Expensify vs Airwallex pricing comes down to what you are paying for. Expensify charges for expense software on the cards you already have: Collect is a flat $5 per member per month and Control is $18 per member on an annual subscription, as low as $9 with the Expensify Card. Airwallex charges almost nothing for software and earns on money movement: Explore is $0 with up to 10 Spend users, Grow is $12 per active Spend user plus a platform fee, and currency conversion runs 0.5% over interbank for major currencies. For a US team under 10 people that pays vendors abroad, Airwallex is cheaper. For a team that keeps its bank cards and mostly spends in dollars, Expensify Collect usually is.
Most comparisons of the two are written for Singapore or Australia, in local currency, often by one of the two vendors. The figures below are the US list prices, read on airwallex.com/us/pricing, use.expensify.com and help.expensify.com, with the user-counting rules that decide the real bill.
Expensify vs Airwallex pricing, side by side
| Cost line | Expensify | Airwallex |
|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | Collect, $5 per member per month, month to month | Explore, $0 per user per month, up to 10 Spend users |
| Paid plan | Control, $18 per member annual, $36 above subscription size or pay-per-use | Grow, $12 per active Spend user plus a platform fee by team size, up to 250 users |
| Top plan | Control is the top published plan | Accelerate, custom |
| Who is billed | Collect bills every member in the workspace. Control bills active members, including approvers and people who export | Active cardholders plus anyone who submits, approves or pays an expense or bill in the period |
| Card discount | Up to 50% off Control with the Expensify Card | Not applicable, software is $0 or $12 |
| Works with your existing cards | Yes, card feeds from cards you already have | Built around Airwallex cards and accounts |
| Foreign spend | No foreign transaction fees on the Expensify Card. Expenses keep their original currency and convert at the daily rate on the report | Multi-currency cards with zero international fees. Conversion 0.5% over interbank for majors, 1% for others |
| Global payments | Not a payments platform | Local transfers to 120+ countries, SWIFT $15 to $25, free domestic USD transfers |
| QuickBooks and Xero | Collect | Explore |
| NetSuite | Control | Grow |
| Bill pay | Not the core product | Included on every plan, with AI coding |
The full Airwallex breakdown, including what each plan adds and what the platform fee means for a quote, is on our Airwallex pricing plans and fees page.
Is Airwallex cheaper than Expensify?
For small teams, yes. Eight people on Airwallex Explore pay $0 for software, while eight members on Expensify Collect pay $40 a month, or $480 a year. Past 10 Spend users, the comparison flips toward a quote, because Explore's free allowance ends and Grow adds $12 per user plus a platform fee that Airwallex does not print on its US page. A 25-person team pays at least $300 a month on Grow before that fee.
Here is the same 25-person US company priced on both. Sixteen people hold cards, four managers approve without holding one, two people in finance approve and pay bills, and three employees file the occasional reimbursement. Everyone is active every month, and the books are in QuickBooks Online.
| Line | Expensify Collect | Expensify Control, annual, sized at 25 | Airwallex Grow |
|---|---|---|---|
| Billable people | 25 members | 25 active members | 25 Spend users |
| Software a month | 25 x $5 = $125 | 25 x $18 = $450, or $225 with the full card discount | 25 x $12 = $300 plus the platform fee |
| Software a year | $1,500 | $5,400, or $2,700 with the card | $3,600 plus the platform fee |
| Approvals | Submit and approve | Multi-level approval chains | Multi-conditional approvals |
| Moving to NetSuite later | Not on Collect | Included | Included |
Two things stand out. First, both vendors bill the approvers. Airwallex says so in its pricing footnote, and Expensify's help center lists approving among the actions that make someone an active member on Control. Count your managers and your bill payers, not just your cardholders, before you compare a quote. Second, Collect stays the cheapest line on the table as long as QuickBooks Online or Xero is enough and nobody needs layered approvals.
How much does Airwallex cost per user?
On Explore, nothing for up to 10 Spend users. On Grow, $12 per active Spend user per month plus a platform fee based on team size, with a maximum of 250 Spend users. Accelerate is custom and includes up to 3 legal entities. Airwallex charges the monthly fee per business legal entity rather than per account, so one entity with several currency accounts pays once. A Spend user is an active employee cardholder or anyone who submits, approves or pays a card expense, reimbursement or bill in the billing period.
How much does Expensify cost per user?
