Brex vs Expensify

Brex a spend management platform for venture-backed startups and large teams. They also have a lightweight banking product called Brex Cash that functions as a simple business checking account.

We evaluated Brex years ago while comparing corporate card platforms. At the time it looked promising, and a lot of startups were using it for business banking. But the reality is Brex isn’t really designed to be your primary business bank, it's much more of an expense management platform built for startups that have raised serious venture capital.

The product has taken a strange turn over the past few years. After onboarding a large number of small and mid-sized businesses, Brex abruptly shut down access for many of those smaller accounts (including ours! I guess we weren't "startup" enough) and repositioned the platform almost entirely toward venture-backed startups or companies doing roughly $400K+ in monthly revenue.

For that reason, Brex isn't going to be something we recommend. But even if that weren't the case, when you compare the actual day-to-day experience, especially things like UI/UX and automated expense reconciliation, newer platforms like Ramp and BILL Spend & Expense have pulled ahead for most modern SMBs.

• Designed specifically for venture-backed startups
• Virtual cards and spend controls are easy to set up
• Startup perks and partnerships (especially through YC)

• Not available to most small businesses anymore
• Accounts have historically been closed or restricted unexpectedly
• UI/UX and accounting automation lag behind competitors
• Banking features are limited compared to dedicated business banks

Brex provides corporate cards designed for startups and larger teams. Their core offering is pretty much the same as competitors': issue virtual cards, set spending limits, and control how funds are used across different departments.

Transactions from Brex cards feed into expense reports, where AI categorizes purchases, matches receipts, and enforces company policies. Employees can capture receipts through the mobile app, while finance teams get instant visibility into budgets and spending across teams or projects.

Brex Cash is their lightweight banking product that acts like a checking account where teams can store funds and manage company spending. It works well enough for simple use cases, but it’s fairly barebones compared to dedicated business banking platforms like Mercury, which offer much deeper banking features and integrations.

Essentials: Free. Best for startups and small teams that want Brex corporate cards, basic expense controls, accounting integrations, and bill pay.

Premium: $12 per user/month. Best for mid-sized companies that need more advanced expense policies, approval workflows, multi-entity support, and deeper ERP or HRIS integrations.

Enterprise: Custom pricing. Designed for large global organizations that need unlimited entities, advanced implementation support, and a dedicated account manager.

Note: Brex is primarily available to venture-backed startups or companies generating roughly $400K+ in monthly revenue. Many smaller businesses will not qualify for approval.

Expensify is one of the original expense management solutions on the market. It gives companies the ability to scan receipts, submit expense reports, reimburse employees, and sync all of that to accounting software.

We actually used Expensify for the first few years in business. It started as a simple invoice/receipt scraping tool that you'd forward your receipts into receipts@expensifydotcom via email, and it would pull out all of the details, learn from past classifications, and sync that over to your accounting software like QBO or Xero.

They have more recently moved into the virtual credit card experience, realizing that if the charge starts with a virtual credit card, all the categorization is way more consistent and seamless.

But if you're a modern SMB looking for a modern expense management tool with great automation built in, Expensify just feels a bit…legacy.

• Easy receipt scanning and expense submission
• Supports bring your own cards (10k+ banks globally)
• Accounting integrations (QuickBooks, NetSuite, Xero, etc.)

• Still built around traditional expense reports
• Less opinionated real-time spend control compared to card-first platforms
• Per-member pricing can add up as your team scales
• It's an older tool, the features that used to make it stand out just aren't unique or cutting edge anymore

Expensify is the only expense management solution on this list that lets you plug in your existing corporate cards from 10k+ banks instead of requiring you to use their virtual cards.

This is great if you don’t want to mess with switching banks or overhauling your setup. But it also means Expensify isn’t really built around the card itself. You often track and approve after the spend happens and you don't really get the same level of real-time card controls as you would with something like Ramp.

It’s more about tracking what already happened than controlling spend before it does. So things can slip through and only get caught after the fact.

As you'd expect, you can scan receipts, auto-categorize, submit reports, approve, and reimburse via Expensify.

Expensify lets you reimburse employees and contractors anywhere in the world in their local currency. For distributed teams that rely heavily on reimbursements, this is genuinely useful.

• Free for individuals
• Paid plans start at $5 per member per month

On paper, $5 per member sounds inexpensive. But as a modern SMB grows to 20, 50, or 100 employees, that becomes a meaningful recurring cost, especially when many card-first platforms charge $0 in software fees and monetize through interchange instead.