Expensify is the go-to expense-reporting application used by some 10 million freelancers, businesses and individuals around the globe. The tool helps users to intuitively track and manage all business or personal expenses, with receipt-scanning functionality and multi-level approvals.
Since its founding in 2008, the platform has climbed SaaS user rankings and earned ratings including 4.5 stars from both G2 and Software Advice, where it is praised for its widely accessible user interface and expansive list of integrations.
So, if you’re searching for an expense management tool, Expensify could be just the ticket. But there are some considerations to make first — the most important of all being how much it will cost.
Here’s everything you need to know about Expensify pricing, along with proven strategies for securing a favorable discount.
How much does Expensify cost?
Expensify offers a range of free and paid plans starting from just $10 per user, per month. The vendor is among the 45% of providers that publicly lists its pricing options — making the company a whole load more transparent than the market standard — but this doesn’t mean that the listed prices are set in stone.
Before we delve into your options for negotiating a discount though, it’s worth understanding the different pricing editions available so that you can determine which plan is the best fit for your needs — and what Expensify expects you to pay for it.
Expensify pricing plans
According to the vendor’s pricing page, Expensify offers two plans with basic functionality for individuals and self-employed, as well as three different business pricing editions. Each plan is priced on a per-user basis.
Let’s take a closer look at the functionality and pricing offered by each tier of subscription.
Individuals & self-employed
Track
Expensify Track allows personal users to transfer money, submit expense reports, manage invoices, track mileage and more. This tier is free at the point of use up to 25 SmartScans, after which it is priced at $4.99 per user per month.
SmartScans are a feature implemented by Expensify to process financial documents, like invoices or receipts, using a smartphone camera or photo upload. The tool uses optical character recognition to parse transaction data, including merchant name, date, amount etc. This data can be used to automatically compile an expense report.
Submit
Expensify Submit provides users with a feature set to send receipts to managers and accountants, submit invoices, collect payments and track mileage. Operating the same pricing model as Track, Submit allows up to 25 free SmartScans per month, after which it is priced at $4.99 per user per month.
Business
Free
A free subscription to Expensify is available for businesses, supporting teams of any size to reimburse cash expenses, chat with colleagues, submit invoices and pay bills. However, the Free plan is limited to only the core functionality of the full platform.
Collect
The first paid plan for Expensify for businesses is Collect. Collect supports the full feature set available in Free in addition to accounting integrations, approval workflows and company cards. This edition is priced at $10 per user per month when billed annually, or $20 per user per month on a monthly basis.
Control
The most advanced tier of Expensify subscription is Control, which includes everything from the previous editions as well as support for multiple approvers, expense policies, custom reporting and access control. This is the plan suitable for scaled businesses that need more advanced administration capabilities for their expense management. Control can be integrated with a wide range of accounting applications such as QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, Oracle, and SAP.
Expensify Control is priced at $18 per user per month when billed annually, or $36 per user monthly.
Is it possible to get further discounts on an Expensify subscription?
With Expensify listing all of its price points online, what’s the probability that you can secure a discount on one of these subscriptions?
In our experience, we see that for many companies, the prices listed publicly aren’t necessarily the prices that they end up paying. And while it tends to vary based on which vendor you enter into talks with, it’s usually possible to secure a discount on your SaaS subscription.
And there’s never been a better time to do it.
Our data shows that 90% of companies tend to overpay on their SaaS by an average of 20-30% — often much more, as software prices continue to rise.
So, what are your options for an Expensify discount?
The Expensify Card
Expensify offers bundling discounts to US-based customers who take out an Expensify corporate credit card alongside their subscription and charge at least 50% of their monthly company spend to the card. With an Expensify card, users are free to settle up funds daily, impose smart limits on spending, enable immediate reimbursement and more.
A card-bundled Collect or Control plan comes with a further 50% discount to monthly pricing, making annually billed plans $5 per user per month or $9 per user per month, respectively.
However, if you aren’t interested in the Expensify Card scheme, there are other ways to seek a discount for your Expensify purchase or renewal. Our data for the vendor shows that they offer a medium discount possibility, with many companies paying significantly different prices for the same contract terms.
But how can you unlock those savings?
To begin, you’ll need to implement a strong software negotiation strategy. Here, we’ve outlined some of our top recommendations:
Negotiation tips to lower your Expensify subscription cost
Commit to a longer subscription period
One surefire way to save on a SaaS contract is to sign on for a longer commitment period. Most software vendors will be open to offering discounts in return for an annual agreement, just as we see with Expensify offering an incredibly generous 50% reduction in paid plan costs.
But how much could you save by committing for two or more years?
While the exact willingness to discount will differ from vendor to vendor, and from plan type to plan type, our data suggests that most providers will offer a further 5% discount for each year of subscription that a user commits to.
You should, however, only consider this option if you’re confident that you’ll still be using this tool further down the line. While some vendors offer break clauses, these won’t cover you in the instance that you simply want to switch to another platform, and you could find yourself locked into a wasted contract if you don’t conduct due diligence prior to committing.
Research competitor comparisons
One way to gain crucial leverage is to seek quotes from competitors in your chosen vendor’s niche. For example, you might inquire with alternative expense management providers like Zoho or Bill.com for their costs.
However, it’s not just pricing that can be negotiated, so you may also look into the other contract terms offered by the vendor to gain negotiating power. Consider researching:
- Renewal clauses
- Support and maintenance
- Customization and add-ons
With these terms, you may prompt your chosen vendor to make competitive offers and secure the best-fit contract for your business.
Find out how much other companies pay
Competitor research can certainly provide leverage to your negotiation strategy, but the most useful asset in your arsenal is insight into what other companies are paying for their subscription. As we know that companies with similar profiles pay different amounts for their Expensify plans, it’s possible that a company like yours has been offered a discounted price point that the vendor could match in your quote.
And this is where Vertice can help.
Secure favorable Expensify pricing with Vertice
With access to exclusive pricing data for more than 16,000 global software vendors – Expensify included – our experienced purchasing team are equipped to negotiate the best possible deal on your behalf.
In addition to saving you a substantial amount of time and money on your SaaS procurement, Vertice is also entirely risk free, providing guaranteed savings on your annual software spend.
Why not see for yourself how much you could be saving, or alternatively read how Vertice saved Lighthouse, formally OTA Insight, $170,000 on a single SaaS contract.
