Top 5 Brex alternatives in 2024 for flexible banking, spend management, and procurement

Is Brex right for you? Companies on Brex often start looking for alternatives over time because they need flexibility with banking options and more powerful procurement capabilities. In this article, we'll share other corporate card providers and spend management platforms for you to consider based on G2 ratings.

Who are Brex’s competitors?

If you're exploring alternatives to Brex for flexible banking, spend management, and procurement, several options stand out. Consider these five alternative companies:

• Ramp offers a comprehensive platform with unlimited cards and procurement capabilities, emphasizing savings and automation. 
• Navan provides travel and expense solutions with a user-friendly interface and virtual cards. 
• Airbase caters to mid-market companies with procurement software and real-time reporting. 
• Center focuses on corporate card and expense management with strong reconciliation features. 
• Spendesk offers company cards and software with invoice automation and robust approval workflows. 

Each alternative brings unique features to enhance your financial operations.

Ramp

Here at Ramp, we're admittedly a little biased about Ramp's ability to be your home for next-generation finance tools. From corporate cards and expense management, to bill pay and accounting integrations, our platform delivers business savings month after month. 

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More than 15,000 businesses have already saved a combined $600 million with Ramp’s savings insights, automation, and software price negotiations. Almost 90 percent of people who reviewed Ramp on G2 gave our solution a five-star rating.

Key features

• Unlimited physical and virtual cards for employees
• Single platform for data and workflows between payables, business travel, and accounting
• Procure-to-pay including vendor management, price intelligence, and negotiations
• Easy-to-use interface for finance teams and employees with reliable support
• Free bill pay, and scheduled payments with cards, ACH, checks, and wire transfers

How is Ramp different from Brex?

• Business banking connections on your terms. Ramp provides more than 80 bank connections to diversify your funds across multiple bank accounts and lower your risk exposure, by ensuring you are not locked into one financial provider.‍
• Easier expense experiences for all. Ramp provides an employee experience that enables people to complete expenses on time. Ramp’s receipt capture can auto-match transactions, auto-populate memo fields, and auto-generate receipts if missing.
• ‍Bigger picture business spend. Brex’s sparse procurement capabilities have led some firms to pick Ramp for vendor management, savings intelligence, and procure-to-pay.

Navan (formerly TripActions)

Navan is a travel and expense management solution, which allows professionals to book, view, and manage trips and expenses.

Key features

• Controls at the point of sale to stop out-of-policy spending
• Automated reconciliation to help finance teams track and monitor spend
• Virtual cards tied to each travel booking, removing the need for manual reconciliation
• Reimbursements for employees across 45 countries and 25 currencies

Why people choose Navan over competitor Brex

A reviewer on business review website G2 notes that Navan's interface is friendlier and easier to use than Brex's. Specifically, uploading receipts and writing descriptions for expenses are much easier.

Pricing

Navan is free for companies’ first 50 monthly active users, with a fee for live travel agent support. The company can provide custom quotes for companies that exceed those needs.

Airbase

Airbase offers procurement software to help companies manage requests, payment, and reconciliation. The software has features for key business processes and accounting needs, such as multi-subsidiaries, and purchase order (PO) matching. Airbase is rated 4.8 out of five on G2 and is classified as most suitable for mid-market companies.

Features

• Automatic audit trail with the ability to retrieve documentation for a booking or an audit
• Accounting automation covering categories, amortization, and payment dates
• Invoice processing and payment from a single dashboard
• Real-time reporting, with all spend activities captured as they occur
• Receipt management, with a dedicated email for submissions

Why people choose Airbase over Brex

A G2 reviewer mentioned his company replaced multiple systems (including Brex) with Airbase, improving their approval processes for POs, invoices, cards, and reimbursements.

Pricing

Airbase offers standard, premium, and enterprise quotes for firms with 200 to 5,000 employees.

Center

Center provides software for corporate card, travel, and employee expense management. Customers on G2 give Center a 4.6 out of five rating. 

Key features

• Reconciliation with approval workflows, custom fields, ERP integrations, and CSV export
• Adjustable limits for each corporate card and secure lock if the card is not in frequent use
• Real-time visibility, reporting, and auditing of managed and unmanaged spend
• Ability to make travel itinerary changes and 24/7 support

Why people choose Center over competitor Brex

Reviewers commend Center for its ease of use, user interface, and time-saving features. 

Pricing

Center’s pricing is not publicly available on its website.

Spendesk

Founded in Europe in 2016, Spendesk provides company cards and software to help companies manage expense approvals, budgets, and accounting automation. Customers give Spendesk a 4.7 out of five rating on G2.

Key features

• Real-time spending dashboard displaying online and offline transactions
• Team budgets, request tracking and approvals, and expense reimbursements
• Invoice automation and approval workflows for more control over the invoicing lifecycle
• Single-use virtual cards to reduce fraud risks for one-off purchases, plus dedicated virtual business cards for recurring costs.

Why people choose Spendesk over competitor Brex

One G2 reviewer complimented Spendesk for clearly showing which invoices were approved and for its clear approval records.

Pricing

Spendesk can provide custom quotes to companies of all sizes.

Brex alternatives for small businesses

On June 17, 2024, Brex announced that it would no longer serve small businesses, shifting its focus to “technology startups and larger companies.” As a result, small businesses using Brex must transfer all funds from their Brex Cash account to an external bank account or another cash account provider by August 15th. 

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This change is highly inconvenient and disruptive for the tens of thousands of small businesses that relied on Brex as their financial hub, forcing them to seek new financial partners. For Brex, this decision reflects a humbling acknowledgment that it could not effectively or sustainably serve the small business customers who helped it achieve unicorn status through their trust and early adoption.

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Choosing the right software for flexible banking, spend management, and procurement can make all the difference for a small business looking for a management solution for its finances and to streamline operations. 

How to choose a platform for banking, procurement, and corporate cards

All of the Brex alternatives listed here could be a better fit for your business. Here are some key considerations to help guide your decision:

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Scalability: Choose software that can grow with your business. It should accommodate an increasing number of transactions, users, and data as your business expands.

User-Friendliness: The software should have an intuitive interface and organized, helpful training documentation. This helps reduce training time and increases productivity.

Integration Capabilities: Ensure that the software integrates seamlessly with your current systems, such as accounting software, payroll systems, and CRM tools to streamline data flow and reduce manual entry.

Security and Compliance: Verify that the software provides robust security features to protect sensitive financial data. Make sure it complies with relevant regulations and standards in your industry and has a reputation for being proactive about updating as regulations change.

‍Vendor Reputation: Research the software vendor's reputation, including customer reviews, case studies, and industry recognition. Gartner and G2 are good places to research this.

Discover Ramp's corporate card for modern finance

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Choose flexibility for your finance operations

We hope our research helps you find a better fit for expense management, AP automation, and corporate cards. If an intuitive employee experience and powerful finance workflows are essential to your finance operations, consider Ramp.