Navan vs Perk 2026: Free Travel or 3% per Booking?

Navan costs less for travel booking at a company of 300 or fewer employees, because Navan Business lists travel at $0 with no platform fee, while Perk adds a fee to every booking: 5% on its free Starter plan and 3% on Premium ($99 a month) and Pro ($299 a month). Once expenses join the bill, the gap narrows to a few hundred dollars a year. Prices read on both pricing pages on October 21, 2026.

Our read for a controller: if headcount is under Navan's cap and travel is the main job, Navan's free tier is hard to beat on software cost. Perk earns its fee when you want a published price above 300 employees, a cheaper per-user expense seat, or a vendor that does not tie its pricing to headcount.

Corporate travel management software books flights, hotels, cars and trains inside a company travel policy, then routes approvals and receipts to finance. Both tools do that; they charge for it in opposite ways. Navan says its free tier is paid for by travel providers' commissions, and Perk charges the customer a visible booking fee.

Toolradar data: the corporate travel ranking of Toolradar, the software directory we run, evaluated 20 tools as of October 2026. Navan is listed as an alternative to 14 other tools, the most in the category, and Perk to 10, second. Buyers who shortlist one of these two will almost always meet the other.

Navan vs Perk at a glance

Prices from Navan's pricing page and Perk's pricing page (North America plans, in US dollars), read October 21, 2026.

Question	Navan	Perk	Edge
Travel software fee	$0 on Business, for companies of up to 300 employees	Starter $0, Premium $99 a month, Pro $299 a month	Navan
Fee on each booking	None listed on the pricing page	5% on Starter, 3% on Premium and Pro, with a $2 minimum and a $30 maximum	Navan
Expense seat	Free for the first 5 monthly expensing users, then $15 per user a month	Travel and Spend from $6 (Premium) or $8 (Pro) per active user a month, plus the 3% booking fee	Perk on the seat price
Who counts as a paid user	Anyone who submits a transaction	Anyone who submits or reviews an expense that month	Navan
Above 300 employees	Enterprise, quote only	Same published plans, no headcount cap printed	Perk
Existing corporate cards	Connects existing corporate or business credit cards	Bring your own card, any card feed	Tie
ERP connectors	"Most ERPs" on Business	All ERP connectors except SAP on Premium; SAP and Open API on Pro	Perk for SAP shops

Read down the Edge column and the pattern holds: Navan wins anything priced at zero, and Perk wins the paid expense seat and the headcount ceiling, which is why company size decides more than features.

How much do Navan and Perk cost?

Navan publishes two plans. Business is free for companies of up to 300 employees, with unlimited trips, unlimited policies and 24/7 travel agents, and its FAQ sets the expense rate at $15 per user per month after the first five monthly expensing users. Enterprise, for larger organizations, is a quote and adds negotiated corporate rates, a dedicated success manager and custom implementation.

Perk publishes three ways to buy, on separate tabs of its North America pricing page.

Perk plan	Software price	Booking fee	What it includes
Travel Starter	$0 a month	5% per booking	Global inventory, 1 travel policy and approval process, simplified reporting
Travel Premium	$99 a month platform fee	3% per booking	10 travel policies, advanced reporting, budget tracking for up to 5 budgets, SSO
Travel Pro	$299 a month platform fee	3% per booking	Unlimited policies, custom reporting, corporate rates and rate negotiation services
Travel and Spend Premium	From $6 per active user a month	3% per booking	10 travel policies, standard expense workflow, 4 legal entities, a dedicated account manager
Travel and Spend Pro	From $8 per active user a month	3% per booking	Unlimited policies and legal entities, custom approval workflows and per diems, SAP connector and Open API
Spend Premium	From $9 per active user a month	No travel	Expenses only, standard approval workflow
Spend Pro	From $11 per active user a month	No travel	Expenses only, customizable workflows

Two lines in Perk's fine print change the math for a finance team. Perk's booking fee has a floor and a ceiling per booking on the Travel plans (the table below shows where the ceiling bites), and the Travel and Spend cards say the same kind of minimum and maximum applies. Perk also says its current Spend pricing "is available for a limited time only", so treat the per-user rates as an offer and lock the rate in your order form.

What does Perk's booking fee cost per trip?

The fee is a percentage of the booking, so it scales with the fare until the cap stops it. These figures are our arithmetic on Perk's printed rates.

Booking value	Starter (5%)	Premium or Pro (3%)
$150 train or car	$7.50	$4.50
$400 flight	$20	$12
$1,000 hotel stay	$30 (capped)	$30 (at the cap)

The cap matters most for expensive trips. Any booking above $1,000 pays the capped fee on every plan, so a long-haul business fare costs no more in fees than a mid-priced hotel stay, and a team that books mostly premium international travel pays an effective rate far below the headline percentage.

Choosing between Perk Starter and Premium is a volume question. At a $400 average booking, Premium saves $8 a booking against Starter, so its $1,188 yearly platform fee pays for itself at about 149 bookings a year. Below that, Starter is cheaper.

What does a year cost on each?

The scenarios below are our arithmetic on printed list prices, assuming a company under 300 employees, a $400 average booking, and every expense user counted every month. They exclude airfares, hotels, taxes and card rewards.