Collect is $5 per member per month with no annual contract and no card requirement, and it bills every member in the workspace. Control is $18 per member per month on an annual subscription, with active members above the subscription size billed at $36, and pay-per-use Control is $36. Using the Expensify Card for at least half of your settled US spend cuts Control by up to 50 percent, to $9 and $18. If Collect is the plan you are leaning toward, our Expensify Collect plan cost breakdown prices it against Control for a ten-person team.
Which is better for foreign currency spend?
Airwallex, by design. It holds balances in multiple currencies, issues multi-currency cards with zero international fees, and converts at 0.5% above interbank for major currencies and 1% for the rest. A team that spends about $10,000 a month in euros and converts from dollars pays roughly $50 a month in conversion cost at that rate. Expensify is an expense tool rather than an account: each expense keeps its original currency and is converted at the daily rate when it lands on a report, and the Expensify Card itself carries no foreign transaction fee. What the conversion costs on any other card depends on the bank that issued it.
There is a bookkeeping side to multi-currency accounts that neither price list shows. Every currency balance produces its own statement, and those statements still have to tie to the books at month end. If that job lands on one person in finance, it pays to match every bank statement line to your books automatically rather than tick through each currency account by hand.
Does Airwallex do expense reports like Expensify?
Partly. Airwallex includes expense management, reimbursements to employees in 200+ countries, spend requests and AI receipt matching on Explore, and Grow adds late-submission policies with automatic card freezing, an AI expense policy agent and multi-conditional approvals. What it does not do is report on spend that never touched Airwallex. Expensify was built the other way around: it reads receipts from any card, and the card is optional. Teams that need payments and FX from Airwallex and receipts from a US bank card or Amex at the same time end up running two systems.
Which one should a US company choose?
- Choose Airwallex Explore if 10 or fewer people touch spend, you pay suppliers or contractors abroad, and QuickBooks or Xero is your ledger. The software is free and the FX is the cheapest line you will find.
- Choose Expensify Collect if you keep your current bank cards, spend mostly in dollars and want simple submit and approve at $5 a member.
- Choose Expensify Control or Airwallex Grow if you need NetSuite and layered approvals. Control is $18 list or $9 with the card; Grow is $12 plus a platform fee. Get the platform fee in writing before you decide.
- Consider neither as your only expense tool if your people spend on several card programs and someone has to code, check and chase every receipt across all of them.
That last case is what Expenditure is for. It reads every receipt, including foreign ones, records the currency printed on it, codes it to your QuickBooks Online, Xero or NetSuite chart of accounts, matches it to the card line and lists the charges still missing a receipt, across Airwallex cards, bank cards and Amex in one place. You import each statement as CSV, OFX or QFX, and the receipt reconciliation runs on import. Starter is $12 per seat per month billed annually from 3 seats, and Growth, with policy, approvals, budgets and NetSuite, is $21. Expenditure never moves, holds or converts money, so Airwallex keeps doing the FX and the payouts.
What about Ramp, Brex and Emburse?
If a free card platform is also on your list, Brex prices against Expensify on our Brex vs Expensify pricing comparison, which includes the up to 3% Brex FX markup that makes Airwallex look cheap on foreign spend. Ramp's plans and platform fee are on Ramp vs Expensify, and if you are comparing per-user expense tools that do not bill approvers, Emburse Spend pricing counts only the people who submit an expense.
Frequently asked questions
Is Airwallex free?
Airwallex Explore has no monthly fee and includes up to 10 Spend users, multi-currency cards, expense management, bill pay and QuickBooks and Xero sync. Transactions still cost money: conversion is 0.5% over interbank for major currencies and 1% for others, and SWIFT transfers are $15 to $25 each.
Is Expensify free?
No published Expensify business plan is free. Collect costs $5 per member per month, month to month, and Control costs $18 per member on an annual subscription or $36 pay-per-use, with up to 50 percent off Control for companies that run their spend on the Expensify Card.
Does Airwallex charge approvers as users?
Yes. Airwallex defines a Spend user as an active cardholder or anyone who submits, approves or pays a card expense, reimbursement or bill in the billing period, so a manager who only approves counts toward the 10 free users on Explore and is billed at $12 on Grow.
Can I use Expensify with Airwallex cards?
Expensify imports card feeds from many issuers, but check with Expensify that your Airwallex card is supported before you plan around it. Expenditure works from the transaction export your card provider already offers, so Airwallex lines are imported as a CSV statement next to every other card.