Accounting · head to head
Cledara vs Zoho Expense
Cledara
Accounting
Software subscription management with a virtual card per application, priced from £100 a month
- From
- £100/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: 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.; 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: Cledara covers Virtual card per subscription, Zoho Expense covers Receipt OCR.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Cledara and Zoho Expense actually diverge.
| Attribute | Cledara | Zoho Expense |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | £100/month | Free |
| Pricing model | Per month by number of applications | Per user per month |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
| Platforms | Web | Web, iOS, Android |
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 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 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.
Cledara
- A finance team that cannot say what software the company pays for because everything is on three people's company cardsnot Zoho Expense
- A company that keeps paying for tools nobody uses and cannot get the vendor to process a cancellationnot Zoho Expense
- A startup wanting approval on new software purchases before the first charge rather than at the auditnot Zoho Expense
- A finance function that spends days each month chasing SaaS invoices for the accountantnot Zoho Expense
Zoho Expense
- A mid market company replacing spreadsheet expense claims without a five figure annual software budgetnot Cledara
- An existing Zoho One customer extending the suite so expense data lands in Zoho Books without integration worknot Cledara
- A business with staff travelling across several currencies that needs automatic exchange rate handling on claimsnot Cledara
- A services firm rebilling project expenses to clients and needing them coded to projects at the point of claimnot 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.
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
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
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 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 Cledara or Zoho Expense better?
- Neither clearly leads. Cledara starts at £100/month and Zoho Expense at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Cledara or Zoho Expense?
- Zoho Expense has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at £100/month for Cledara and Free for Zoho Expense.
- Does Cledara or Zoho Expense run on more platforms?
- Cledara runs on Web. 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. Cledara starts at £100/month.
- 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 Zoho Expense is typically brought in for.
- What can Cledara do that Zoho Expense cannot?
- Cledara covers Virtual card per subscription, Cancel by card, Application inventory, Approval workflow. Zoho Expense covers Receipt OCR, Corporate card reconciliation, Per diem and mileage, Approval workflows.
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%.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Related pages
More on Zoho Expense
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