circula
Scaling billing infrastructure for high-volume eventsnot Circula

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

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.

Stigg

Free tier limited to 10,000 entities and 5M events per month
Pro plan pricing ($399/month) may be high for early-stage companies
Scale and BYOC plans require custom contracts and sales engagement
Primarily targets AI and high-scale use cases, not all business models
Requires integration with separate billing platform (Stripe, Zuora, etc.)

Pricing, plan by plan

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

Stigg

Free

Build (Free Forever)Free
- 10,000 managed entities per month
- 5M usage events per month
- 1K events per second rate limit
Pro$399/month
- 10,000 entities included (graduated pricing to 100K)
- 25M usage events included (to 500M with graduated rates)
- 10K events per second (upgradeable to 100K)
Scale$null/custom
- Custom entity and event volumes
- 50K events per second (upgradeable to 100K)
- RBAC and SSO (SAML)
BYOC$40000/year
- Deploy in customer VPC
- Unlimited entities and events
- No event billing

Which should you pick?

Choose Circula if

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

Circula review

Choose Stigg if

You need real-time credit enforcement.
You want to start without paying.
You work on Web, Cloud, BYOC, BYODB, API.
You also want financial-grade credits.

Stigg review

Questions people ask

Is Circula or Stigg better?: Neither clearly leads. Circula starts at €15/month and Stigg at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Circula or Stigg?: Stigg has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at €15/month for Circula and Free for Stigg.
Does Circula or Stigg run on more platforms?: Circula runs on Web, iOS, Android. Stigg runs on Web, Cloud, BYOC, BYODB, API.
Can I use Stigg for free?: Yes. Stigg has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Circula starts at €15/month.
What is Circula best used for?: Circula is most often used for a german company that must apply statutory per diem rates and meal deductions correctly to avoid payroll tax exposure, a finance team wanting card spend, expense claims and benefits in one datev export, an employer offering the tax free monthly benefit allowance and needing auditable records of it, a mid sized business replacing spreadsheet mileage claims with rule enforced distance calculations. Of those, a german company that must apply statutory per diem rates and meal deductions correctly to avoid payroll tax exposure and a finance team wanting card spend, expense claims and benefits in one datev export are not what Stigg is typically brought in for.
What can Circula do that Stigg cannot?: Circula covers German per diem engine, Receipt capture and OCR, Corporate credit cards, Employee benefits. Stigg covers Real-time credit enforcement, Financial-grade credits, High-scale metering, Budget governance.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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.

Stigg: How quickly does Stigg check entitlements?

Stigg makes entitlement checks in under 10 milliseconds, enabling real-time enforcement of spending decisions before token consumption.

Source

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.

Stigg: Can I use Stigg with my existing billing platform?

Yes, Stigg integrates with major billing platforms including Stripe, Zuora, Chargebee, Metronome, and Orb to manage entitlements and credits.

Source

Circula: Is there a minimum commitment?

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

Stigg: What deployment options does Stigg offer?

Stigg offers cloud API, BYOC (Bring Your Own Cloud) for VPC deployment, and BYODB options for customers who want to manage their own database.

Source

Circula vs Stigg

Circula

Stigg

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Circula

Only in Stigg

What people use each for

Circula

Stigg

Where each one falls short

Circula

Stigg

Pricing, plan by plan

Circula

Stigg

Which should you pick?

Choose Circula if

Choose Stigg if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Circula

More on Stigg

Keep looking

Other head to heads