Two different jobs. Pick the tool built for the one you actually have.
Expensify is a strong product for what it was designed to do: employees submit expenses, managers approve them, finance reimburses them. If you're a sole trader, a freelancer, or a small company owner, you don't have that problem. You have receipts, a bank account, and a tax return, and that's the job SparkReceipt is built for.
Business Owners in 175 Countries Trust SparkReceipt
An honest look at where each one fits.
At three people, the sticker prices are almost identical. Expensify Collect is £5 per member per month, so three members is around £15/month. SparkReceipt Elite is £9.08/month billed annually with 1 user included, more at a per-user rate.
So don't switch to save a pound. The differences that matter are structural.
Expensify charges per member, so cost tracks headcount. Bring in a fourth and fifth person and Collect scales with them. Move up to Control for approval flows, custom rules, or ERP integration and pricing is custom, from as low as £7 per active member a month with an annual commitment and the Expensify Card. SparkReceipt includes 1 user, with more at a flat per-user rate, and your accountant joins free.
Expensify's free plan is for submitting, not bookkeeping. The free Submit plan comes with a monthly allowance of free SmartScans, while the QuickBooks and Xero integrations sit on Collect and above. It's worth knowing before you build a workflow on the free plan.
| Expensify | SparkReceipt Elite | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Employee expense reimbursement | Owners and freelancers keeping their own records |
| Pricing model | Per member, per month (Collect £5; Control custom, as low as £7) | 1 user included, flat per-user rate; accountant free |
| Receipt scanning | SmartScan | AI extraction with line items |
| Bank statement extraction | Not offered; focused on card transaction imports | Included, each line matched to a receipt |
| Income tracking | Expense and reimbursement focused | Auto-detects expense vs income |
| Approval workflows | Extensive, multi-stage | Not the focus |
| Corporate cards | Expensify Card | Not offered |
| Travel booking | Built in | Not offered |
| Accounting sync | QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, Sage Intacct | QuickBooks Online, Xero, Zapier, Make |
| AI | AI and human support | SparkAgent, an AI agent that acts on your records |
| Free trial | Free Submit plan | 7 days, full access |
That's a real product for a real problem, and if it describes you, Expensify is the better fit. We'd rather tell you that than sell you the wrong thing.
Bank statement extraction and matching. Upload a PDF, CSV, or Excel statement and the bank statement extractor pulls out every transaction, then matches each one against the receipts in your archive. Unmatched transactions are flagged. Expensify imports card transactions but doesn't extract bank statements, and this is the step that turns a pile of receipts into books that reconcile.
Income, not just expenses. SparkReceipt works out whether a document is money in or money out and files it accordingly. Sales invoices and purchase receipts live together. Expensify is oriented around spend.
Extraction that reasons about the document. The receipt scanner reads the whole receipt in context: language, currency, the country it came from and how tax applies there, and the individual line items. Unfamiliar suppliers and crumpled till receipts are handled the same as clean digital invoices.
190 currencies. Each receipt is processed in its original currency and converted at the rate that applied on the purchase date.
Records that suit Making Tax Digital. MTD for Income Tax requires digital records of business income and expenses, and SparkReceipt keeps those linked to the underlying document. SparkReceipt is not HMRC-recognised filing software and doesn't submit your quarterly updates; you'll use MTD-compatible filing software for that, and MTD-ready record keeping explains the handoff. It keeps the records clean so that step is quick.
SparkAgent. A built-in AI agent you can hand work to in plain language: search, categorise a batch, summarise a period, update records.
Expensify pricing above is taken from Expensify's pricing page in GBP as of September 2026. Plans and pricing change, so check expensify.com for current figures. SparkReceipt is not affiliated with or endorsed by Expensify.
Each extra user: £0.75/month, billed £9 annually. Accountant access is free.
The essentials for keeping your receipts and expenses organised.
Total for 1 user · £59.00 billed annually
+ VAT/GST where applicable
Get Started7-day free trial
50 documents / month
For receipts and invoices
More receipts, more automation. Less to do yourself.
Total for 1 user · £109.00 billed annually
+ VAT/GST where applicable
Get Started7-day free trial
Unlimited documents*
Everything in Pro, plus:
Elite, with hands-on setup from a SparkReceipt founder.
£350 one-time setup + £109.00/year Elite for 1 user
+ VAT/GST where applicable
Get the Founder packAnnual plan only · No free trial
Everything in Elite
Plus a working session with a founder:
Unlimited linked accounts on every plan.
Unlimited document scanning on Elite is subject to fair use. Bank statement extraction uses monthly renewable credits. Historical email imports include a free allowance; larger imports use credits, with the cost shown before you start.
“SparkReceipt is one of the very few software purchased that exceeded my expectations. Great product, great features, great value.”
Robert Connolly
The Internet Design Co. · Scotland
“I needed a solution to organize and process my personal and business receipts. I'm thrilled I found SparkReceipt. It saves me a lot of time!”
Frédéric Thériault
Productions Locavores · Canada
“Thanks to SparkReceipt I have a quick look to my business accounts status in a glance. It is really impressive.”
Rafael Roa
System Arquitectura · Spain
Join 38,283 businesses that chose SparkReceipt — 4,620,044 receipts processed and counting.
Start Free TrialFor a small team they're close. Expensify Collect is £5 per member per month, so roughly £15/month for three. SparkReceipt Elite is £9.08/month billed annually with 1 user included and more at a per-user rate. The difference shows up as your team grows, because Expensify scales per member from £5 and Control pricing starts from £14 per active member per month. It also shows up in what's included, particularly bank statement extraction and matching.
SparkReceipt, if the job is keeping your own records rather than reimbursing staff. Expensify's core strength is the submit–approve–reimburse cycle, which sole traders don't have. SparkReceipt focuses on capturing receipts, extracting bank statements, matching the two, and producing records you or your accountant can file from.
No. Expensify handles receipt capture, card feeds, and reimbursement. Uploading a PDF, CSV, or Excel bank statement and extracting every transaction from it, then matching those transactions to your receipts, is a SparkReceipt capability that Expensify does not offer.
Yes, for submitting expenses. Expensify's free Submit plan comes with a monthly allowance of free SmartScans. Collect, at £5 per member per month, adds company features such as approvals, reimbursements and the QuickBooks and Xero integrations. Check the free plan against your workflow before building on it.
No, and deliberately so. Multi-stage approvals, expense policies, and reimbursement runs are Expensify's territory and it does them well. SparkReceipt is built for the owner or freelancer recording their own spending, with an accountant alongside them rather than an approval chain.
Yes, both directly, plus Zapier, Make, and Google Drive. Expensify additionally integrates with NetSuite and Sage Intacct, so if you're on either of those ERPs that's a genuine point in its favour.
Yes. The Elite plan includes 1 user, with more available at a per-user rate, and inviting your accountant is always free. It never uses a paid seat. They work in the same account rather than receiving exports.
Yes. SparkReceipt reads receipts in virtually any language and processes 190 currencies, converting each at the exchange rate that applied on the purchase date rather than today's rate.
Yes. It detects whether a document is an expense or income and categorises accordingly, so sales invoices sit alongside purchase receipts in one archive. Expensify is oriented around spend and reimbursement.
