Expensify Credit Card Review

Pros

• Up to 2% cash back
• No credit check
• Virtual cards
• Employee cards

Cons

• Complex pricing scheme
• Free plan does not include corporate cards
• The 2% cash back rate only applies when your company spend exceeds $250K/month
• No telephone support

What Is The Expensify Card?

Expensify’s corporate card is a central component of the company’s business financial management system. You can use the Expensify Card to pay for your business expenses, earning up to 2% cash back and getting half off the subscription costs for Expensify’s expense management tools (some conditions apply).

While the card is part of the bigger package, in this review, we’ll be focusing on the merits of the Expensify corporate card as it compares to the competition. While Expensify offers a strong expense management suite, its cash back program is less lucrative than it once was. We’re giving Expensify a decent but unspectacular 3.7/5 overall score.

Read on to see how Expensify stacks up among the best corporate credit cards.

Expensify Card Rewards & Perks

Expensify offers significant rewards to users, with a top cash back rate of 2%. However, this rate applies only when your company spend exceeds $250K for the month in question. Spend less than that, and your purchases will earn you a mere 1% cash back. Accordingly, we can only give Expensify a 3.4/5 category rating here.

We also appreciate the 50% discount available for Expensify cardholders who sign up for Expensify expense management tools. Expensify offers valuable perks from software partners as well. Let’s look more closely at these rewards and perks:

• Partner Perks: Expensify offers $75,000+ in discounts, credits, and perks from about 28 software providers, including Amazon Web Services, Gusto, Guideline, Zendesk, QuickBooks, Slack, and Snapchat. You can receive $5,000 in credits from AWS, two months of free Aircall service, and 30% off an annual QuickBooks subscription, for example.
• Integrations: You can connect your Expensify account with 40+ integrations to simplify expense management and financial controls. This includes accounting and finance software QuickBooks, Oracle, Xero, Sage Intacct, and more; HR software such as Gusto, Zenefits, Workday, and Greenhouse; travel resources Kayak Business, TravelPerk, and AirPlus International; and tax software Taxback International and Global VaTax.

Expensify cash back rewards are paid out monthly. Cash back will appear as a statement credit.

Pricing & Fees

While Expensify does offer a free plan, this plan does not include corporate credit cards. A free Expensify account lets you send and receive money, split bills, and communicate with your team. If you want to use Expensify credit cards, however, you’ll need to pay at least $5/user/month.

If you intend to get cards for a large team of employees, your monthly costs can escalate quickly, even after the 50% discount offered to cardholders. That’s why we can only give Expensify a 3.5/5 rating in this category.

These are the paid Expensify plans available to businesses, with prices listed for annual subscriptions:

• Collect: At $5 per user per month, this option builds on the Free Plan by adding Expensify cards, bill pay, invoicing, custom coding, accounting integrations, tax tracking, and expense approval processes.
• Control: At $9 per user per month, this option includes everything in the Free and Collect plans, plus multilevel approval, expense policies, custom reporting, and access controls.

Expensify used to offer two additional plans to self-employed users, but these plans are no longer offered.

You can test Expensify’s paid plans for free, with a six-week trial period. Payment can be made in US dollars, British pounds, or Australian and New Zealand dollars.

Eligibility Requirements

The Expensify credit card is unique among corporate cards in that it’s available not just to corporations. In fact, the Expensify Card can be used by individuals for business purposes, including freelancers and the self-employed. It’s available internationally, too, although a US-based bank account is required. These relaxed requirements contributed to our score of 4.2/5 for this category.

Expensify’s expense-management side supports 169 global currencies and multiple languages, with support for international bank connections. The Expensify mobile app and website are not available in languages other than English, and customer support is available in English only.

Although Expensify has a strong mobile app, you’ll need to open your account using a web browser, not the app. Approval comes in seconds, the company says, and while you’ll need to wait a few days for your physical Expensify Card to arrive, you’ll immediately be able to use a virtual card for Concierge Travel services. Your linked financial account will be debited automatically for the full amount due on your account on a daily or monthly basis.

You won’t be subject to a credit check as part of the approval process. However, data from your linked financial accounts will be examined to establish spending limits and identify spending patterns. Expensify does not disclose how spending limits are determined, but the company does say that spending limits are “dynamic” and may be raised or lowered at any time, including temporary increases.

No matter how many cards you issue to employees, all users share a common credit limit that’s tied to your available daily balance, and if purchases exceed that balance, card access will be shut off.

Expensify Features

Expensify Card charges are automatically imported for receipt merging, coding, and reconciliation. You can use Expensify tools without using the Expensify card, and if you do, the Expensify receipt scanner allows you and your employees to capture receipts for expense reports automatically. Use Expensify’s roster of accounting, HR, and travel integrations to sync your business finances further.

Expensify delivers both as a corporate card and as an expense management system, with a combination of the features you’d expect to see in both. With flexible pricing based on the number of users, Expensify can meet the needs of a wide range of business types. We’ve given Expensify a rating of 4.2/5 for its features.

Let’s explore some of Expensify’s standard features as well as some standout features.

