Teams usually start looking past Pleo when the per-seat price stops matching how many people actually spend, when they need approvals or reimbursements that the entry plan leaves out, or when their ledger or country sits outside the integrations Pleo lists. Others want a vendor with a free tier, a card-fee model, or a travel link.
Short answer: Mooncard, Moss and Soldo head the list of Pleo alternatives drawn from our expense management ranking. Places 1 to 3 go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands in a category, wherever the category has them; the established names follow from place 4 in their ranked order. Mooncard is the one to try if your accountants work in French or Benelux systems and want entries produced at payment. Every one of the 10 products below comes from Best Expense Management Software in 2026, with a note on how it departs from Pleo.
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Built for: A team where employee adoption decides whether the numbers are real
Not for: A finance function that needs granular pre-approval
01
Why buyers look past Pleo
01
Seats are the unit you pay for
Pleo charges per user per month: Start at 8 pounds on monthly billing, Build at 14 pounds and Optimise at 18 pounds, both billed yearly with a minimum of three users. A company where many people only occasionally buy something pays the full seat price for each of them, so the bill follows headcount rather than spend.
02
The useful controls sit on higher plans
Start allows one admin and leaves out reimbursements. Build adds reimbursements, mileage, approval workflows and per-card limits, and budgets arrive only with Optimise. Direct reimbursements on the paid plans carry a 0.90% fee. Finance teams that need budgets and rules from day one end up on the dearer tiers.
03
Card and payment fees add a second layer
Alongside the seat price, Pleo's page lists a card foreign-exchange fee of 2.00%, 1.75% or 1.49% depending on plan, and international payments at 8 or 6 pounds each. Overdraft and credit limits are offered to eligible customers only. A business with much foreign spend should model these lines before comparing seat prices.
a large share of your spend is flights and hotels booked by staff
#14
03
What each one does differently
1
Mooncard
France · On request
Mooncard, a French card programme, charges 10 euros for each card issued and quotes the subscription after a demo. Its Original offer bundles five seats, OCR receipt capture and a full accounting engine, and Hub adds several entities. Named connections include Sage, Cegid, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics and Exact Online, which reads as a fit for French and Benelux ledgers.
Switch from Pleo if your accountants work in French or Benelux systems and want entries produced at payment.
Moss is developed and hosted in Germany and lists DATEV among more than 50 finance tools it connects to. The model is a platform fee set by the modules chosen plus a fee tied to expected monthly transaction volume, and users are not billed one by one. The page offers a free start with Cards or Accounts Payable.
Switch from Pleo if you want pricing that does not rise with every new cardholder, and use DATEV.
Soldo is a UK business whose cards are prepaid wallets. Standard costs 27 pounds a month plus VAT for one wallet, three users and three cards, and Plus costs 39 pounds with three wallets and multi-currency spending. Both carry a 30-day trial. Card issuance and other financial services carry separate charges listed in a fee summary document.
Switch from Pleo if you want spending limits funded in advance and a flat monthly fee for a small group.
Spendesk keeps its prices off the page and describes a fixed monthly platform fee plus variable transaction fees. The Foundations plan lists unlimited cards, users and control settings, with no monthly card or active-user fees, and cashback from 1% for eligible clients. Procurement, accounts payable and advanced workflows are add-ons. Its payment institution is French.
Switch from Pleo if you add many occasional cardholders and prefer paying for platform and volume instead of seats.
Payhawk sells modules for cards and expenses, accounts payable, procurement and travel on quotes, with units for extra cards, reimbursements, purchase orders and invoices. Its Growth programme starts at 149 pounds a month for UK or EEA firms with one entity and under 20 employees, covering 10 cards and 15 invoices monthly. Multi-entity handling is part of the platform.
Switch from Pleo if you run several legal entities, or want invoices and purchase orders beside cards.
Zoho Expense publishes its prices in dollars: a free tier for up to three users with 5 GB of receipt storage and 20 scans per user monthly, Standard at 4 dollars and Premium at 6 dollars per user monthly (3 and 5 on annual billing). A 14-day trial needs no card. It lacks cards of its own, so card spend arrives as feeds.
Switch from Pleo if you want the cheapest published per-user rate and are happy to bring your own bank cards.
Ramp lists a Free plan with unlimited cards, basic expense and payables tools, and QuickBooks Online and Xero links. Plus is 15 dollars per user a month plus a platform fee by team size, adding AI expense review, batch payments and NetSuite and Sage Intacct. Local-currency card issuing in 30+ countries appears only under Enterprise.
Switch from Pleo if you bank in the United States, or want a free tier before paying for automation.
Expensify is the long-standing receipt-scanning app from the United States. Our category record lists a Collect plan at 5 dollars per member monthly and Control at 18 to 36 dollars, with a free Submit tier for individuals. The pricing page we read showed no plan table, so these figures are unconfirmed here. Cards and accounting sync need paid plans.