Scenario	Navan Business	Perk
Travel only, 120 bookings a year	$0	$2,400 on Starter; $2,628 on Travel Premium
Travel and expense, 20 users a month, 120 bookings	$2,700	$2,880 on Travel and Spend Premium
Travel and expense, 40 users a month, 300 bookings	$6,300	$6,480 on Travel and Spend Premium

Travel only, Navan wins by the whole Perk bill. A company that books 120 trips a year pays nothing for Navan's software and at least $2,400 for Perk's.

With expenses, the two land within $200 of each other. Twenty Navan expense users cost $2,700 a year after the five free seats. Perk's seat is cheaper, but the booking fees on 120 trips add $1,440 on top of $1,440 in seats, so Perk ends slightly higher. At 40 users and 300 bookings the gap is still $180.

The swing factor is who Perk counts. A manager who only approves expenses is an active user on Perk and not on Navan, so a team with many approvers moves further toward Navan. A team that books few trips but has many expense submitters moves toward Perk, because the booking fee shrinks and Navan's $15 seat dominates.

For the detail on Navan alone, our Navan pricing breakdown models more headcounts, and the Navan review covers the product.

Where does Navan's free tier stop?

Navan Business is labeled for companies of up to 300 employees, and its FAQ sends anyone larger to request a demo. The cap counts employees, not travelers: a 350-person company with ten road warriors leaves the free tier.

That is Perk's clearest opening. Its pricing page prints no headcount limit on any plan, so a 400-person company can still buy Travel and Spend Premium at a published per-user rate. On Navan, the same company negotiates Enterprise with no number to anchor on.

The second limit is the expense allotment. Five free monthly expensing users cover a founder team, but a 50-person company where most people submit receipts pays the per-user rate on nearly everyone, which is when Perk's lower seat starts to close the gap.

Which handles finance controls better?

Perk prints more of its control features by tier. Travel and Spend Premium caps you at 4 legal entities and 10 travel policies; Pro removes both limits and adds the SAP connector, Open API and custom per diem rules. A multi-entity group on SAP should price Pro from the start.

Navan Business lists unlimited policy and approval workflows, 30+ HRIS integrations and links to "most ERPs", without naming them on the pricing page. Our Navan vs SAP Concur comparison and Navan vs Expensify page cover which ledgers Navan names on its expense pages.

Both let you keep an existing card program. Navan connects existing corporate or business credit cards, and Perk accepts any card feed and pays employee reimbursements by ACH on every plan. If spend control through a card is the real goal, compare against Ramp vs Navan and our best corporate cards list.

Navan or Perk: which should you pick?

Pick Navan if the company has 300 or fewer employees, travel is the main use, and fewer than a handful of people file expenses, or if many managers approve expenses without submitting them.

Pick Perk if headcount is above 300 and you want a published price, if you run on SAP or need more than four legal entities, or if many people submit expenses while travel volume stays low.

Pick neither yet if the company only reimburses expenses: start with our best expense management software ranking instead. For the wider travel field, including tools priced per trip and per seat, see best corporate travel management software and the Navan alternatives list.

This page is general information, not personalized financial advice. Confirm fees, card terms and final pricing with Navan or Perk before you sign.

How we compared

We read Navan's pricing page and FAQ and Perk's North America pricing page, including its plan comparison table, on October 21, 2026. Every price comes from those pages; the per-booking and yearly figures are our arithmetic on them, not vendor quotes, and they use one assumed average booking value that your own travel data should replace. CFOpresso does not test products hands-on, so the verdict rests on published terms. The Toolradar counts come from its corporate travel ranking and the Navan and Perk profiles, October 2026. Methods are on how we rate and corrections go through the editorial policy.

Cite this: CFOpresso, "Navan vs Perk 2026: Free Travel or 3% per Booking?", November 2026. Prices verified on vendor pages, October 21, 2026.

FAQ

Is Navan cheaper than Perk?

For travel alone at a company of 300 or fewer employees, yes: Navan Business charges no software or listed booking fee, while Perk charges 3% to 5% per booking. With expenses included, the two come within a few hundred dollars a year in our scenarios, and the order depends on bookings, submitters and approvers.

How much does Perk charge per booking?

Perk charges 5% per booking on Travel Starter and 3% on Premium, Pro and the Travel and Spend plans. On its Travel plans the fee is at least $2 and at most $30 per booking, so expensive trips pay a capped fee.

Is Navan really free?

Navan Business is free for travel booking at companies of up to 300 employees, with unlimited trips. Expense management is free for the first 5 monthly expensing users and then costs $15 per user per month. Navan says the free tier is funded by travel providers' commissions.

What does Perk cost per user?

Perk Travel and Spend starts at $6 per active user a month on Premium and $8 on Pro, plus the 3% booking fee, on its North America page. Perk labels its current Spend pricing as available for a limited time. An active user is anyone who submits or reviews an expense that month.

What happens on Navan above 300 employees?

The published Business pricing no longer applies. Navan asks larger companies to request a demo for Enterprise, which is quote-only and adds negotiated corporate rates, custom implementation and a dedicated success manager.

Which is better for a company on SAP?

Perk, on published terms: its Pro plans include the SAP connector and Open API, while Premium covers every other ERP connector. Navan's pricing page lists integrations with "most ERPs" without naming them, so confirm SAP support with Navan in writing.

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