Airbase vs Expensify 2026: Quote-Only Suite or Seat Price

Expensify wins when a controller needs a published seat price for expense reports. Paylocity for Finance, which still uses the Airbase name, wins when purchase requests, supplier bills and expenses have to be scoped as modules. Collect is $5 per unique member a month. Paylocity publishes no list price for that suite.

Spend management, on this page, means the path from a purchase or a supplier invoice through approval, payment and the ledger. Prices and plan rules below were read on October 30, 2026 from Expensify's pricing guide, its Collect vs Control comparison, Paylocity's pricing page and the Paylocity for Finance page.

Toolradar data: as of October 29, 2026, Toolradar tracks 90 expense management tools, and 46 of them offer a free tier. On the per-user leaderboard published with that snapshot, Expensify's entry price is the lowest of 11 tools, against a $12 median (expense management statistics). Airbase does not appear on that price list. Those figures describe the directory, not a test of either product. Profiles are at Airbase and Expensify.

Airbase vs Expensify at a glance

Question	Paylocity for Finance (Airbase)	Expensify
Best fit	Quoted modules for purchasing, bills, cards and expenses	Published per-member expense reports and reimbursements
Public entry price	No list price	Collect: $5 per unique member/month, pay-per-use
Cards you already hold	Existing Visa or Mastercard, or a Paylocity-issued card	One company card connection on Collect; Expensify Card on both plans
Purchase orders	Guided Procurement, and 2-way plus 3-way match on the AP module	Not listed in the Collect vs Control comparison
Ledger examples	NetSuite, Sage Intacct, QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, Dynamics Business Central	Collect names QuickBooks or Xero; Control names NetSuite and Sage Intacct

Read the price column as a scoping aid. A module name on Paylocity's site is not a line on your order form until the quote says so. An Expensify feature that sits on Control is not included because Collect looks cheap.

How much does a 25-person company pay?

Plan	Published price	Who is billed
Expensify Submit	Free	One employee, without approvals, payments, company cards or accounting sync
Expensify Collect	$5 per unique member/month, pay-per-use	Every workspace member, active or not
Expensify Control, annual	$18 per member in the subscription size/month, plus $36 per active member above it	The committed size every month
Control annual, full card discount	As low as $9 in that size, and as low as $18 above it	Same size rule; discount follows the card share, up to 50%
Expensify Control, pay-per-use	$36 per active member/month, as low as $18 on the card column	Active members only
Paylocity for Finance	No list price	Not stated: ask if the quote is per employee, per module or a platform fee

Expensify can be modeled from that table. Paylocity cannot, until sales returns a written price. For a workspace of 25 members, every month, with taxes excluded and nobody above an annual subscription size, Collect is $125 a month, or $1,500 a year. Control on an annual subscription, with no card discount, is $450 a month, or $5,400 a year. The same annual plan at the full card discount is $225 a month, or $2,700 a year.

Those three yearly totals are this page's multiplication of published per-member rates. They are not vendor quotes. They assume every one of the 25 people is a workspace member all year, billing is monthly in arrears, and the full discount means every approved USD expense that month was on the Expensify Card. Expensify's pricing guide states that endpoint directly: the annual member price falls from $18 to $9.

25-person case	Expensify	Paylocity for Finance
Collect, all 25 are unique members every month	$125/month, $1,500/year	Quote
Control annual, no card discount	$450/month, $5,400/year	Quote
Control annual, full card discount	$225/month, $2,700/year	Quote
Control annual, half of approved USD expenses on the card	$337.50/month, $4,050/year, our proportional reading	Quote
Control pay-per-use, all 25 active, no card column	$900/month, $10,800/year	Quote
Collect, only 10 of 25 file or approve	$125/month, unique members still count	Quote
Control pay-per-use, 10 active, no card column	$360/month	Quote
Control annual sized at 25, only 10 active	$450/month, the committed size still bills	Quote

The half-card row is our straight-line reading of Expensify's rule that the discount rises with the card share and stops at 50%. Half the spend on the card is treated here as half of that maximum. Expensify publishes the endpoints and the word proportionally. It does not publish $337.50 as its own rate. A different formula in the contract would change that row, so ask before you put it in a forecast.

