Is Navan or Ottimate better?

Neither clearly leads. Navan starts at Free and Ottimate at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Navan or Ottimate?

Navan has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Navan and On request for Ottimate.

Does Navan or Ottimate run on more platforms?

Navan runs on Web, iOS, Android, API. Ottimate runs on Web, iOS, Android.

Can I use Navan for free?

Yes. Navan has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Ottimate starts at On request.

What is Navan best used for?

Navan is most often used for mid-market and enterprise companies automating travel and expense workflows, organisations seeking to reduce travel costs through policy enforcement and ai-driven discounts, teams utilising corporate card programmes for spend tracking without receipt capture overhead, global enterprises requiring multi-currency support and erp integration. Of those, mid-market and enterprise companies automating travel and expense workflows and organisations seeking to reduce travel costs through policy enforcement and ai-driven discounts are not what Ottimate is typically brought in for.

What can Navan do that Ottimate cannot?

Ottimate covers Line-item invoice capture, GL coding, Approval routing, Supplier payments.

Accounting · head to head

Navan vs Ottimate

Navan

Accounting

AI-powered corporate travel and expense management with integrated corporate card

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

Ottimate

Accounting

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

From: On request
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Only Navan has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
Each has a real cost: Navan enterprise pricing requires quote request; no transparency on true per-user or per-transaction costs; 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
Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Navan and Ottimate actually diverge.

Attributes where Navan and Ottimate differ
Attribute	Navan	Ottimate
Starting price	Free	On request
Pricing model	freemium	quote
Free tier	Yes	No
Platforms	Web, iOS, Android, API	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 Navan

Nothing recorded that Ottimate does not also cover.

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.

Navan

Mid-market and enterprise companies automating travel and expense workflowsnot Ottimate
Organisations seeking to reduce travel costs through policy enforcement and AI-driven discountsnot Ottimate
Teams utilising corporate card programmes for spend tracking without receipt capture overheadnot Ottimate
Global enterprises requiring multi-currency support and ERP integrationnot Ottimate
Companies where employee autonomy is prioritised; AI assistant enables self-service booking and policy compliancenot Ottimate

Ottimate

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

Where each one falls short

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

Navan

Enterprise pricing requires quote request; no transparency on true per-user or per-transaction costs
Expense management charges apply beyond 5 users, increasing per-user costs for larger teams
Corporate card programmes (Navan Card, Connect) complicate adoption by requiring banking integration
AI assistant (Navan Edge) lacks transparency on data handling; unclear whether conversation data is retained for model training
Limited EMEA coverage; emerging market travel inventory less comprehensive than global GDS systems

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

Navan

Free

Navan BusinessFree
- Unlimited flight, hotel, train, rental car bookings
- Global inventory across 178+ countries
- 24/7 travel support
Navan Business (Expense add-on)$15/month
- Additional expense management users (beyond 5 free)
- Receipt scanning and categorisation
- ERP integration (30+ connectors)
Navan EnterpriseFree
- Custom pricing
- Dedicated account management
- Negotiated corporate rates

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 Navan if

You want to start without paying.
You work on Web, iOS, Android, API.

Navan 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 Navan or Ottimate better?: Neither clearly leads. Navan starts at Free and Ottimate at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Navan or Ottimate?: Navan has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Navan and On request for Ottimate.
Does Navan or Ottimate run on more platforms?: Navan runs on Web, iOS, Android, API. Ottimate runs on Web, iOS, Android.
Can I use Navan for free?: Yes. Navan has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Ottimate starts at On request.
What is Navan best used for?: Navan is most often used for mid-market and enterprise companies automating travel and expense workflows, organisations seeking to reduce travel costs through policy enforcement and ai-driven discounts, teams utilising corporate card programmes for spend tracking without receipt capture overhead, global enterprises requiring multi-currency support and erp integration. Of those, mid-market and enterprise companies automating travel and expense workflows and organisations seeking to reduce travel costs through policy enforcement and ai-driven discounts are not what Ottimate is typically brought in for.
What can Navan do that Ottimate cannot?: Ottimate covers Line-item invoice capture, GL coding, Approval routing, Supplier payments.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Navan: Is Navan's travel booking free?

Yes. Navan Business travel bookings are free, supported by supplier commissions. Expense management is free for the first 5 users monthly; additional users cost £15/month each.

Source

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.

Navan: What is Navan Edge?

Navan Edge is an AI travel assistant integrated into chat that handles flight, hotel, and restaurant enquiries, provides recommendations, processes cancellations and rebookings, and escalates to human support 24/7.

Source

Ottimate: What was it called before?

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

Navan: Does Navan integrate with our ERP system?

Yes. Navan provides 30+ pre-built ERP connectors (SAP, Oracle, NetSuite, etc.) and REST APIs for real-time spend sync and invoice reconciliation.

Source

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.

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.

Navan vs Ottimate

Navan

Ottimate

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Navan

Only in Ottimate

What people use each for

Navan

Ottimate

Where each one falls short

Navan

Ottimate

Pricing, plan by plan

Navan

Ottimate

Which should you pick?

Choose Navan if

Choose Ottimate if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Navan

More on Ottimate

Keep looking

Other head to heads