Brex vs. Mercury vs. Rippling: Financial management comparison for small businesses & startups (2025)

Small businesses and startups often find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to managing their finances. Traditional banks don't always meet their unique needs for business banking, while some fintech solutions can be overwhelming. 

Brex and Mercury have emerged as two popular banking solutions, but how do they stack up against each other? We'll compare these two platforms head-to-head in multiple aspects, as well as introduce you to a third option that might just be the perfect Brex or Mercury alternative for your company's cash flow management needs.

Quick comparison: Brex vs. Mercury vs. Rippling at a glance

The table below lays out our snapshot view of how each platform stacks up on core financial management capabilities before we dig into the specifics. If you’re looking for the high-level differences without getting lost in the details, look no further.

Methodology: How we reviewed these financial management solutions

We focused on features and functionality for this roundup of financial management tools, assessing Mercury, Brex, and Rippling based on the same criteria. That consistency means any differences we’ve highlighted reflect actual differentiators. Our research focused on materials published by providers themselves, and included:

• Official product websites. We started with each provider’s official product page to verify features, pricing, and eligibility details to ensure accuracy and current coverage.

• Demos and documentation. When available, we reviewed official product walkthroughs, feature explainers, and setup guides to gauge how each system handles approvals, expense tracking, and integrations in practice.

• Customer reviews and write-ups. We consulted review platforms and unpaid write-ups but treated them like secondary sources. User feedback can surface recurring pain points or standout features, but it isn’t always representative or recent.

Rippling editorial policy: Rippling puts our customers (and prospective customers!) first. The Rippling team is committed to providing information supported by product data, insights, and customer feedback to inform our content.

Features Comparison: Brex vs. Mercury vs. Rippling

Now that we’ve given you the high-level view, let’s dive into the nitty-gritty to see how each platform performs across core functions like cards, expenses, bill, pay, and integrations. 

Expense management

Rippling

Rippling’s expense management software runs card spend, reimbursements, and invoices through the same workflow, which cuts down on back-and-forth between finance, HR, and spend tools. The streamlined configuration can feel lighter for finance teams, because permissions and approval paths are already baked into the platform rather than bolted on (or together) afterwards. 

Brex

Brex expense tools are reasonably straightforward, but they live entirely inside Brex’s workspace, which means you’ll need to manually maintain and update every permission and workflow when something changes. It’s an approach that works for startups that want streamlined expense capture, but can feel limiting as your business becomes more complex.

Mercury

With Mercury, you’ll get basic expense reporting that flows from banking, but limited workflow depth. Once you need layered approvals or tighter policy enforcement, or even customizable reporting, the offering starts to feel thin. 

Our verdict

If you’d rather not toggle between multiple tools and a few dozen spreadsheets, Rippling gives you the most comprehensive setup in one place. Brex covers the basics, but keeps everything inside its own workspace, and Mercury stalls out once you need to go beyond simple, banking-adjacent needs. 

Corporate cards

Rippling

Designed for teams looking for a high degree of customization, control, and automation, Rippling corporate cards uses employee data to automatically update card access and spend rules when employees join, leave, or even change roles. 

Brex

The Brex corporate card is easy to use and widely accepted, but all access and policy decisions still rely on manual setup inside the spend platform, with minimal connection to operations tools. It’s built for funded, fast-scaling startups that need entry-level financial controls, but lacks the deeper operational layer that comes with growth.

Mercury

The IO card fits teams that want simple credit tied to their banking, but the rigid controls aren’t suited to increased organizational complexity. Once you increase headcount or need to manage multiple departments, the lack of policy automation can lead to complex, time-consuming workarounds. 

Our verdict

If you want card controls that stay in sync with the rest of your operations, Rippling offers the most cohesive model. Brex works for high-growth companies up to a point, while Mercury’s business credit card offers the benefit of centralizing card spend with banking — but not much else. 

The only corporate card with a built-in back office.

See Rippling

Bill pay

Rippling

Rippling’s bill pay tool operates inside the same system as card spend and reimbursements, so finance teams work from a single set of data. Likewise, centralized invoice intake, routing, and payment eliminates the need for a separate AP tool. 

Brex

Brex offers sophisticated bill pay features — OCR, PO matching, multi-entity support — but it sits entirely within a siloed finance tool. If you already use Brex for cards and want your AP workflow to stay in the same environment, it works, but that means signing on to overall limitations in the Brex ecosystem.

Mercury

Mercury’s bill pay tool runs on top of its banking infrastructure — no surprise there — which means it easily handles routing and scheduling for payments. That covers the core steps like intake, approvals, and payments, but automating other parts of the process, like multi-layer routing or vendor-specific rules, goes beyond Mercury’s capabilities. 

Our verdict

All three tools cover invoice capture, approvals, and payments, but they do it in different ways. Rippling brings bill pay under the spend umbrella for a consolidated approach to tracking bills, reimbursements, and card transactions together. Brex frames it as a distinct module inside a larger finance workspace, and Mercury ties the process to day-to-day banking rather than a broader system.

Global capabilities

Rippling

Rippling handles global reimbursements and multi-currency reporting in the same place as domestic spend, making it easier to keep numbers aligned across regions and your general ledger accurate. If you’re managing distributed teams or entities around the world, this approach minimizes the amount of manual reconciliation you’d otherwise need to keep things consistent and understand your global financial state. 

Brex

Brex offers good global coverage when it comes to card usage and international reimbursements, so it’s a solid choice for companies with distributed teams. The focus on financial transactions rather than financial operations, however, means you’ll likely need to purchase additional tools to manage policies and workflows as you expand abroad.

Mercury

Mercury’s banking foundation means it’s strong on international payments, but the platform focuses almost exclusively on moving money across borders, rather than managing spend.

