Head to head
Ramp vs Brex
Ramp and Brex both start from a corporate card and build spend management around it. The difference is who each is built for: Ramp goes deep on controlling US card spend and paying bills, while Brex pairs cards with a business account, global cards and multi-entity support for companies spending in many countries.
Who each one is for
Choose Ramp if
You want to consolidate US card spend and bill pay onto one program with tight controls, and the free plan covers what a smaller team needs.
Choose Brex if
You're a venture-backed or international company that wants cards, a business account and spending in several countries from one vendor.
Ramp and Brex, side by side
Checked against both vendors' own pricing and product pages on October 22, 2026. Prices exclude tax and promotions. Plans change often: confirm the details on each vendor's site before you decide.
- Free plan
- Ramp: Yes, Ramp Free, designed for smaller teams
- Brex: Yes, Essentials
- Paid plans
- Ramp: Plus at $15 per user a month plus a platform fee based on team size; Enterprise on request
- Brex: Premium at $12 per user a month; Enterprise on request
- Cards
- Ramp: Unlimited physical and virtual cards with issuing controls
- Brex: Unlimited cards accepted in 210+ countries and territories
- Local-currency cards
- Ramp: 30+ countries, on Enterprise
- Brex: 50+ countries in Brex's plan comparison
- Business account
- Ramp: Not part of the plans; Ramp is built around the card and bill pay
- Brex: Cash management account with ACH, checks and domestic and international wires
- Bill pay
- Ramp: ACH, card, check and wire on Free; batch payments and payment release approvals on Plus
- Brex: Automated invoice entry, pay from Brex or an external account, multi-level approvals
- Receipts
- Ramp: Automatic receipt collection and matching on every plan
- Brex: Receipt capture inside expense management
- Travel
- Ramp: Flights, hotels and cars on Free; 24/7 phone support for bookings on Plus
- Brex: Trip booking on Essentials; managed travel program, group travel and concierge on Premium
- Reimbursements
- Ramp: Paid in 1 to 2 business days once approved
- Brex: Included, with the option to pay through payroll
- Accounting integrations
- Ramp: QuickBooks Online and Xero on Free; NetSuite, Sage Intacct and more on Plus; Workday and Oracle Fusion on Enterprise
- Brex: NetSuite and other accounting integrations on Essentials; custom ERP and HRIS integrations on Premium
- Entities
- Ramp: Multi-entity support on Plus
- Brex: Up to two entities on Essentials; multi-entity on Premium; unlimited on Enterprise
- Procurement
- Ramp: Add-on on Plus and Enterprise
- Brex: Separate Smart Card offer, priced on request
The differences that decide it
Controls versus banking
Ramp's center of gravity is card controls and the savings that come from them: limits set before the purchase, receipts matched automatically and out-of-policy spend flagged or blocked in real time. Brex's is the financial relationship: the card plus a business account, wires and cash management in one place.
Where you spend
Both cards work abroad. Brex lists local-currency cards in 50+ countries and lets Enterprise customers fund and pay reimbursements in local currency. Ramp's local-currency card issuing, in 30+ countries, sits on Enterprise. For a company with teams in several countries, that can decide it.
How the bill grows
Ramp Plus is $15 per user a month plus a platform fee that depends on team size, and the page doesn't publish the fee. Brex Premium is $12 per user a month. Both free plans cover the card, bill pay and travel. Many teams never pay for either.
What neither replaces
Both are card-first. The receipts behind purchases still have to come from somewhere: an employee's photo, an inbox or the merchant. Neither is your accounting system; both sync to one.
How to choose
Start from what you'd actually pay
On the free plans, neither charges a software fee. Ramp Free includes unlimited cards, bill pay by ACH, card, check and wire, travel booking and sync with QuickBooks Online or Xero. Brex Essentials includes cards, the business account, bill pay with multi-level approvals and travel booking.
The paid tiers are where they part. You'd move to Ramp Plus for NetSuite or Sage Intacct, batch payments and payment approvals, or multi-entity. You'd move to Brex Premium for custom ERP and HRIS integrations, managed travel or more than two entities. Price both against the feature that forces the upgrade, not the headline per-user number.
If you have more than one entity or country
Brex is the more natural fit for a group of companies. Essentials already covers two entities, Premium handles US and international entities, and Enterprise removes the limit. Ramp supports multi-entity businesses from Plus and keeps advanced entity configuration for Enterprise.
If employees outside the US spend in their own currency, check the local-currency card list for your countries on both sites. Brex's plan comparison and its feature list don't agree on how much of it Essentials includes. Ask before you count on it.
Switching and running both
Most teams don't run two card programs for long, but bill pay and cards can sit apart for a while. Both import vendors and sync to the same accounting systems, which keeps a switch to a matter of reissuing cards and moving recurring bills.
Before you move, export your receipts and their matched transactions. The receipt is what your accountant and an auditor will ask for, and it should stay attached to the expense in your books, not in the card vendor's app.
Where Smartbills fits
Smartbills isn't a card program or a bank. It's the receipt side: itemized receipts sent through Smartbills, receipts found in your team's email, bills fetched from supplier portals and photos read down to each tax line, matched to the card purchase whichever card you use. Some teams run it next to Ramp or Brex to close the receipt gap; others use it with the cards they already have. We've written our own comparison against each.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Where these facts come from
Get started
Compare on your own data, not ours.
Connect a card feed and your ledger, run it for a month and count the transactions that ended up with an itemized document attached. That number is the comparison that matters.