Softwr

Accounting · head to head

Circula vs Modern Treasury

Circula logo

Circula

Accounting

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

From
€15/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Modern Treasury logo

Modern Treasury

Accounting

Payment operations and ledger infrastructure that sits between your product and your own bank accounts

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • 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.; Modern Treasury you must already have or be able to obtain your own bank accounts with the right connectivity, so early stage companies without a banking relationship cannot use it and are pushed towards a sponsor bank model instead.
  • They diverge on capability: Circula covers German per diem engine, Modern Treasury covers Multi-rail payment initiation.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Circula and Modern Treasury actually diverge.

Attributes where Circula and Modern Treasury differ
AttributeCirculaModern Treasury
Starting price€15/monthOn request
Pricing modelPer user per monthquote
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidWeb

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 Circula

  • German per diem engine
  • Receipt capture and OCR
  • Corporate credit cards
  • Employee benefits
  • Accounts payable
  • Mileage and travel
  • DATEV and ERP export

Only in Modern Treasury

  • Multi-rail payment initiation
  • Bank connectivity
  • Ledgers
  • Automatic reconciliation
  • Virtual accounts
  • Compliance tooling
  • Return and exception handling

Both cover

  • Approval workflows

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 Modern Treasury
  • A finance team wanting card spend, expense claims and benefits in one DATEV exportnot Modern Treasury
  • An employer offering the tax free monthly benefit allowance and needing auditable records of itnot Modern Treasury
  • A mid sized business replacing spreadsheet mileage claims with rule enforced distance calculationsnot Modern Treasury

Modern Treasury

  • A marketplace paying out to thousands of sellers that needs a ledger its application can trust rather than reconciling a payments dashboard by handnot Circula
  • A lender originating and servicing loans that must track disbursements, repayments and returns against its own bank accountsnot Circula
  • A company that wants to move off a banking as a service provider and hold its own bank accounts after seeing sponsor banks offboard fintech programmesnot Circula
  • An insurer handling premium collection and claims payment across several rails with approval controls and an auditable trailnot 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.

Modern Treasury

  • You must already have or be able to obtain your own bank accounts with the right connectivity, so early stage companies without a banking relationship cannot use it and are pushed towards a sponsor bank model instead.
  • Pricing rests on an annual minimum commitment, and companies that miss their volume forecast pay the minimum regardless, which makes the headline per-transaction rate close to irrelevant in year one.
  • Supported bank connectivity is a finite list, so if your bank is not on it you are either waiting for an integration or changing banks, which is a far larger project than adopting the software.
  • It is software over banking, not banking, so it does not solve card issuing, deposit accounts or the licensing questions that a company embedding financial products still has to answer elsewhere.
  • The ledger is genuinely good but adopting it properly means making it the source of truth for balances in your product, which is a significant application change rather than a payments integration and is where implementations run long.

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

Modern Treasury

On request
  • Modern Treasury Platform$undefined/year
    • Platform access fee covering API, dashboard, infrastructure and support
    • Usage-based fees across ACH, wires, RTP, FedNow, push to card, cheques and stablecoins
    • A single annual minimum commitment that both platform and usage fees count towards

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 Modern Treasury if

  • You need multi-rail payment initiation.
  • You also want bank connectivity.
Modern Treasury review

Questions people ask

Is Circula or Modern Treasury better?
Neither clearly leads. Circula starts at €15/month and Modern Treasury at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Circula or Modern Treasury?
Circula starts at €15/month and Modern Treasury at On request.
Does Circula or Modern Treasury run on more platforms?
Circula runs on Web, iOS, Android. Modern Treasury runs on Web.
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 Modern Treasury is typically brought in for.
What can Circula do that Modern Treasury cannot?
Circula covers German per diem engine, Receipt capture and OCR, Corporate credit cards, Employee benefits. Modern Treasury covers Multi-rail payment initiation, Bank connectivity, Ledgers, Automatic reconciliation. Both handle Approval workflows.

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.

Modern Treasury: Is Modern Treasury a bank or a banking as a service provider?

Neither. You hold your own bank accounts and it is software over them. That avoids sponsor bank concentration risk but means you need the bank relationship yourself.

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.

Modern Treasury: What does it cost?

Not published. A platform access fee plus usage fees across rails, on an annual term with a single minimum commitment. Negotiate the minimum, not the per-transaction rate.

Circula: Is there a minimum commitment?

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

Modern Treasury: Which rails are supported?

ACH, wires, RTP, FedNow, push to card, cheques and stablecoin payments, subject to what your bank supports.

Modern Treasury: Do we still need our own compliance programme?

Yes. KYB, KYC and transaction monitoring are included in the platform, but you are the one holding the accounts and the regulatory obligation sits with you and your bank.

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