Expensify vs. Tipalti

At a glance

Best for

Best for teams whose main finance workload is receipts, expense approvals and reimbursements, and who want bill pay and invoicing in the same tool.

Freelancers
Small and mid-sized
Enterprise

Tipalti

Best for

Best for finance teams paying many suppliers, contractors or creators across borders, where onboarding and tax compliance matter more than bookkeeping.

Small and mid-sized
Enterprise

Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.

Full Comparison

Criterion	Expensify	Tipalti
Starting price	lower value From $5 / member / month Collect is $5 per unique member per month and is available on pay-per-use billing only. Control is $18 per member per month on an annual subscription, or $36 per active member per month pay-per-use, with up to 50 percent off based on Expensify Card usage.	Accounts Payable from $99 / month; Mass Payments from $249 / month Both figures are the published starting points and include unlimited users, with no per-user or per-approver fee. Transaction pricing per invoice and per payment comes on top, and the monthly cost depends on payment volume, number of legal entities, enabled modules and the payment methods and currencies used. There is no free tier; mid-market and enterprise pricing is quoted.
Free trial	Not stated	No free tier
API	Yes, a documented public API for exporting expense and report data, provisioning accounts and managing policies	Yes, a documented REST API plus legacy SOAP APIs, an iFrame SDK and webhooks
Hosting	Cloud (SaaS)	Cloud (SaaS)
Invoicing and quotes	Yes, invoicing for outgoing invoices and bill pay for incoming vendor bills, alongside the expense workflow	Incoming supplier invoices only: AI invoice capture, two-way and three-way purchase order matching, approval routing and payment scheduling, with self-billing available in Mass Payments. Customer invoicing and accounts receivable are not among the listed modules
Bookkeeping and bank feeds	No general ledger of its own; syncs with QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, Xero, NetSuite and Sage Intacct	No general ledger of its own; bills, payments and GL accounts sync with Oracle NetSuite, Sage, QuickBooks, Xero, SAP Business One and Microsoft Dynamics GP or Business Central
Expenses and receipts	Yes, this is the core: SmartScan receipt capture, distance tracking, card feeds, expense reports, approvals and reimbursement	Yes, an Expense Management module with corporate card support for Mastercard, Visa, American Express and the Tipalti Card, an employee mobile app for receipt capture, and reimbursements across more than 200 countries
Tax and compliance	Tax rates for VAT, GST and other regional taxes on both plans, applied by currency or chosen per expense, and only in workspaces whose default currency is not US dollars	Yes, a continuously maintained tax engine covering W-9 and W-8 collection, 1099 filing, VAT and DAC7 reporting, alongside AML, OFAC and sanctions screening of payees; SOC and GDPR certified
Payroll	No payroll of its own; HR and payroll integrations are a Control plan feature	No payroll module; the platform covers accounts payable, mass payouts, procurement, expenses and treasury
Reports and exports	Yes, expense reports with data export in a configurable format through the API	Yes, spend analytics across the procurement and payables flow, payment reconciliation across currencies and subsidiaries, cash visibility and forecasting in Treasury, and a Reporting Agent that builds reports from a written request
Integrations and API	Yes, a documented public API for exporting expense and report data, creating reports, provisioning accounts and managing policies, categories and tags	Yes, a documented REST API covering payees, invoices, payments, payment terms, payer entities, GL accounts, tax codes and custom fields, plus legacy SOAP APIs authenticated with API keys, an iFrame SDK for embedded payee onboarding, and webhooks with a three-attempt retry policy
AI features	Yes	Yes
Deployment	Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based	Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based
Onboarding	Not stated	Documentation and knowledge base, Guided onboarding
Company size	more entries Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise	Small and mid-sized, Enterprise
Integrations	QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, Xero, NetSuite, Sage Intacct	more entries Oracle NetSuite, Sage, QuickBooks, Xero, SAP Business One, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Slack

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Row where the values differ The small markers point at the lower number, the longer list or the stated feature. They describe the data, they are not a verdict.

