Accounting · head to head
Medius Expense vs Ottimate
Medius Expense
Accounting
Expense management, formerly Expensya, now the expense module of the Medius spend platform
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
Ottimate
Accounting
Invoice capture and accounts payable automation trained on food and beverage distributor formats
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Medius Expense the Expensya name is being retired, so contracts, logins and support articles change identity mid-relationship and internal documentation has to be rewritten.; 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: Medius Expense covers Receipt OCR, 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 Medius Expense and Ottimate actually diverge.
| Attribute | Medius Expense | Ottimate |
|---|
Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), free tier (No), platforms (Web, iOS, Android), 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 Medius Expense
- Receipt OCR
- Mileage and per diem
- VAT recovery
- Card reconciliation
- Approval workflows
- AP suite integration
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.
Medius Expense
- A French or Spanish employer needing VAT-compliant receipt capture in local formats and languagesnot Ottimate
- A company already running Medius for supplier invoices that wants employee spend on the same platformnot Ottimate
- A finance team with heavy mileage claims needing statutory rates applied without spreadsheetsnot Ottimate
- A group consolidating several country expense tools into one European platformnot Ottimate
Ottimate
- A 40 site restaurant group whose bookkeepers key distributor invoices line by line to track food costnot Medius Expense
- An operator that wants to know within a week when a supplier raises the price of an item outside the contracted schedulenot Medius Expense
- A hotel group standardising accounts payable approvals across properties that each have their own general manager sign-off rulesnot Medius Expense
- A finance team migrating from paper invoice files that needs digital retrieval from supplier portals rather than chasing branches for copiesnot Medius Expense
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Medius Expense
- The Expensya name is being retired, so contracts, logins and support articles change identity mid-relationship and internal documentation has to be rewritten.
- It is now a module inside an accounts payable suite, so expense-specific roadmap items compete with supplier invoice work for engineering time.
- Pricing is not published and is discounted against bundling with Medius AP, which makes standalone expense quotes less competitive than they look.
- Strength is concentrated in Europe and the Maghreb; North American and Asian tax and mileage handling are thinner than the European coverage.
- It does not issue cards, so real-time spend controls are absent and it relies on card feed reconciliation after the fact.
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
Medius Expense
On request- Medius Expense$undefined/year
- Per-user subscription, quoted not published
- Tiering by feature set and entity count
- Implementation and OCR configuration fees
Ottimate
On request- Ottimate$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 Medius Expense if
- You need receipt ocr.
- You work on Web, iOS, Android.
- You also want mileage and per diem.
Choose Ottimate if
- You need line-item invoice capture.
- You work on Web, iOS, Android.
- You also want gl coding.
Questions people ask
- Is Medius Expense or Ottimate better?
- Neither clearly leads. Medius Expense starts at On request and Ottimate at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Medius Expense or Ottimate?
- Medius Expense starts at On request and Ottimate at On request.
- Does Medius Expense or Ottimate run on more platforms?
- Both run on Web, iOS, Android, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
- What is Medius Expense best used for?
- Medius Expense is most often used for a french or spanish employer needing vat-compliant receipt capture in local formats and languages, a company already running medius for supplier invoices that wants employee spend on the same platform, a finance team with heavy mileage claims needing statutory rates applied without spreadsheets, a group consolidating several country expense tools into one european platform. Of those, a french or spanish employer needing vat-compliant receipt capture in local formats and languages and a company already running medius for supplier invoices that wants employee spend on the same platform are not what Ottimate is typically brought in for.
- What can Medius Expense do that Ottimate cannot?
- Medius Expense covers Receipt OCR, Mileage and per diem, VAT recovery, Card reconciliation. Ottimate covers Line-item invoice capture, GL coding, Approval routing, Supplier payments.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Medius Expense: Is Expensya still available?
Under that name, no. The product continues as Medius Expense, with the branding cutover on 30 September 2026 and no change to features or data.
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.
Medius Expense: Do I have to buy Medius AP as well?
No, but the commercial terms improve materially if you do, which is worth testing during negotiation.
Ottimate: What was it called before?
Plate IQ. The company kept the same product and renamed it Ottimate.
Medius Expense: Does it issue corporate cards?
No. It reconciles existing card feeds rather than issuing its own cards.
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.
Related pages
More on Medius Expense
Other head to heads
- Medius Expense vs Rydoo
- Medius Expense vs SAP Concur
- Medius Expense vs Pleo
- Medius Expense vs Airbase
- Medius Expense vs Basware
- Medius Expense vs Yooz
- Medius Expense vs Ramp
- Medius Expense vs Spendesk
- Medius Expense vs Stampli
- Medius Expense vs Circula
- Medius Expense vs Expensify
- Medius Expense vs Karbon
- Medius Expense vs Kodo
- Medius Expense vs Mercury
- Medius Expense vs Mesh Payments
- Medius Expense vs Money Forward Cloud
- Medius Expense vs Moneybird
- Medius Expense vs Tipalti
- Medius Expense vs Bill.com
- Medius Expense vs Moss
- Medius Expense vs Tropic
- Medius Expense vs Melio
- Medius Expense vs RazorpayX
- Medius Expense vs Sage 50
- Medius Expense vs Stigg
- Medius Expense vs Vena Solutions
- Medius Expense vs ADP
- Medius Expense vs Medius
- Ottimate vs Rydoo
- Ottimate vs SAP Concur
- Ottimate vs Pleo
- Ottimate vs Airbase
- Ottimate vs Basware
- Ottimate vs Yooz
- Ottimate vs Ramp
- Ottimate vs Spendesk
- Ottimate vs Stampli
- Ottimate vs Circula
- Ottimate vs Expensify
- Ottimate vs Karbon
- Ottimate vs Kodo
- Ottimate vs Mercury
- Ottimate vs Mesh Payments
- Ottimate vs Money Forward Cloud
- Ottimate vs Moneybird
- Ottimate vs Tipalti
- Ottimate vs Bill.com
- Ottimate vs Moss
- Ottimate vs Tropic
- Ottimate vs Melio
- Ottimate vs RazorpayX
- Ottimate vs Sage 50
- Ottimate vs Stigg
- Ottimate vs Vena Solutions
- Ottimate vs ADP
- Ottimate vs Medius