• SmartScan Receipt Capture: Expensify’s receipt scanner lets you snap a photo of a receipt, and it’s automatically added to a detailed expense report.
• Credit Card Import: Use the Expensify Card, or add a different card, and your receipts will be merged and coded automatically.
• Approval Workflows: Create custom workflows and set expense policy rules, and you can automatically flag expenses that need management review.
• Corporate Card Reconciliation: You can confirm statement amounts, review expenses that haven’t been submitted, and manage corporate spending via Expensify’s receipt management app.
• Integrations: Sync your accounting system, your HR software, and travel needs.
• Spend Controls: You can set custom limits for each employee’s Expensify Card. When a cardholder hits that limit, the card turns off until prior expenses are approved.
• Real-Time Compliance: Check for duplicate receipts, compliance, and fraud.
• Invoicing: Invoicing automation is included in all Expensify subscriptions. Expensify lets you create and send bulk invoices, and customers around the world can pay via credit/debit card, ACH, and PayPal.
• Automatic Credit Raises: You won’t need to undergo a credit check to access higher limits. Your limit is tied to your bank balance; employees can spend only the money that’s in your business bank account.
• Choose Your Payoff: You can decide to settle your Expensify Card payment daily or monthly.
• Concierge Travel: Tailor your preferences (airline, seat preference, and hotel) as well as your frequent flyer, TSA PreCheck, and loyalty club numbers. Access free medical advisory services, emergency transport, and other travel services.
• “Karma Points”: Expensify donates 10% of interchange revenue to social justice causes via Expensify.org.

Customer Service

Expensify offers a nice range of customer support, including a mix of company support and self-help options. Although you won’t be able to phone in for help, you can contact Expensify by email (the company’s preferred support method) or choose live chat. Expensify reps seem responsive to user comments and questions on social media, too. Expensify is active on Twitter/X, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Although users report mixed experiences with Expensify customer support, we find that to be fairly normal with expense management software. We did keep this in mind (along with the lack of phone support) when giving our customer service rating of 3.5/5. We’ll cover some common complaints and accolades in the next section.

Expensify Credit Card Reviews

Expensify is not accredited by the Better Business Bureau, but the BBB does maintain an Expensify profile. Unfortunately, the company has an F rating with the BBB that’s based on 18 customer reviews and 46 complaints in the past three years. That’s a very small sampling of users, and the primary complaint on the BBB website concerns the difficulty of canceling a subscription rather than complaints about the software or the card itself. Still, it’s something to bear in mind.

Things look much better for Expensify at G2, where the company gets an average user score of 4.5/5 out of over 5,000 reviews — a much larger sample size and one that you can draw stronger conclusions from.

The story is similar at Capterra, where Expensify scores an average user rating of 4.5/5 based on over 1,000 reviews.

Our user review rating was similar to these third-party sources, landing at 4.3/5.

Here’s a summary of some things these users have to say.

Is Expensify Safe?

Expensify is safe to use. Expensify uses industry-standard security technologies and procedures to protect users’ data. These include secure socket layer technology (SSL), password protection, and the “gold standard” of security, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, or PCI-DSS.

Data is encrypted as soon as it is entered, and the company uses its own geo-redundant, PCI-compliant data center. Expensify servers use a special type of encryption key called a split knowledge, dual-control key that’s known by Expensify’s servers and no one else and is never written to disk. That means that Expensify’s most sensitive data cannot be decrypted by anyone, not even Expensify employees, except within the narrow and secure confines of Expensify’s hardened servers.

How Does The Expensify Card Compare To The Alternatives?

Let’s delve into how the Expensify corporate card stacks up against some prominent competitors.

Final Verdict: Is Expensify Worth It?

There’s a lot to like about Expensify, as well as a couple of things that give us pause.

We don’t like the fact that Expensify cards cost $5/user/month. If you have a lot of employees that need spending cards, your costs will add up fast. We were also troubled by the number of customer complaints about how hard it is to cancel and get a refund from Expensify.

That said, Expensify’s software offers impressive expense-management tools. If you’re looking both for expense management software and for a corporate card, Expensify offers you a complete package — and nearly everybody will qualify.

On the rewards side, the Expensify Card does not top the charts. If rewards are your priority, you can do better with a card like Brex, but only if you’re a C-Corp, S-Corp, LLC, or LLP that can meet significant funding/revenue requirements.

For smaller, non-incorporated entities, Expensify offers enough to make this card one to consider, especially for small companies that couldn’t otherwise qualify for a corporate card. It’s unfortunate that these are the same applicants who will likely only qualify for 1% cash back, though.

Corporate Card Review Methodology

Merchant Maverick has been researching and reviewing business credit cards and corporate cards since 2018. Our writers have evaluated over sixty different business card products. In each corporate card review, we evaluate rewards and perks, rates and fees, features, eligibility requirements, customer service, and user reviews. Read more about how we rate corporate cards.

Note: We use a different credit card rating methodology to evaluate traditional business credit cards, as they often differ from corporate cards in benefits, qualifications, and use cases.

When comparing corporate cards, we consider many data points, including the specifics of cash back and spending rewards, the presence of annual fees, the breadth and flexibility of reward redemption options, revenue and time in business qualifications, credit score requirements, and extra perks. Our lists of the best corporate cards include only those we’ve deemed worthwhile from multiple vantage points and often share qualities such as widespread availability, low fees, competitive rewards, and reasonable revenue, cash-on-hand, and time in business requirements.

We spend an average of 10-15 hours researching and updating each one of our lists, making sure the corporate cards included meet our internal standards for quality and reputation.

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Ramp offers a free corporate card for virtually any business. Start earning rewards with your corporate spending today. Get your free card.