The short version

Key Differences

Starting price Expensify From $5 / member / month Tipalti Accounts Payable from $99 / month; Mass Payments from $249 / month
Company size Expensify Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise Tipalti Small and mid-sized, Enterprise
API Expensify Yes, a documented public API for exporting expense and report data, provisioning accounts and managing policies Tipalti Yes, a documented REST API plus legacy SOAP APIs, an iFrame SDK and webhooks
Invoicing and quotes Expensify Yes, invoicing for outgoing invoices and bill pay for incoming vendor bills, alongside the expense workflow Tipalti Incoming supplier invoices only: AI invoice capture, two-way and three-way purchase order matching, approval routing and payment scheduling, with self-billing available in Mass Payments. Customer invoicing and accounts receivable are not among the listed modules
Bookkeeping and bank feeds Expensify No general ledger of its own; syncs with QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, Xero, NetSuite and Sage Intacct Tipalti No general ledger of its own; bills, payments and GL accounts sync with Oracle NetSuite, Sage, QuickBooks, Xero, SAP Business One and Microsoft Dynamics GP or Business Central

Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.

The trade-offs

Strengths and Limitations

Expensify

Strengths

Flat $5 per member per month on Collect, with no annual commitment
SmartScan reads receipts automatically, including the tax shown on them
Bill pay and invoicing are included alongside expenses
Card feeds from banks worldwide, plus its own corporate card
Documented public API for exports, provisioning and policy management

Limitations

Not a general ledger; a separate accounting system is still needed
Multi-level approvals, ERP and payroll integrations, custom rules and SAML single sign-on need the Control plan
Control costs $18 per member per month annually or $36 pay-per-use unless the Expensify Card discount is earned
Tax tracking cannot be enabled in a workspace whose default currency is US dollars

Tipalti

Strengths

Payouts to more than 200 countries and territories in 120 currencies across over 50 payment methods
Suppliers and payees onboard themselves and supply their own banking and tax details
Maintained tax engine for W-9, W-8, 1099, VAT and DAC7, with AML and sanctions screening
Unlimited users on both published plans, with no per-user or per-approver fee
Documented REST API, iFrame SDK and webhooks for embedding the payment flow elsewhere

Limitations

No free tier, and transaction fees per invoice and per payment come on top of the monthly price
Not a general ledger; a separate accounting system is still needed
No customer invoicing or accounts receivable
Procurement, Expense Management and Treasury are separate modules rather than part of the entry price
Complex implementations may need paid professional services

Plans

Pricing

Expensify

Collect $5 / member / month Pay-per-use billing only, charged per unique member. Expense tracking, receipt scanning, reimbursement, simple approval workflows and accounting sync.
Control $18 / member / month on an annual subscription $36 per active member per month on pay-per-use, and $36 for each active member above the annual subscription size. Adds multi-level approvals, ERP and payroll integrations, multiple corporate card connections, custom expense rules and SAML single sign-on. Up to 50 percent off based on Expensify Card usage, which takes the annual rate to $9.

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Tipalti

Accounts Payable $99 / month Published starting price. Unlimited users, self-service supplier portal and core AP automation, with cashback rewards on card payments. Transaction pricing per invoice and per payment comes on top.
Mass Payments $249 / month Published starting price. Unlimited users, self-service payee portal and core automation, with standard implementation included. Transaction pricing per payment comes on top.
Custom Not stated Mid-market and enterprise pricing is quoted on request, based on the number of payments processed, the number of legal entities, the modules and features enabled and the global payment methods and currencies used.

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What users say

Review Scores · opens after launch

Expensify

Ease of use: Not rated yet
User interface: Not rated yet
Onboarding: Not rated yet
Support and service: Not rated yet
Value for money: Not rated yet
Features: Not rated yet

No reviews yet. Be the first to review this tool. Every review is checked for fairness before it appears, and the vendor cannot have one removed.

Tipalti

Ease of use: Not rated yet
User interface: Not rated yet
Onboarding: Not rated yet
Support and service: Not rated yet
Value for money: Not rated yet
Features: Not rated yet

No reviews yet. Be the first to review this tool. Every review is checked for fairness before it appears, and the vendor cannot have one removed.

Where this comes from

Expensify https://use.expensify.com · checked against the official source on 2026-09-02

Tipalti https://tipalti.com · checked against the official source on 2026-09-08

This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.