Expensify wins the published-price round because a controller can defend $1,500 or $5,400 in a budget review. Paylocity's missing number is not evidence that the suite costs more. It is evidence that the comparison is unfinished until the quote lists modules, seats, implementation and the ledger connection.

A company whose first Expensify workspace was created before April 1, 2025 is not on the Collect rate above. Legacy Collect stays at $10 per active member on pay-per-use. Model the renewal on the invoice, not on the current public table, if that date applies.

For the wider seat math, see Expensify pricing and expense management software pricing compared. A corporate-card platform is a different decision, covered in Ramp vs Expensify.

Who gets counted on the bill?

Collect bills unique members: every person in the workspace, whether or not they filed that month. Annual billing exists only on Control, so Collect cannot be prepaid at a lower rate. The invoice still arrives monthly, in arrears, and taxes are extra.

Control on pay-per-use bills active members. Creating, editing, submitting, approving or exporting expense data counts, and so does a chat with Concierge. An admin who only messages support can appear on that month's invoice. People who belong to the workspace and do none of that are not billed on pay-per-use.

An annual Control subscription bills the committed size every month, including people who do nothing. You can raise the size during the term and cannot lower it until renewal. Active members above that size bill at $36 each, or at the lower card rate when the discount is complete. A headcount guess that is too low becomes the pay-per-use rate.

Expensify wins on a bill you can audit. Collect does not shrink when filing stops, and an annual Control commitment does not shrink mid-year. Paylocity says modules can be bought one at a time or together, and it does not say whether the quote is per employee, per module or a platform fee. Put that unit in the proposal. The Airbase review is the page to read beside it.

Submit, Expensify's free workspace, is for one employee sending expenses to an approver. It does not include approvals, payments, company cards or accounting integrations, so it is not the company plan in the table above.

Which product works with cards the company already has?

Paylocity wins when the bank card program has to stay. Its finance page says teams can use existing cards or Paylocity-issued cards, with policy controls and cash back. The expense page says Visa and Mastercard corporate card transactions can be linked to an expense report, with coding and receipt matching. The Paylocity Corporate Card is issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC, under a Visa license. Paylocity mentions cash back and does not publish a rate, so a rewards comparison is not possible from the site.

Expensify wins when the model needs a published reward schedule. The Expensify Card works on Collect and on Control. The commercial card terms, updated January 31, 2026, pay 1% of net charges at US merchants, and 2% of those net charges when the month's total exceeds $250,000. Net charges are business charges at US merchants, minus returns, disputes and similar credits. The credit is applied to the subscription bill or sent by ACH by the 8th of the next month, and Expensify can end the program without notice. Cards under those terms are issued by The Bancorp Bank, N.A.

The subscription discount is a separate Control rule, not the cash back. Annual Control workspaces can receive up to a 50% cut based on the share of approved USD expenses on the Expensify Card. Expensify's pricing guide also lists a lower card price on Control pay-per-use, while the written formula is the annual one. Confirm the same percentage before you book it on pay-per-use.

Collect is limited to one company card connection, per Expensify's commercial feed setup. Multiple connections are a Control feature. Two bank programs, or a Visa feed plus an Amex feed, belong on Control even when reimbursements would otherwise fit the cheaper plan.

Expensify's card terms say spending limits are dynamic and can be cut to zero. Paylocity does not publish underwriting rules on the finance page. Treat approval as a separate gate from the software price, and confirm which entities, countries and currencies can hold a card.

Which product covers a purchase from request to payment?

Paylocity wins when the control that matters is a purchase order. Guided Procurement is centralized intake with routing across finance, legal, IT and procurement. AP automation on the same pricing page includes invoice capture, 2-way and 3-way matching, and payments by ACH, check, wire or card. Modules can be added later. None of that has a public fee.

Expensify's plan comparison does not list purchase-order matching or a procurement module. Collect is receipt capture, reimbursements, a simple approval flow and accounting examples such as QuickBooks or Xero. Control adds multi-step approvals, custom expense rules, multiple card connections and SAML/SSO. That is expense control, not a buying desk.

