Expensify vs Navan vs SAP Concur: AI expense audit and 2026 US pricing
Expensify, Navan and SAP Concur price US expense reporting on three different units, and that choice decides the bill more than any feature list. Expensify charges per member per month ($5 on Collect, $18 to $36 on Control), Navan Expense is free for the first five monthly expensing users and then $15 per user per month on its Navan Business plan, and SAP Concur charges per expense report, starting at $7 on Base and $11 on Plus with unlimited users. For a 25-person expensing team filing one report each a month, the published starting prices range from $125 to $900 a month before any discounts.
The AI layer differs just as much. Expensify documents SmartScan receipt extraction, line-item flags for prohibited purchases, and automatic duplicate and policy-violation detection. Navan documents point-of-sale policy guardrails, a conversational Expense Chat agent for US customers, and a set of admin companions that it announced in beta. SAP Concur sells audit as separate products, with Verify reviewing every expense report through machine learning and Intelligent Audit adding a team of human auditors on top of AI.
All prices and features below were checked on the vendors' official pricing pages, help centers and press releases on November 15, 2026. List prices are starting points: Concur states that its price varies with the monthly commitment, and both Navan Enterprise and Concur Premium are quoted on request.
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EXPENSIFY, NAVAN AND SAP CONCUR US PRICING MODELS.
Expensify publishes two workspace plans in its help center. Collect is billed pay-per-use at $5 per unique member per month. Control costs $18 per member per month on an annual subscription for the members included in the subscription size, plus $36 per active member above that size, or $36 per active member per month on pay-per-use. Control Annual customers can earn up to a 50% discount based on the share of approved USD spend paid with the Expensify Card, which takes the annual rate to as low as $9. Organizations whose first workspace was created before April 1, 2025 may still be on legacy Collect pricing of $5 annual or $10 pay-per-use per active member.
Navan's pricing page lists two tiers. Navan Business, for companies with up to 300 employees, shows a price of "Free" and states that Navan Expense is free for the first five monthly expensing users and then $15 per user per month. An active expense user is anyone who submits a transaction into Navan Expense, manually or through Navan Connect card feeds. Navan Enterprise, for larger organizations, includes unlimited travelers and expensing users and is priced by quote. Navan attributes the free business tier to commissions from travel providers, so the economics assume the company also books travel through Navan.
SAP Concur prices per report rather than per user. Base starts at $7 per report and includes Concur Expense. Plus starts at $11 per report and adds ExpenseIt receipt capture, a user support desk and reporting. Premium is custom priced and adds Concur Travel and Intelligence, among other products. Every plan allows unlimited users, and Concur notes that the per-report price falls as the contracted volume rises. The pricing page does not define what counts as a report or set a minimum commitment.
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Product and plan | Billing unit | Published US price | Users |
Expensify Collect | Unique member per month | $5 pay-per-use | Per member |
Expensify Control | Member per month | $18 annual, $36 pay-per-use, as low as $9 with Expensify Card | Per member |
Navan Business | Monthly expensing user | Free for 5 users, then $15 per user | Companies up to 300 employees |
Navan Enterprise | Quote | Not published | Unlimited |
SAP Concur Base | Expense report | From $7 per report | Unlimited |
SAP Concur Plus | Expense report | From $11 per report | Unlimited |
SAP Concur Premium | Quote | Not published | Unlimited |
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The billing unit changes which teams pay least. A per-member price punishes companies where many people file a single small claim a month, while a per-report price punishes teams that split expenses into many short reports. Navan's per-user price with five free seats favors very small teams and companies that also run travel through the platform.
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AI RECEIPT CAPTURE AND EXPENSE AUDIT FEATURES COMPARED.
Expensify's AI disclosure describes SmartScan as its patented receipt-scanning AI. It extracts merchant, date, total, currency and VAT amount, codes the expense and matches it to card transactions. SmartScan also flags prohibited purchases at the line-item level, with alcohol, gambling and gift cards given as examples, and duplicate and policy-violation detection runs automatically as expenses arrive. Concierge, Expensify's assistant, handles expense actions, spend analytics and workspace administration in natural language, and escalates what it cannot answer to a tiered human support team. Expensify's May 2025 announcement of the current Collect plan lists expense approvals, QuickBooks Online and Xero sync, Gusto and Zenefits sync, Expensify Cards with Smart Limits, and third-party card feeds with reconciliation. The Expensify pricing page lists integrations with QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, NetSuite, Xero, Sage Intacct and FinancialForce, without a feature-by-plan breakdown on the page that was fetched.
