Softwr

Accounting · head to head

Cledara vs Ottimate

Cledara logo

Cledara

Accounting

Software subscription management with a virtual card per application, priced from £100 a month

From
£100/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Ottimate logo

Ottimate

Accounting

Invoice capture and accounts payable automation trained on food and beverage distributor formats

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

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.; Ottimate nothing is published about price, and quotes are structured by location and invoice volume, so a group with a few high-volume sites and one with many low-volume sites can receive very different numbers for the same total spend
  • They diverge on capability: Cledara covers Virtual card per subscription, Ottimate covers Line-item invoice capture.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Cledara and Ottimate actually diverge.

Attributes where Cledara and Ottimate differ
AttributeCledaraOttimate
Starting price£100/monthOn request
Pricing modelPer month by number of applicationsquote
PlatformsWebWeb, iOS, Android

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
  • Approval workflow
  • Invoice collection
  • Accounting export
  • Spend optimisation module
  • IT management and compliance modules

Only in Ottimate

  • Line-item invoice capture
  • GL coding
  • Approval routing
  • Supplier payments
  • Price change alerts
  • Purchase order matching
  • Digital invoice retrieval

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 Ottimate
  • A company that keeps paying for tools nobody uses and cannot get the vendor to process a cancellationnot Ottimate
  • A startup wanting approval on new software purchases before the first charge rather than at the auditnot Ottimate
  • A finance function that spends days each month chasing SaaS invoices for the accountantnot Ottimate

Ottimate

  • A 40 site restaurant group whose bookkeepers key distributor invoices line by line to track food costnot Cledara
  • An operator that wants to know within a week when a supplier raises the price of an item outside the contracted schedulenot Cledara
  • A hotel group standardising accounts payable approvals across properties that each have their own general manager sign-off rulesnot Cledara
  • A finance team migrating from paper invoice files that needs digital retrieval from supplier portals rather than chasing branches for copiesnot 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.

Ottimate

  • Nothing is published about price, and quotes are structured by location and invoice volume, so a group with a few high-volume sites and one with many low-volume sites can receive very different numbers for the same total spend
  • The line-item extraction advantage is trained on food and beverage distributor formats, so accuracy on long-tail suppliers, service invoices and one-off vendors falls back to general OCR and needs human review
  • It is an accounts payable layer, not an inventory or recipe costing system, so operators still need Restaurant365 or an equivalent for true plate costing and the value depends on that integration behaving
  • The company has rebranded once already from Plate IQ, and much of the third party comparison material still uses the old name or wrongly attributes it to AvidXchange, which makes independent due diligence unusually hard
  • Payment execution through the platform introduces a dependency on Ottimate for supplier relationships, and moving away later means re-establishing payment details with every vendor rather than simply exporting data

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

Ottimate

On request
  • Ottimate$undefined/year
    • Quoted by location count and invoice volume
    • Payment rails may carry separate transaction charges
    • Implementation and accounting system integration scoped separately

Which should you pick?

Choose Cledara if

  • You need virtual card per subscription.
  • You also want cancel by card.
Cledara review

Choose Ottimate if

  • You need line-item invoice capture.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want gl coding.
Ottimate review

Questions people ask

Is Cledara or Ottimate better?
Neither clearly leads. Cledara starts at £100/month and Ottimate at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Cledara or Ottimate?
Cledara starts at £100/month and Ottimate at On request.
Does Cledara or Ottimate run on more platforms?
Cledara runs on Web. Ottimate 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 Ottimate is typically brought in for.
What can Cledara do that Ottimate cannot?
Cledara covers Virtual card per subscription, Cancel by card, Application inventory, Approval workflow. Ottimate covers Line-item invoice capture, GL coding, Approval routing, Supplier payments.

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%.

Ottimate: Is Ottimate owned by AvidXchange?

No. Ottimate is the rebranded Plate IQ and operates as an independent venture-backed company. AvidXchange is a competitor, not the parent.

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.

Ottimate: What was it called before?

Plate IQ. The company kept the same product and renamed it Ottimate.

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.

Ottimate: Does it work outside restaurants?

It will process any invoice, but the line-item extraction accuracy that justifies the price is tuned to food and beverage distributors. Other industries should test carefully before committing.

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.

Ottimate: Does it replace Restaurant365?

No. It handles invoice capture, approval and payment. Recipe costing and restaurant-specific inventory stay in Restaurant365 or an equivalent.

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