Ramp vs. Expensify vs. Rippling: Expense management solutions comparison

Every expense management software promises to solve your finance headaches — automatic receipt capture, AI-powered insights, seamless integrations, etc. 

But scratch the surface and you'll find massive differences in how these systems actually work. Some excel at preventing out-of-policy spending but require weeks of configuration. Others make expense submission effortless for employees while leaving finance teams drowning in manual approvals. 

A few try to do everything, with mixed results. This guide compares Ramp, Expensify, and Rippling on what actually matters: how they handle daily workflows, where automation helps versus where it creates friction, and which approach fits different company needs, so you can make an informed decision.

Quick comparison: Ramp vs. Expensify vs. Rippling at a glance

Methodology: How I reviewed different expense management software

When reviewing these three expense management software options, here's what I focused on:

• Direct testing and user feedback: I went through demos where I could and spent a lot of time reading user reviews on G2, Capterra, and TrustRadius. What actual users complain about (or praise) matters more than what the sales page says.

• Automation capabilities: I looked at which manual tasks each platform actually eliminates. Does it automatically categorize employee expenses? Can it handle approval routing when someone's on vacation? How much daily admin work does it remove?

• Scalability and flexibility: I evaluated how well each platform grows with you. Can you add complexity as your company scales? Do policies adapt when your org structure changes? Or will you outgrow it in a year?

• Implementation and learning curve: I considered how long it takes to get up and running. Can employees figure it out without training? Does finance need weeks to configure policies? What's the real time-to-value?

• Mobile functionality: I tested whether the mobile experience actually works or if it's an afterthought. Can employees do everything from their phone? How many taps does it take to submit expenses?

• Expense tracking: I also took a look at how each platform helps teams manage employee expenses and streamline financial operations through real-time expense tracking and integrated reporting.

Every company is different, so there's no universal "best" platform. But understanding these dimensions helps you figure out which trade-offs matter for your specific situation.

Features comparison: Ramp vs. Expensify vs. Rippling

Expense reporting

Expense reporting is the core function these platforms are built around, but each takes a fundamentally different approach to solving the same problem.

Rippling

Rippling's expense management software stands out because it pulls from your HR data to create smarter policies. Instead of basic rules like "require approval over $500," you can build policies based on employee level, department, location, or any combination of factors. 

When someone gets promoted to senior management, their expense limits automatically adjust. When they go on PTO, their approval requests automatically reroute to someone else.

The mobile experience supports end-to-end expense submission. Employees can view policy rules, track approval status, and update reports directly from the app. The OCR scans receipts, supports foreign currency conversion, and matches expenses to transactions.

For finance teams, the reporting dashboard provides real-time visibility into spending trends, policy violations, and approval bottlenecks. You can drill down from company-wide metrics to individual employee spending patterns without exporting data or building custom reports.

Ramp

Ramp's approach centers on preventing out-of-policy spend before it happens. The platform prompts employees to submit receipts via SMS, the mobile app, or integrations with Gmail and services like Lyft. 

Once submitted, Ramp automatically matches receipts, routes transactions to the correct limits, and generates missing receipts for certain purchases. The AI-powered system continuously checks every transaction for compliance, flagging non-compliant expenses so finance teams don't waste time reviewing every line item. 

Expensify

Expensify keeps things simple. SmartScan works well: snap a photo, and it extracts the details with good accuracy, helps small businesses track expenses easily. The mobile app excels at receipt capture and basic expense submission. 

However, the limitations show up with growth. Approval workflows stay basic, and you can't create complex policies based on employee attributes. For domestic-focused small businesses, this works fine, but for companies with global operations or matrix organizations, it creates manual workarounds.

Our verdict: Rippling's employee-based policy engine offers the most sophisticated automation of the three. The ability to automatically adjust policies when employees change roles, departments, or locations eliminates significant manual work. Ramp works for companies prioritizing spend prevention, while Expensify suits basic expense submission.

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Budgeting and forecasting

Most companies handle budgeting in spreadsheets separate from their expense tools. These platforms try to change that, with varying degrees of success.

Rippling

Rippling’s headcount planning software combines HR and finance data to provide visibility into your biggest expense: headcount costs. You can build and manage headcount plans directly in the platform, with approval flows that prevent recruiters and managers from extending offers outside the plan without proper authorization.

Employees can request spend tied to department or project budgets, with policy-based workflows routing approvals to the appropriate stakeholders. The consolidated dashboard shows payroll costs alongside card spend, reimbursements, and bill payments, giving you a complete picture of company outflows.

Ramp

Ramp’s custom report builder and budgeting features help finance teams track spending against goals. Its AI-powered assistance surfaces financial answers, helping users understand spending patterns and identify anomalies. The intelligence tools continuously flag issues such as duplicate subscriptions and unused software licenses. 