Navan's expense product page describes built-in spend policies that set guardrails before purchases happen, with out-of-policy transactions flagged for review, and a full audit trail on every expense covering the receipt, approval history, policy status and payment details. Navan Connect reports Visa, Mastercard and US-issued American Express transactions in real time from existing cards, and Navan corporate cards carry up to 1.5% back. The page names integrations with NetSuite, QuickBooks Online, Xero, Sage and Datev. On March 5, 2026, Navan launched Expense Chat, an agent that takes several receipt images or a mileage claim, extracts merchant details, codes the entries, asks for missing information and submits on the user's behalf; the release says it is available to US-based customers. On May 13, 2026, Navan announced an Expense Admin Companion that reviews flagged spend and recommends a next step, plus receipt capture by narrated video. Navan stated that roughly 73% of expenses are auto-approved under predefined policies and that the companion targets the remaining 27%. Those features were described as in beta with rollout to follow, so availability should be confirmed with Navan before it counts in an evaluation.
SAP Concur splits capture, automated audit and human audit into named products. ExpenseIt receipt capture is part of the Plus plan. Concur Verify, according to its product page, uses AI and machine learning embedded in the expense solution to review 100% of expense reports and surface duplications, errors and out-of-policy spending. Concur Detect analyzes expense reports with AI and machine learning to speed up auditing and resolve noncompliance. Intelligent Audit adds a global team of human auditors who match each expense to its date, amount, vendor and expense type, check itemizations and receipt clarity, validate tax values against the receipt, and resolve exceptions directly with employees. The Concur pricing page does not tie Verify, Detect or Intelligent Audit to any of the three plans, so they should be treated as items to price separately.
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Capability | Expensify | Navan | SAP Concur |
Receipt extraction | SmartScan | Receipt photo, Expense Chat (US) | ExpenseIt (Plus and above) |
Automated policy check | Automatic on arrival | Guardrails before purchase | Verify, Detect (separate products) |
Duplicate detection | Documented | Not documented on product page | Verify |
Human audit service | Not documented | Not documented | Intelligent Audit |
Conversational assistant | Concierge | Expense Chat, Admin Companion (beta) | Joule listed in plan table |
Named US accounting sync | QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, Sage Intacct | QuickBooks Online, Xero, NetSuite, Sage | Not listed on pricing page |
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For teams evaluating receipt tools alone, the earlier comparison of Dext, Hubdoc and QuickBooks receipt capture covers extraction limits in more depth, and the Ramp, BILL and Brex AP automation comparison covers the card-led platforms that bundle expenses with bill pay.
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WORKED COST EXAMPLE: 25 AND 80 MONTHLY EXPENSE SUBMITTERS.
The two illustrative scenarios below apply the published starting prices to a company with 25 monthly expense submitters filing one report each, and to a company with 80 submitters filing 100 reports a month in total. Both companies fall within Navan Business's 300-employee limit. Taxes, implementation fees, card rebates other than Expensify's documented discount, and negotiated Concur volume pricing are excluded, so the figures show how each billing unit behaves and are not quotes.
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Plan (illustrative) | 25 submitters, 25 reports: monthly | Annual | 80 submitters, 100 reports: monthly | Annual |
Expensify Collect | $125 | $1,500 | $400 | $4,800 |
Expensify Control annual | $450 | $5,400 | $1,440 | $17,280 |
Expensify Control annual, full card discount | $225 | $2,700 | $720 | $8,640 |
Expensify Control pay-per-use | $900 | $10,800 | $2,880 | $34,560 |
Navan Business | $300 | $3,600 | $1,125 | $13,500 |
SAP Concur Base, from $7 | $175 | $2,100 | $700 | $8,400 |
SAP Concur Plus, from $11 | $275 | $3,300 | $1,100 | $13,200 |
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The Navan figures subtract the five free users before applying $15 per user, so 25 submitters cost 20 times $15, or $300 a month. The Concur figures multiply reports by the starting rate, which means a team that files 1.25 reports per person pays more per head than one that consolidates claims into a single monthly report. Expensify Control on an annual subscription is priced per member included in the subscription size, so the example assumes the subscription size equals the number of submitters; members above that size would be billed at $36.
Collect is the cheapest line in both scenarios, but its published feature list names QuickBooks Online and Xero sync. A company on NetSuite or Sage Intacct should confirm which Expensify plan its integration requires before treating the $5 rate as comparable. In the same way, Concur's starting rates cover Concur Expense on Base, while automated audit through Verify or Detect sits outside the published plan lists and adds to the per-report cost.
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A TEST PACK FOR CHECKING AI EXPENSE AUDIT RESULTS.
Vendor demos show clean receipts. A more useful trial runs a small set of claims with known errors through each product and compares the flags against the answer key. The illustrative set below uses four policy rules: a receipt is required at $75 or more, meals are capped at $150 per claim, the same merchant, date and amount twice is a possible duplicate, and software subscriptions must go through accounts payable and are not reimbursable.