Our verdict

Rippling treats global spend as part of a larger system, where policies, currencies, and entities need to stay connected, and finance leaders need a single view of activity. Brex leans hard on wide card acceptance and multi-currency reimbursements, but limits global support to financial transactions. Mercury offers a comprehensive cross-border payment infrastructure, but stops short of anything spend-related.

Go global. Spend local.

See Rippling

Integrations

Rippling

Rippling’s integration coverage spans HR, IT, and finance tools, so your data moves efficiently across more parts of your business without the need for separate connectors and workarounds. When almost 95% of finance leaders spend a quarter of their time on admin, that’s a huge savings. For teams running multiple operational tools, it functions more like an all-purpose integration layer than a tool built only for finance. 

Brex

Integrations with Brex focus on finance-facing systems like ERPs, accounting platforms, and HR or identity tools involved in card issuance and access. It works well if your main goal is to move spend data onto your books, but can’t help if you want to connect your expense management to a larger operational stack outside finance.

Mercury

Mercury integrates almost exclusively with banking and accounting tools, with a smaller set of supported connections outside those categories. The idea is to streamline transaction sync and reconciliation, rather than develop broad workflow automations across business systems.

Our verdict

In a side-by-side comparison, Rippling takes the broadest approach by hooking spend into multiple HR, IT, and finance tools. Brex stays in the finance lane and focuses on ERPs, while Mercury doesn’t go much further than accounting. 

Brex vs. Mercury vs. Rippling: Pricing

Rippling

Modular pricing means you only pay for tools and features you actually need, starting with a monthly base fee and a per-employee charge. (While you have the option to purchase Rippling’s spend management software as a stand-alone solution, stacking it on top of the HRIS module significantly increases the depth of automation.) 

Brex

Costs are tied to a flat per-user subscription fee, with additional fees if you want access to features like advanced card controls or local currency features. It’s a structure that provides pricing predictability, but that adds up fast as you scale beyond the startup phase.

Mercury

Pricing revolves around a recurring platform fee with added costs tied to specific payment methods, like credit card processing. It’s a straightforward structure aimed at teams that already bank with Mercury and are looking to add a few basic spend tools on top. 

Brex vs. Mercury vs. Rippling: Reviews

While we don’t rely on them to assess product capabilities, we look at user reviews to understand friction points between users and tools. It’s one thing to build a feature; it’s another to release it into the wild for real businesses to rely on.

Rippling users across the board praised the depth of its automations.

Brex users likewise expressed high levels of overall satisfaction, but multiple users cited problems with customer support for smaller businesses without VC funding. 

Mercury users tended to focus on the platform’s banking features, including transfer times and banking setup, but were largely quiet on spend management features. Given that Mercury treats these like optional bolt-ons to its banking product, however, that’s expected.

*All quotes are from verified Capterra reviews

Brex vs. Mercury vs. Rippling: Pros and cons

When you line these three platforms up, it’s not hard to spot the core difference: one is built around employee data, another on finance workflows, and the last is, at the core, a banking app. Let’s lay out the trade-offs so you can see what you gain, and what you give up, depending on the direction you choose.

Rippling pros and cons

Rippling suits teams that want their spend tools to function as part of a larger system that centralizes operations and connects to the rest of the business.

Rippling pros

• Pulls cards, expenses, and bill pay into the same platform that manages employee data.

• Automates permissions and routing based on roles, departments, and locations.

• Reduces tool switching because HR, IT, and finance workflows share the same data model.

Rippling cons

• Rippling Spend is most powerful when combined with HR and Payroll, which may require more initial setup

Brex pros and cons

Brex works well if you want strong card coverage and reimbursements inside a finance-first workspace.

Brex pros

• Strong global card coverage and multi-currency reimbursements.

• Easy to issue cards without personal guarantees for many companies.

• Policy engine supports basic spend management updates and alerts.

Brex cons

• Card and expense controls rely on Brex-managed user groups, not HR data or role-based logic.

• Functions as a standalone finance platform, which means more manual upkeep across systems.

• Advanced features like local-currency cards require enterprise-level plans.

Mercury pros and cons

Mercury fits companies that treat spend as an extension of daily banking activity.

Mercury pros

• Integrates directly with your Mercury bank account for payments and reconciliation.

• Straightforward card setup with limits tied to account balances.

Mercury cons

• Expense and card controls stay basic and don’t draw on HR or identity data.

• Few integrations outside banking and accounting.

• International capabilities focus on payments, not global spend management.

• Lacks deeper workflow automation for approvals, routing, or multi-entity operations.

Rippling: The best option for easy expense management for startups and small businesses

While Brex and Mercury are both excellent choices for many businesses, Rippling offers a compelling alternative for corporate cards and expense management.

What sets Rippling apart is the way it integrates spend with its broader platform, allowing you to automate the entire card lifecycle from issuing to revoking when employees leave. Rippling also includes expense management software, with features that automatically flag duplicates and catch receipt discrepancies, plus a mobile app where employees can manage reimbursements on the go.

For businesses looking to simplify financial operations, Rippling offers the advantage of combining corporate cards, expense management, and payroll in a unified system that syncs directly with your general ledger. This all-in-one approach can save you time and hassle by reducing the need to manage multiple separate systems.

Rippling's corporate card program runs on the Visa network and includes features like:

• Physical and virtual cards that can be issued instantly based on employee attributes

• Hyper-custom spending policies with real-time enforcement

• Digital wallet compatibility with Apple Pay and Google Pay

• Automatic receipt matching via text message

• Global card issuance in local currencies in select jurisdictions

FAQs about Brex vs. Mercury vs. Rippling