The two products at a glance
| Product | Who it fits | Who should skip it | Published entry price | Free plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brex | Growing companies evaluating corporate cards, travel, expenses, and policy controls | The company's eligibility or operating model falls outside the provider's current requirements | $12 per user/monthPremium planVendor pricing page, checked Oct 27, 2026 ↗ | Yes, Essentials ($0) |
| Expensify | Teams evaluating receipt, expense report, reimbursement, and card workflows | The finance team needs procurement-led spend orchestration as the primary system | $5 per member/monthCollect planControl from $18 annual or $36 pay-per-use; prices from Expensify’s help centerVendor pricing page, checked Oct 27, 2026 ↗ | Free Submit workspace for individuals |
Prices are the entry list prices each vendor publishes on its own US pricing page, read on Oct 27, 2026. They exclude taxes, payment processing unless stated, hardware, add-ons and negotiated discounts; a promotion appears only in the notes, labeled as one. Prices change. No vendor paid for a place or a price in this table.
These two products start from opposite ends of the same transaction. Brex starts with the company card: its positioned policy controls apply before the purchase. Expensify starts with the expense report: the employee spends, captures the receipt, and is repaid. Both now reach into the other's territory, but their center of gravity has not moved, and that is what should decide.
Verdict: Brex, unless reimbursement is the job
For a company adding people and spend every quarter, we would choose Brex. Moving spend onto company cards removes the most tedious part of expense work, which is employees fronting money and finance checking the claim later. Brex pairs those cards with travel and policy controls, so a trip and its charges follow the same rules.
Expensify is the right answer for a different company: one where contractors, field staff or occasional travelers will keep paying personally, and finance needs those claims captured, approved and repaid without friction.
Where Brex pulls ahead
Control happens earlier. A card with a merchant rule or a limit prevents the out-of-policy charge instead of rejecting the claim afterward. Approvals also move to where people already are: Brex for Slack lets users approve or deny spend limit requests, travel booking requests and card expenses, and add receipts and memos, inside Slack, with each user linking their own account.
For travel-heavy teams this matters most. Brex positions booking, cards and policy as one program; the trial should show that a changed itinerary stays reconcilable.
Where Expensify pulls ahead
Reimbursement depth. Expensify Classic documents how reimbursable reports export to QuickBooks Online as vendor bills, checks or journal entries, how company card expenses can export individually or as a single vendor bill per report, and that reimbursement status syncs in both directions. A team that repays employees every week will value that precision more than card features it barely uses.
It also suits companies that cannot or will not run a card program, whatever the reason.
Pick by this test
Look at last quarter. If most spend could have been on a company card, choose Brex and move it there. If most of it will remain personal by nature, choose Expensify and make the report cycle excellent. Mixed cases should follow the larger share, then confirm eligibility for Brex's program on the application date.
Traceable evidence
Sources for this decision
- vendorBrex official product siteBrex · checked Aug 5, 2026 · supports: Vendor-published product scope used to verify capabilities relevant to this buyer context: Growing companies evaluating corporate cards, travel, expenses, and policy controls. It does not prove the guide's fit verdict, configured performance, current pricing or compliance.Open source ↗
- vendorExpensify official product siteExpensify · checked Aug 5, 2026 · supports: Vendor-published product scope used to verify capabilities relevant to this buyer context: Teams evaluating receipt, expense report, reimbursement, and card workflows. It does not prove the guide's fit verdict, configured performance, current pricing or compliance.Open source ↗
- vendorBrex and SlackBrex · checked Oct 7, 2026 · supports: Brex help article on Brex for Slack: approving or denying spend limit requests, travel booking requests and card expenses, adding receipts and memos in Slack, per-user account linking and per-notification channel settings; it does not document message expiry or stale-request handling.Open source ↗
- vendorConfigure QuickBooks OnlineExpensify · checked Oct 7, 2026 · supports: Expensify Classic help article on QuickBooks Online export settings: reimbursable reports export as vendor bills, checks or journal entries, with a missing vendor created automatically on export when the Automatically Create Entities setting is on, company card expenses exported individually as credit or debit card transactions or as a single vendor bill per report, where the report submitter is the QuickBooks vendor unless a default vendor is enabled, classes and customers imported as tags applied to each expense or report fields applied to an entire report, locations appearing as tags or report fields depending on export type, and reimbursement status syncs in both directions; it does not cover New Expensify settings or prove a buyer's mapping.Open source ↗