Accounting · head to head
Soldo vs Zoho Expense
Soldo
Accounting
Prepaid company card and spend control platform for European businesses
- From
- £21/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: Soldo cards are prepaid, so if the central wallet runs low the cards decline in front of a supplier, and treasury has to keep an idle float funded rather than using a credit line.; 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: Soldo covers Prepaid company cards, Zoho Expense covers Receipt OCR.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Soldo and Zoho Expense actually diverge.
| Attribute | Soldo | Zoho Expense |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | £21/month | Free |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
Identical on both: pricing model (Per user per month), 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 Soldo
- Prepaid company cards
- Card-level budgets
- Receipt capture
- Accounting export
- Multi-currency wallets
Only in Zoho Expense
- Receipt OCR
- Corporate card reconciliation
- Per diem and mileage
- Travel requests and booking
- Policy engine
- Multi currency and multi entity
- Accounting integration
Both cover
- Approval workflows
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Soldo
- A construction firm giving site managers fuel and materials cards with hard per-card limitsnot Zoho Expense
- A marketing team issuing virtual cards per subscription so a cancelled tool cannot keep billingnot Zoho Expense
- A UK company that cannot get approved for a credit-based corporate card programmenot Zoho Expense
- A multi-entity European business needing EUR and GBP wallets without conversion on every purchasenot Zoho Expense
Zoho Expense
- A mid market company replacing spreadsheet expense claims without a five figure annual software budgetnot Soldo
- An existing Zoho One customer extending the suite so expense data lands in Zoho Books without integration worknot Soldo
- A business with staff travelling across several currencies that needs automatic exchange rate handling on claimsnot Soldo
- A services firm rebilling project expenses to clients and needing them coded to projects at the point of claimnot Soldo
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Soldo
- Cards are prepaid, so if the central wallet runs low the cards decline in front of a supplier, and treasury has to keep an idle float funded rather than using a credit line.
- The plan fee covers only three users, and per-user charges plus physical card fees mean the real monthly cost is several times the advertised headline for a team of twenty.
- It does not extend credit, so it gives no working capital benefit and no card rewards of the kind US charge card issuers use to offset their cost.
- Sole traders and some business types are not accepted, which catches out small consultancies expecting to sign up online.
- Coverage is European; a company with US or Asian subsidiaries will need a second card programme and a second expense workflow for them.
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
Soldo
£21/month- Standard$21/month
- Three users included
- Around £7 per additional user per month
- Physical card issuance fee around £5, virtual around £1
- Plus$33/month
- Three users included
- Around £11 per additional user per month
- Advanced approval and multi-currency features
- Enterprise$undefined/month
- Quoted pricing
- Custom card volumes and entity structures
- Dedicated account management
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 Soldo if
- You need prepaid company cards.
- You work on Web, iOS, Android.
- You also want card-level budgets.
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 Soldo or Zoho Expense better?
- Neither clearly leads. Soldo starts at £21/month and Zoho Expense at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Soldo or Zoho Expense?
- Zoho Expense has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at £21/month for Soldo and Free for Zoho Expense.
- Does Soldo or Zoho Expense run on more platforms?
- Both run on Web, iOS, Android, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
- Can I use Zoho Expense for free?
- Yes. Zoho Expense has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Soldo starts at £21/month.
- What is Soldo best used for?
- Soldo is most often used for a construction firm giving site managers fuel and materials cards with hard per-card limits, a marketing team issuing virtual cards per subscription so a cancelled tool cannot keep billing, a uk company that cannot get approved for a credit-based corporate card programme, a multi-entity european business needing eur and gbp wallets without conversion on every purchase. Of those, a construction firm giving site managers fuel and materials cards with hard per-card limits and a marketing team issuing virtual cards per subscription so a cancelled tool cannot keep billing are not what Zoho Expense is typically brought in for.
- What can Soldo do that Zoho Expense cannot?
- Soldo covers Prepaid company cards, Card-level budgets, Receipt capture, Accounting export. Zoho Expense covers Receipt OCR, Corporate card reconciliation, Per diem and mileage, Travel requests and booking. Both handle Approval workflows.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Soldo: Is Soldo a credit card?
No. It is prepaid electronic money. You fund a wallet and cards spend from it, so there is no credit line and no interest-free period.
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.
Soldo: What licence does Soldo hold?
Soldo is authorised as an electronic money institution, including UK, Irish and Italian entities, which is why it can issue cards without a sponsor bank in those markets.
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.
Soldo: What does it really cost for twenty users?
Take the plan fee, add the per-user rate for the seventeen users beyond the included three, then add card issuance fees per physical card.
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.
Related pages
More on Zoho Expense
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