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ID | Merchant | Date | Category | Claimed | Receipt total |
E-101 | Hotel, Chicago | 2026-10-06 | Lodging | $412.80 | $412.80 |
E-102 | Client dinner | 2026-10-07 | Meals | $186.40 | $168.40 |
E-103 | Rideshare | 2026-10-07 | Ground transport | $38.25 | $38.25 |
E-104 | Team lunch | 2026-10-08 | Meals | $96.00 | No receipt |
E-105 | Rideshare | 2026-10-07 | Ground transport | $38.25 | $38.25 |
E-106 | Software subscription | 2026-10-09 | Software | $49.00 | $49.00 |
E-107 | Airport parking | 2026-10-10 | Parking | $72.00 | $72.00 |
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The correct result, computed independently, flags four of the seven claims. E-102 carries two exceptions: the claimed amount exceeds the receipt by $18.00, and the claim is $36.40 over the meal cap; even at the receipt total of $168.40 it would remain $18.40 over the cap. E-104 is a $96.00 claim with no receipt. E-105 duplicates E-103. E-106 is out of policy because software is not reimbursable. The three clean claims, E-101, E-103 and E-107, total $523.05, and the four held claims total $369.65, out of $892.70 submitted.
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ID | Expected flag | Amount at issue |
E-102 | Amount mismatch; over meal cap | $18.00 mismatch; $36.40 over cap |
E-104 | Missing receipt | $96.00 |
E-105 | Possible duplicate of E-103 | $38.25 |
E-106 | Not reimbursable (software) | $49.00 |
E-101, E-103, E-107 | No flag | $523.05 approved |
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The same answer key can be reproduced in Excel on an export with ID, merchant, date, category, claimed amount and receipt total in columns A to F, so the reviewer can check any product's flags line by line:
G2: =IF(AND(F2<>"",ABS(E2-F2)>0.005),"Amount mismatch","")
H2: =IF(AND(F2="",E2>=75),"Missing receipt","")
I2: =IF(AND(D2="Meals",E2>150),"Over meal cap","")
J2: =IF(COUNTIFS(B$2:B2,B2,C$2:C2,C2,E$2:E2,E2)>1,"Possible duplicate","")
K2: =IF(D2="Software","Not reimbursable","")A product that misses E-105 is not catching same-day duplicates, one that passes E-102 is reading the claimed amount instead of the receipt, and one that flags E-103 as well as E-105 may hold the original claim along with the copy. Each of these failures has a direct cost in a monthly close, because held or wrongly paid claims flow into the month-end accrual estimate for unreimbursed employee expenses.
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CONTROLS AND DATA HANDLING TO CONFIRM BEFORE SIGNING.
Approval authority should stay with people even when the software recommends an action. Navan describes its Admin Companion as something finance leaders can delegate approvals to, and reports that most expenses are auto-approved by policy; a controller should decide which categories and amounts may be auto-approved and keep an exception report of what the AI approved. Concur's Intelligent Audit puts human auditors on exceptions, which suits companies with audit or tax reclaim requirements across many countries, but it is a separate service to price.
Data handling documentation is uneven. Expensify's AI disclosure explains that Concierge is trained on Expensify's help documentation and supervised by human responders, and that its MCP access uses OAuth 2.1 scoped to the authenticating account, but the page does not say whether customer expense data is used for model training or which third-party AI providers are involved. Navan and Concur product pages describe the AI functions without stating training or retention terms. Those answers belong in the security questionnaire and the contract, together with where receipt images are stored and for how long.
The accounting sync deserves a test of its own. Card transactions, reimbursable claims and policy-rejected items should post to the right accounts and vendors in the general ledger, and the integration list should be checked against the ERP actually in use. Teams choosing between ledgers can compare NetSuite and Sage Intacct licensing before fixing the expense tool, since a change of ERP often forces a change of expense integration.
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CHOOSING BETWEEN EXPENSIFY, NAVAN AND SAP CONCUR IN 2026.
On published prices, Expensify Collect is the lowest-cost option for small US teams on QuickBooks Online or Xero, Navan Business is the most economical for very small teams and for companies that will also book travel through Navan, and SAP Concur's per-report pricing favors organizations with many occasional submitters who each file few reports. Expensify Control at $18 to $36 per member is the most expensive line unless most spend runs through the Expensify Card.
On AI audit, Expensify documents automated duplicate, policy and line-item checks inside the core product, Navan focuses on preventing out-of-policy spend at the point of purchase and on conversational submission, and SAP Concur offers the deepest audit stack through Verify, Detect and human Intelligent Audit, each priced outside the published plans. Navan's admin companion and video receipts were announced as beta in May 2026, Concur's per-report rate depends on contracted volume, and none of the three vendors publishes its AI training and retention terms on the pages reviewed, so those points need written answers before a contract is signed.
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