Accounting · head to head
Cledara vs Medius
Cledara
Accounting
Software subscription management with a virtual card per application, priced from £100 a month
- From
- £100/month
- Rated
- -
Medius
Accounting
Accounts payable automation and supplier payments for mid-market finance teams, Marlin Equity owned
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Cledara control only extends to subscriptions paid on a Cledara card, so anything billed by invoice, bank transfer or a legacy company card is invisible to the system and undermines the inventory it promises.; Medius the sourcing, contract and procurement modules are considerably less developed than the AP core, so buying Medius as a full source-to-pay suite means accepting weak upstream tooling.
- They diverge on capability: Cledara covers Virtual card per subscription, Medius covers Invoice capture and coding.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Cledara and Medius actually diverge.
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 Cledara
- Virtual card per subscription
- Cancel by card
- Application inventory
- Invoice collection
- Accounting export
- Spend optimisation module
- IT management and compliance modules
Only in Medius
- Invoice capture and coding
- Matching and exception handling
- Fraud and anomaly detection
- Supplier payments
- ERP integration
Both cover
- Approval workflow
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Cledara
- A finance team that cannot say what software the company pays for because everything is on three people's company cardsnot Medius
- A company that keeps paying for tools nobody uses and cannot get the vendor to process a cancellationnot Medius
- A startup wanting approval on new software purchases before the first charge rather than at the auditnot Medius
- A finance function that spends days each month chasing SaaS invoices for the accountantnot Medius
Medius
- A mid-market finance team where most spend arrives as an invoice with no purchase order to match againstnot Cledara
- A group with several legal entities on different ERPs that wants one AP process across all of themnot Cledara
- Reducing invoice fraud exposure with automated detection of supplier bank detail changesnot Cledara
- Replacing a scanning bureau and a shared AP inbox with automated capture and exception-based reviewnot Cledara
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Cledara
- Control only extends to subscriptions paid on a Cledara card, so anything billed by invoice, bank transfer or a legacy company card is invisible to the system and undermines the inventory it promises.
- Tier limits are set by number of applications rather than headcount, and twenty applications on the Basic plan is fewer than most companies of fifty actually run, so buyers often land on a higher tier than the entry price suggests.
- The modules that turn it from a payment layer into a management platform, spend optimisation, IT management and compliance, are each priced at £150 to £200 a month, comparable to the base plan itself.
- Usage data is inferred from payment and integration signals rather than deep application telemetry, so its judgement of whether a tool is underused is weaker than a discovery product built on single sign-on and API usage.
- It is a card issuer as well as a software vendor, which adds financial counterparty considerations and means a change in its banking arrangements would affect how the company pays every one of its suppliers.
Medius
- The sourcing, contract and procurement modules are considerably less developed than the AP core, so buying Medius as a full source-to-pay suite means accepting weak upstream tooling.
- Pricing is quote-only and driven by invoice volume, so a business with many low-value invoices pays disproportionately relative to the spend being controlled.
- Payments are billed on transaction volume separately from the AP subscription, which is easy to omit from a cost comparison against a licence-only AP tool.
- Private equity ownership since 2017 has produced an acquisition-driven product line, so payments and adjacent capability come from bought-in technology rather than the original platform.
- ERP integration depth varies sharply by system, and organisations on less common or heavily customised ERPs face integration work that lengthens the implementation.
Pricing, plan by plan
Cledara
£100/month- Basic$100/month
- Up to 20 software applications
- Virtual card per subscription
- Application inventory and approvals
- Premium$undefined/month
- Up to 75 software applications
- Typically 51 to 150 staff
- 1% cashback in the first year, capped at the subscription cost
- Pro$undefined/month
- For organisations above roughly 150 staff
- Scoped individually
- 1% cashback in the first year, capped at plan cost
- Add-on modules$200/month
- Spend Optimization £200 a month or £1,500 a year
- IT Management £150 a month or £1,500 a year
- Software Compliance £150 a month or £1,500 a year
Medius
On request- Medius AP Automation$undefined/year
- Two packaged AP automation tiers
- Priced by invoice volume and entity count
- Sourcing, contracts and procurement modules sold separately
Which should you pick?
Choose Medius if
- You need invoice capture and coding.
- You work on Web, iOS, Android.
- You also want matching and exception handling.
Questions people ask
- Is Cledara or Medius better?
- Neither clearly leads. Cledara starts at £100/month and Medius at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Cledara or Medius?
- Cledara starts at £100/month and Medius at On request.
- Does Cledara or Medius run on more platforms?
- Cledara runs on Web. Medius runs on Web, iOS, Android.
- What is Cledara best used for?
- Cledara is most often used for a finance team that cannot say what software the company pays for because everything is on three people's company cards, a company that keeps paying for tools nobody uses and cannot get the vendor to process a cancellation, a startup wanting approval on new software purchases before the first charge rather than at the audit, a finance function that spends days each month chasing saas invoices for the accountant. Of those, a finance team that cannot say what software the company pays for because everything is on three people's company cards and a company that keeps paying for tools nobody uses and cannot get the vendor to process a cancellation are not what Medius is typically brought in for.
- What can Cledara do that Medius cannot?
- Cledara covers Virtual card per subscription, Cancel by card, Application inventory, Invoice collection. Medius covers Invoice capture and coding, Matching and exception handling, Fraud and anomaly detection, Supplier payments. Both handle Approval workflow.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Cledara: What does it cost?
Basic is £100 a month for up to 20 applications, with Premium covering up to 75 and Pro above that. Add-on modules are £150 to £200 a month each, and annual payment saves 16%.
Medius: Is Medius a procurement suite or an AP tool?
Primarily an AP automation platform with procurement modules attached. If sourcing is your main requirement, look elsewhere.
Cledara: Does it find software we did not tell it about?
Only what passes through its cards or connected integrations. Subscriptions paid by invoice or another card stay hidden, which is the main limitation of the model.
Medius: Who owns Medius?
Marlin Equity Partners, which acquired it in 2017 and has funded several bolt-on acquisitions since.
Cledara: How does cancelling work?
You cancel the virtual card for that subscription, which stops the payment. It does not remove your contractual obligation, so check notice periods.
Medius: How is it priced?
By quote, driven by invoice volume and entity count, with payments billed separately on transaction volume.
Cledara: Is the application limit by users or by tools?
By tools. Twenty on Basic, seventy-five on Premium. Count your actual subscriptions before assuming the entry price applies to you.
Medius: Does it replace our ERP?
No. It sits alongside the ERP and posts approved invoices into it.
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