Expensify

Expensify's budgeting capabilities are limited to the Control plan (custom pricing). It offers standard reports showing spending by category, employee, or time period. Custom reports are possible but require workarounds rather than a dedicated report builder.

Our verdict: Rippling provides the most comprehensive view of company spend, including the largest line item (payroll). This consolidation makes budgeting and forecasting significantly more accurate and eliminates spreadsheet juggling. While Ramp focuses on strong spend analytics, it can’t account for payroll costs. On the other hand, Expensify offers basic reporting suited to simple expense tracking, but lacks advanced budgeting or forecasting capabilities.

Reimbursements

Employee reimbursements are simple in theory but messy in practice. The difference between platforms comes down to how much manual coordination they eliminate.

Rippling

Rippling automatically adds approved reimbursements to payroll, eliminating manual work for both employees and finance teams. Once a reimbursement is approved, it syncs directly with Rippling payroll, giving finance teams clear visibility into spend alongside payroll outflows.

The system supports global reimbursements, paying employees in their local currency regardless of location. The policy engine enables custom routing based on roles and departments, which can be configured to reroute approval requests when the primary approver is unavailable.

Ramp

Ramp handles reimbursements through ACH payments and supports international reimbursements in multiple currencies, with many employees being reimbursed in two days or less. Employees submit receipts and when approved they receive payment. Because Ramp does not operate as a payroll system or deeply integrate payroll costs, reimbursements are maintained as a separate process requiring coordination.

Expensify

Expensify also processes reimbursements through ACH. The flow is straightforward: employees submit business expenses with receipts, managers approve them, and Expensify triggers the payment. But as with Ramp, these payouts run separately from your payroll system.

Our verdict: Rippling's automated payroll reimbursements eliminate an entire workflow. Payment status is fully tracked in payroll, eliminating cross-system checks. Both Ramp and Expensify handle reimbursements competently as standalone processes, but they require manual coordination with payroll.

Travel management

Business travel creates unique expense management challenges. From booking within budget to tracking receipts across time zones, here's how each platform handles it.

Rippling

Rippling Travel lets employees book flights, hotels, and cars from a wide inventory that includes options from Expedia Group, Priceline, Booking.com, and direct airline connections. Travel rules can be tailored by role, department, or location, and any booking that falls outside policy is automatically sent to the right person for approval.

Because travel lives in the same system as expenses and corporate cards, bookings flow naturally into expense workflows. Trip charges are tied to the employee’s profile, run through the same approval steps, and appear in the same reporting dashboard as the rest of company spend.

Ramp

Ramp Travel partners with Priceline to offer flights, hotels, cars, and trains, claiming up to 50% savings with no platform booking fees. Teams can set controls to prevent out-of-policy spend, from per-diems to hotel rates. The system can create flexible controls based on market rates and automatically route approvals based on team, amount, or GL code. However, employees booking through Ramp cannot use their own travel loyalty programs or earn reward points, which can limit flexibility and perks for frequent travelers.

Expensify

Expensify Travel integrates directly into the expense platform, letting companies book flights, hotels, cars, and trains from a global inventory. The system provides curated travel options, enforces policies automatically based on role, budget, or destination, and creates a dedicated chat room for each trip so teams can coordinate logistics.

Our verdict: Rippling takes the most unified approach, combining travel, expenses, and employee data in a single system. Ramp delivers strong cost control features but has a narrower inventory and more limited support options. Expensify offers a simple experience that works well for smaller teams, though advanced policy automation requires upgrading to higher-tier plans.

Corporate cards

Corporate cards are table stakes now, but the differences matter. Policy controls, cashback rates, and how cards integrate with the rest of the system vary significantly.

Rippling

Rippling lets companies issue corporate cards instantly, with spend rules that automatically adapt to each employee’s role, department, or location. That means controls are already in place the moment someone receives a card.

Teams can create virtual cards for specific purposes, like a project or vendor, with preset accounting fields. Global companies can issue cards in local currencies and track spending across countries. All transactions sync to the general ledger, and policy rules help auto-categorize charges and block out-of-policy spend in real time.

Ramp

Ramp provides unlimited virtual and physical cards with built-in controls, allowing admins to set vendor or category restrictions, block certain types of spend, and issue instant virtual cards for specific projects or purchases.

Cashback also applies to all spend. Card limits and access are not automatically adjusted based on HR events, so updates are still required when employees are hired, leave the company, or change roles.

Expensify

Expensify offers unlimited virtual cards with Smart Limits that control how much employees can spend. Every transaction syncs immediately into the Expensify platform, which helps automate reporting and keeps spending visible in real time.