Expensify documents vendor bills in its Classic help on receiving and paying bills. ACH from a connected business bank account has no Expensify fee, a card payment costs 2.9% of the amount paid, and those bill payments are USD only. Only the primary domain contact can view and pay a bill. Confirm that desk exists on the workspace you would buy. A team that needs several people to release payments, or a match to a purchase order, should not treat this article as that design.

Walk one purchase with both vendors, from the request through the match and the journal entry, and mark which steps are actually quoted. If the pain is the invoice queue, start with what AP automation does and procurement software. The suite-versus-card-platform version is Airbase vs Ramp.

Which ledger and which HR system sit on which plan?

Expensify wins for a QuickBooks or Xero company that only needs expense export, because those are the accounting examples on Collect. NetSuite and Sage Intacct are the ERP examples on Control, with Workday, BambooHR and SAML/SSO. Moving from Collect to Control is more than triple per person before any card discount. Price that jump before a NetSuite project starts, not after the first close fails.

Paylocity's accounting automation FAQ says Airbase by Paylocity integrates with Oracle NetSuite, Sage Intacct, QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop and Microsoft Dynamics Business Central. Virtual card transactions sync in real time, and other transactions can sync after payment. That answer does not name Xero, so a Xero company should get a yes or no in writing. The same page describes straight-line amortization and an audit trail that keeps the receipt, approval, purchase order and invoice with the transaction.

Headcount planning has no match in Expensify's plan comparison. Paylocity describes it as forecasts against live payroll and position data, shared by finance, HR and recruiting. A Paylocity payroll customer can ask for that module in the same quote. Everyone else should ask whether finance modules can be bought without payroll, because the pricing page does not publish a finance-only rate.

The ledger round is a split. Expensify wins when the system is QuickBooks or Xero at a known seat price, or when NetSuite has to sit on a plan you can multiply. Paylocity wins when the close also needs purchase-order history next to the employee record, and the quote names entities, fields and sync direction. Test a rejected invoice, a supplier credit and a tax change, not only a standard bill.

Paylocity says clients report up to 40% less fraud and waste, up to 22 hours a week saved, and efficiency gains of 60%. The page does not publish the sample. Those percentages are not a board-pack figure until someone names the customers, the baseline and the modules.

Who should pick Expensify, and who should ask Paylocity?

Choose Expensify Collect when people spend on personal cards or on one company card feed, the ledger is QuickBooks or Xero, and a bill that counts every workspace member is acceptable. That plan does not include multi-step approvals, NetSuite or a second card connection.

Choose Expensify Control when the close needs NetSuite or Sage Intacct, several approval steps, more than one card program, or SAML. Use the undiscounted annual total in the table, and the lower card endpoint only if approved USD expenses will actually move onto the Expensify Card. A discount in the slide, with the bank card still in production, is not a forecast.

Choose Paylocity for Finance when the gap is intake, purchase orders and invoice matching, when bank-issued Visa or Mastercard cards have to remain, or when headcount planning should use Paylocity payroll data. Until the quote arrives, the price, the billable unit and the calendar are unknown. Paylocity says onboarding follows a custom plan and does not publish a week count.

Look past both if the product you want is a corporate card program with software attached. Best spend management platforms is the wider set. Expense-only shortlists sit in best expense management software, Expensify alternatives and Airbase alternatives.

What a controller should demand in writing

Ask both vendors the same questions, and do not sign on a module name.

1. Which people are billable, and do inactive employees, approvers and support chats count?
2. Which modules are in the price, and what is extra for procurement, AP and a second card program?
3. What does implementation include, and who configures the ledger, the entities and the test invoices?
4. Which card issuers, countries, currencies and legal entities are supported, and is there a published cash-back rate?
5. Can the price fall at renewal if headcount falls, and how is data exported if you leave?

Expensify's subscription itself is charged to a payment card. ACH is not a way to pay that software bill, per its payment-card article. A team that pays every vendor by ACH should not assume the Expensify invoice works the same way. Downgrading an annual Control workspace to Collect can wait until the term ends.