Switch from Pleo if employees should be able to scan and send reports before the company decides to pay.
Brex has an Essentials plan at no per-user charge covering global cards, bill pay, reimbursements, up to two entities and accounting links. Premium costs 12 dollars per user monthly and adds several expense policies, advanced approvals, VAT documentation and live budgets. Local card issuance in 50+ countries belongs to the separate Smart Card offer, priced on request.
Switch from Pleo if you want multiple expense policies and live budgets at a seat price below Pleo's Build tier.
Navan merges trip booking with expense. Its Business tier for companies up to 300 employees is listed as free for travel, with expense free for the first five users and 15 dollars per user a month after that. Larger companies are quoted through a demo. Travel and spend sit in one record, so reconciliation shrinks.
Switch from Pleo if a large share of your spend is flights and hotels booked by staff.
You want to stop paying for every occasional cardholder
Spendesk: Foundations lists unlimited cards and users with no monthly card or active-user fees, on a platform fee plus transaction fees.
02
Your accountants close the books in DATEV
Moss: DATEV is among its 50+ listed integrations, and the product is developed and hosted in Germany.
03
You run several legal entities across countries
Payhawk: Multi-entity handling is part of the platform, and Growth starts at 149 pounds a month for single-entity firms under 20 staff.
04
You want a published low price and already have bank cards
Zoho Expense: Free for up to three users, then 4 or 6 dollars per user monthly, with card spend entering as feeds.
05
Staff book a lot of travel
Navan: Business is free for travel up to 300 employees, and expense is free for five users, then 15 dollars each.
04
When Pleo is still the right choice
Pleo stays a reasonable choice when the aim is that employees pay by card and attach a receipt with little training, and when your ledger is one of the systems it lists: Xero, NetSuite, QuickBooks, FreeAgent, Xledger or Twinfield. Pleo reports more than 40,000 business customers in 16 European countries, so local support is not a worry. If the cost is the issue, compare Start and Build before leaving.
05
What moving off Pleo involves
01
Cards and open receipts need an orderly handover
Cards issued by Pleo stop when the account closes, so agree a date on which new cards go live and the old ones are frozen. Collect missing receipts and unsubmitted reimbursements first, since half-finished claims are the usual loose ends.
02
Recurring vendors and card subscriptions must be re-pointed
Pleo's higher plans track recurring vendors with dedicated vendor cards, up to 15 on Build and 50 on Optimise. List every subscription charged to those cards, then update the payment method at each supplier before the old card ends.
03
Accounting categories and tags have to match
Pleo allows custom categories and tags and exports them to your ledger. Export your current set and compare it with what the new tool can import, so that month-end codes stay the same and reports compare across the switch.
06
Questions about replacing Pleo
6 answers
How much does Pleo cost?
Pleo's UK page lists Start at 8 pounds per user monthly on monthly billing, Build at 14 pounds and Optimise at 18 pounds on yearly billing, with a minimum of three users on the two upper plans.
Each plan has a free trial button, but the length is not given.
Which accounting systems does Pleo connect to?
Its integrations page names Xero, NetSuite, QuickBooks, FreeAgent, Xledger and Twinfield, and shows a Show more button, so the list may be longer. FreeAgent works through a custom CSV export rather than a direct sync.
Is there a free expense tool in place of Pleo?
Zoho Expense has a free plan for up to three users, Ramp lists a Free plan, Brex an Essentials plan at no per-user fee, and Moss offers a free start with Cards or Accounts Payable.
Navan's expense is free for five users. Limits differ, so read each page.
Can I avoid paying per user?
Moss, Spendesk and Payhawk price by platform and volume or by modules rather than by seat. Spendesk states no monthly card or active-user fees. Soldo charges a flat monthly fee covering three users.
Do the alternatives issue cards in Europe?
Mooncard, Soldo, Spendesk and Payhawk operate from France, the United Kingdom and the EEA. Ramp lists local-currency cards in 30+ countries only on Enterprise, and Brex lists them under Smart Card. Zoho Expense issues none.
Where is Pleo based?
Pleo says it was founded in Copenhagen in 2015, and its pricing page names Pleo Technologies A/S in Copenhagen and Pleo Financial Services UK Ltd, authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority.
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Sources
Checked 3 November 2026
Pleo pricing (UK): Start 8, Build 14, Optimise 18 pounds per user; fees, limits, plan features, Pleo Technologies A/S.
Founder of The Knowledge Engineers and of 2 Steps Ahead, an AI search visibility agency. Editorially responsible for every page on this site; research and drafting are AI-assisted.
Author and fact-checker: Sebastiaan Smits. This page was last reviewed on 3 November 2026; our review process is public.
