Is Ottimate or Pleo better?

Neither clearly leads. Ottimate starts at On request and Pleo at £9.5/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Ottimate or Pleo?

Ottimate starts at On request and Pleo at £9.5/month.

Does Ottimate or Pleo run on more platforms?

Ottimate runs on Web, iOS, Android. Pleo runs on iOS, Android, Web.

What is Ottimate best used for?

Ottimate is most often used for a 40 site restaurant group whose bookkeepers key distributor invoices line by line to track food cost, an operator that wants to know within a week when a supplier raises the price of an item outside the contracted schedule, a hotel group standardising accounts payable approvals across properties that each have their own general manager sign-off rules, a finance team migrating from paper invoice files that needs digital retrieval from supplier portals rather than chasing branches for copies. Of those, a 40 site restaurant group whose bookkeepers key distributor invoices line by line to track food cost and an operator that wants to know within a week when a supplier raises the price of an item outside the contracted schedule are not what Pleo is typically brought in for.

What can Ottimate do that Pleo cannot?

Ottimate covers Line-item invoice capture, GL coding, Approval routing, Supplier payments. Pleo covers Company cards, Receipt capture, Expense categorization, Spend limits.

Accounting · head to head

Ottimate vs Pleo

Ottimate

Accounting

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

From: On request
Rated: -

Full review Website

Pleo

Accounting

Smart company cards for forward-thinking teams

From: £9.5/month
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Each has a real cost: 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; Pleo card delays and transaction limits impact usability, with limited regional acceptance in some areas
They diverge on capability: Ottimate covers Line-item invoice capture, Pleo covers Company cards.
Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Ottimate and Pleo actually diverge.

Attributes where Ottimate and Pleo differ
Attribute	Ottimate	Pleo
Starting price	On request	£9.5/month
Pricing model	quote	Unknown
Platforms	Web, iOS, Android	iOS, Android, Web
Founded	Unknown	2015

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 Ottimate

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

Only in Pleo

Company cards
Receipt capture
Expense categorization
Spend limits
Accounting sync
Xero
QuickBooks
Sage

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Ottimate

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

Pleo

Employee expensesnot Ottimate
Spending autonomynot Ottimate
Expense automationnot Ottimate

Where each one falls short

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

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

Pleo

Card delays and transaction limits impact usability, with limited regional acceptance in some areas
Receipt capture OCR inaccuracies and upload lag/glitches complicate expense categorization
Limited expense categories and tags reduce flexibility for complex accounting structures
Transaction approval workflows have minimal customization options
Lacks in-built forecasting tools and reporting is basic, providing limited insights into trends

Pricing, plan by plan

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

Pleo

£9.5/month

Starter$9.5/month
- Company cards
- Real-time expense tracking
- Automated reports
Essential$39/month
- Reimbursements
- Mileage and per diem
- Vendor cards
Advanced$89/month
- Cashback
- Budgets
- Multi-entity management
Beyond$179/month
- Spending insights
- Sub-wallets
- Dedicated success manager

Which should you pick?

Choose Ottimate if

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

Ottimate review

Choose Pleo if

You need company cards.
You work on iOS, Android, Web.
You also want receipt capture.

Pleo review

Questions people ask

Is Ottimate or Pleo better?: Neither clearly leads. Ottimate starts at On request and Pleo at £9.5/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Ottimate or Pleo?: Ottimate starts at On request and Pleo at £9.5/month.
Does Ottimate or Pleo run on more platforms?: Ottimate runs on Web, iOS, Android. Pleo runs on iOS, Android, Web.
What is Ottimate best used for?: Ottimate is most often used for a 40 site restaurant group whose bookkeepers key distributor invoices line by line to track food cost, an operator that wants to know within a week when a supplier raises the price of an item outside the contracted schedule, a hotel group standardising accounts payable approvals across properties that each have their own general manager sign-off rules, a finance team migrating from paper invoice files that needs digital retrieval from supplier portals rather than chasing branches for copies. Of those, a 40 site restaurant group whose bookkeepers key distributor invoices line by line to track food cost and an operator that wants to know within a week when a supplier raises the price of an item outside the contracted schedule are not what Pleo is typically brought in for.
What can Ottimate do that Pleo cannot?: Ottimate covers Line-item invoice capture, GL coding, Approval routing, Supplier payments. Pleo covers Company cards, Receipt capture, Expense categorization, Spend limits.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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.

Pleo: What are Pleo's pricing tiers?

Pleo offers four pricing tiers: Starter (GBP 9.50/month), Essential (GBP 39.00/month), Advanced (GBP 89.00/month), and Beyond (GBP 179.00/month). Annual billing provides equivalent of two free months.

Source

Ottimate: What was it called before?

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

Pleo: Does Pleo have a free tier?

No, Pleo does not offer a free tier or permanent free plan. All plans require payment with a free trial available for evaluation.

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.

Pleo: What integrations does Pleo support for accounting?

Pleo integrates directly with Xero and QuickBooks, plus Sage 200, Sage 50, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Datev, and Visma e-conomic. Zapier integrations are also available.

Source

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.

Pleo: What platforms can access Pleo?

Pleo is accessible via iOS and Android mobile apps, and through a web interface. Physical and virtual cards are issued for spending.

Source

Pleo: Does Pleo support multiple currencies?

Yes, Pleo supports multi-currency spending and transactions. The platform is particularly strong for European teams with local payment methods.

Source

Ottimate vs Pleo

Ottimate

Pleo

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Ottimate

Only in Pleo

What people use each for

Ottimate

Pleo

Where each one falls short

Ottimate

Pleo

Pricing, plan by plan

Ottimate

Pleo

Which should you pick?

Choose Ottimate if

Choose Pleo if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Ottimate

More on Pleo

Keep looking

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