Strengths and weaknesses

Expensify's strength is that the rates and the member rules are public. The billing definitions say who counts, so a team can rebuild the 25-person table without a sales call.

Expensify's weakness is the jump and the seat rules. Control costs several times the Collect rate before any discount. Collect charges people who never file, an annual size cannot shrink until renewal, and the plan comparison does not include purchase-order matching. The Expensify review stays with those limits.

Paylocity's strength is one employee-linked suite: guided procurement, AP with 2-way and 3-way match, expenses, cards you may already hold, and headcount planning on payroll data. Modules can start with AP and add cards later, if the quote says so.

Paylocity's weakness is the missing public price, cash-back rate and timeline. A proposal that says "finance" without the modules, the ledger and the card program cannot sit next to the Expensify table.

Frequently asked questions

Is Airbase still sold under the Airbase name in 2026?

Paylocity's finance page uses Paylocity for Finance and also says Airbase by Paylocity. Confirm both the product name and the module list on the proposal before you set that document next to Expensify.

How much does Expensify cost compared with Airbase?

Collect is $5 per unique member a month, pay-per-use only. Control annual is $18 per member in the subscription size, as low as $9 when the card discount is complete, and pay-per-use plus members above the annual size cost more. Paylocity publishes no list price, so Airbase's side is a quote. These Expensify rates were read on October 30, 2026.

Which Expensify plan includes NetSuite?

Control. That comparison gives NetSuite and Sage Intacct as Control examples, and QuickBooks or Xero as Collect examples. Paylocity's accounting FAQ also names Oracle NetSuite, without a connector price.

Can a company keep its existing corporate cards with either vendor?

Paylocity says teams can use existing cards or Paylocity-issued cards, and Visa and Mastercard transactions can flow into an expense report. Expensify Collect allows one company card connection, Control is where multiple connections sit, and the Expensify Card is on both plans. Confirm the issuer and the feed before you assume a bank program connects.

How does Expensify bill employees who do not file expenses?

Collect bills every unique member, including people who do nothing that month. Control pay-per-use bills active members, and a Concierge chat counts. An annual Control plan bills the full subscription size anyway, and that size cannot fall until renewal.

What does the Expensify Card change on a Control bill?

On annual Control, the subscription discount follows the share of approved USD expenses on the Expensify Card and stops at 50%, which Expensify shows as a drop from $18 to $9 for members inside the subscription size. The card terms separately pay 1% on US-merchant net charges, or 2% when those charges exceed $250,000. Confirm both credits on one invoice before a model adds them.

Does Paylocity publish a price for procurement and accounts payable?

No. Guided Procurement and AP automation, including 2-way and 3-way matching, are described without a fee. Expensify's plan comparison does not list purchase-order matching. Its Classic bill-pay article prices a card-funded vendor payment at 2.9%, with ACH at no Expensify fee, and limits those payments to USD.

Who should pick Expensify, and who should ask Paylocity for a quote?

Pick Expensify when the job is expense reports and a seat price you can multiply, and pick Control if you need NetSuite, several approvers or more than one card connection. Ask Paylocity when you need purchase orders, invoice matching, bank cards you already hold, or headcount planning on Paylocity payroll. A missing list price is not a verdict on which one costs more.

How we compared

We read Paylocity's finance, pricing, expense and accounting pages, and Expensify's pricing guide, plan comparison, billing definitions, commercial-feed article, card program terms and Classic bill-pay article, on October 30, 2026. The 25-person totals are our arithmetic on those per-member rates, with taxes excluded. The half-card row is a proportional reading, not a rate Expensify prints. Paylocity's finance price requires a quote. Toolradar's category counts come from its expense management statistics page as of October 29, 2026. We did not create accounts or run either product, and no rating on this page is our own.

How products are assessed is on how we rate. Corrections go through the editorial policy.

This page is general information, not personalized financial advice. Confirm card terms, credit approval, fees and the current price with Paylocity or Expensify before anyone applies or signs.

Cite this: CFOpresso, "Airbase vs Expensify 2026: Quote-Only Suite or Seat Price", November 2026.

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