The card earns 1% cashback on all US purchases, rising to 2% when monthly card spend exceeds $250,000. Companies can choose to settle balances daily or monthly, depending on how they prefer to manage cash flow.

Our verdict: Rippling is the strongest fit for teams that want card issuing, limits, and policy changes to happen automatically as employees join, move, or leave. Ramp is a strong alternative for organizations focused on granular spend control and higher credit capacity. Expensify's card is solid for basic expense management needs but lacks the control depth and automation of the other two platforms.

Ramp vs. Expensify vs. Rippling: Pricing

Rippling

Rippling's spend management starts at $11 per user per month. This includes corporate cards with 1.75% cash-back* on eligible purchases, expense management, automated reimbursements via payroll, and the employee-based policy engine. The pricing reflects that you're getting an integrated HR, IT, and finance platform rather than just expense management.

The total cost of ownership matters here. According to a Forrester study, companies using Rippling improved operational efficiency by 42% and reduced the need for additional headcount, resulting in a 136% ROI over three years.

Ramp

Ramp offers a free tier that includes expense management features like corporate cards, basic expense policy enforcement, travel bookings, automatic receipt collection and matching, etc. The Plus plan costs $15 per user per month (with a platform fee based on team size). Enterprise pricing is custom and adds direct ERP integrations, role customization, and custom development.

Expensify

Expensify’s pricing starts with a free tier for individuals that includes receipt scanning, followed by the Collect plan at $5 per user per month. The Control plan, starting around $9 per user per month on active usage, adds multiple approval flows, custom expense rules, and ERP and HR integrations.

Ramp vs. Expensify vs. Rippling: Reviews

Key G2 ratings breakdown:

Ramp vs. Expensify vs. Rippling: Pros and cons

Rippling pros and cons

Pros

• Employee-based policies automatically adjust when people change roles, departments, or locations

• Reimbursements automatically flow through payroll with full visibility

• Consolidated view of all company spend, including payroll costs

• Card management fully automated based on HR events

• Headcount planning integrated with finance workflows

• Over 650 deep integrations that extend policies into other systems

Cons

• Broader platform setup can take longer than lightweight expense-only tools, but it pays off once multiple workflows are consolidated

• Policy automation offers deep control, but poorly configured rules can trigger unexpected approvals or spending permissions if governance is weak

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Ramp pros and cons

Pros

• AI-powered spend controls prevent out-of-policy transactions

• Free tier offers substantial functionality for startups 

• Real-time insights and cost savings identification

• Proactive alerts help prevent budget overruns

Cons

• Requires manual rerouting of approvals when managers are out, creating workflow gaps

• Doesn’t offer full visibility into total company costs, especially payroll-related spend

• Advanced features require upgrading to Ramp Plus, raising overall ownership costs

• Travel is powered by a white-labeled Priceline setup, which limits options and loyalty rewards

Expensify pros and cons

Pros

• Intuitive interface for basic expense submission

• SmartScan receipt capture works well, with a free individual tier

• Mobile app for employees on the go

• Integrates with popular accounting software like QuickBooks, Xero, and NetSuite

Cons

• Basic approval workflows don't scale with organizational complexity

• Limited policy customization based on employee attributes

• Reimbursements aren’t processed through payroll and require manual tracking

• Travel options and support are limited, with no automation for onboarding/offboarding cardholders

Rippling: The best alternative to Ramp and Expensify

While both Ramp and Expensify are solid expense management solutions, they share a fundamental limitation: they operate in isolation from your HR and payroll systems. This disconnection creates manual work, limits automation, and fragments your view of company spending.

Rippling expense management software takes a different approach by consolidating finance, HR, and IT into a single platform — built to handle complex expense management workflows that standalone tools simply can’t match.

• Automated workflows: When an employee gets promoted, their expense policies update automatically. When a manager goes on PTO, their approvals reroute automatically. When someone joins or leaves, their cards are issued or deactivated automatically. No manual coordination required.

• Complete spend visibility: Your biggest expense is payroll, but Ramp and Expensify can't see it. Rippling's dashboard shows payroll costs alongside card spend, reimbursements, and bill payments, giving you an actual picture of your burn rate and P&L. This matters when you're trying to forecast or understand true unit economics.

• Smarter policies: Instead of basic features like "require approval over $500," you can build policies based on employee level, department, location, tenure, or any combination. A senior engineer in San Francisco might have different limits than a junior designer in Austin. These policies adjust automatically as your org changes.

The question isn't whether Ramp or Expensify can handle expense management. They can. 

The question is whether you want your expense platform to exist in isolation or to be part of an integrated system that sees your entire organization. For companies committed to consolidation, Rippling delivers value that standalone tools can't match.

Ramp vs. Expensify vs. Rippling FAQs