Which expense tool you should choose comes down to one question: are you willing to change the cards your business already uses? Ramp and Brex each publish a free tier and both issue their own corporate cards; the card is the centre of the product and their expense data flows mainly from it (pricing pages checked 2026-09-09). Expensify, Dext, Zoho Expense and SAP Concur work with any card, but expect someone to photograph or forward each receipt. ExpenseBot is the third route: it captures spend from the receipts already sitting in Gmail, on the cards you already have, and writes every expense to a Google Sheet in your own Google Drive. Enterprises with 500+ staff and an existing ERP generally still land on Concur or Emburse.
📊 At a glance
| Tool | Card requirement | Where expense data comes from | Data stored | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ExpenseBot | None — keep existing cards | Gmail receipts + photo + Google Photos | Your own Google Drive | Google Workspace teams, 1–50 |
| Expensify | None — Collect is a flat $5/member/mo; card use discounts Control annual only | Photo SmartScan + email forward | Expensify servers | Established teams with approvals |
| Ramp | None stated — free tier published at $0/user/mo; card-centric product | Ramp card feed | Ramp servers | US startups issuing cards |
| Brex | None stated — Essentials tier published at $0/user/mo; card-centric product | Brex card feed | Brex servers | VC-backed startups |
| SAP Concur | None | Photo + email forward | SAP servers | Enterprise, 500+ |
| Dext | None | Photo + email forward | Dext / IRIS cloud | Accountants and bookkeepers |
| Zoho Expense | None | Photo + autoscan | Zoho cloud | Budget / Zoho ecosystem |
🧭 The four questions that actually decide it
- Do you have to change cards? Ramp and Brex do not state a card requirement on their pricing pages, but both are built around their own card and the expense capture follows card transactions.
- Where does the data come from? Card feed (amount, no receipt) vs photo capture (only what someone remembered) vs email (where most business spend already documents itself).
- Who does the work? Employees submitting, the accountant, or the software — the tool a client won't use is worth nothing.
- What happens at tax time, and who holds the data? ExpenseBot's output is a Google Sheet in your Drive, readable whether or not you keep subscribing.
📊 Compare ExpenseBot to a specific tool:
- vs Expensify - Data sovereignty, Google-native, FREE for accountants
- vs Ramp - BYOC team card reconciliation plus supported accounting handoffs
- vs SAP Concur - Self-service Google Workspace workflow vs an enterprise travel and expense program
- vs Dext · vs Hubdoc · vs Zoho Expense
- Head-to-head: vs Ramp · vs QuickBooks Self-Employed · vs Bench · vs Shoeboxed · vs WellyBox
🎯 Why Teams Choose ExpenseBot: ✅ 2026 CASA Tier 2 independent security assessment completed ✅ Data stored in YOUR Google Drive ✅ About 30 seconds for an individual to start; guided Workspace admin setup ✅ $10/user/month transparent pricing ✅ FREE forever for accountants ✅ Google Workspace native
🔗 Full comparison hub: ExpenseBot Comparisons
🔄 What happens to your expense history if you switch tools With most tools the history lives in the vendor's system, so leaving means exporting before you cancel and accepting whatever format is offered — receipt images are the part most often lost. Check the export format and whether images are included before you migrate. ExpenseBot is structurally different: expenses are written to a Google Sheet in your own Google Drive as you go, so the file and the receipt files stay in your Drive regardless of your subscription.