What are Ramp and Brex?

Ramp and Brex are corporate card and spend management platforms built specifically for startups and small businesses. Unlike traditional business credit cards, neither requires a personal guarantee or credit check. Instead, they underwrite based on your company's cash balance and financial health.

Both offer virtual cards for online spending while letting you control the company expenses on a single platform. With the integration of popular accounting tools like QuickBooks Online, Xero, and NetSuite, they also automate invoice processing and expense tracking.  

What is Ramp?

Ramp is an expense management platform best known for offering Ramp corporate cards and a strong focus on cost control. At the core, it helps teams spend less by making spending more visible and easier to manage.

Ramp leans heavily into detailed spend insights, automated expense categorization, and invoice workflows that reduce manual work for finance teams. Rather than competing on rewards, it positions itself around transparency, automation, and tighter controls. It also promotes savings through vendor insights and spend optimizations.

What is Brex?

Brex is a broader financial toolkit for smaller businesses and startups. It brings spend management, cash flow tools, and business banking into a single platform along with corporate cards.

Brex stands out for its rewards. It offers category-based multipliers on areas where businesses tend to spend the most, such as software, travel, and ads.

Brex vs Ramp alternative

Founders planning to take their business global choose Aspire for its multi-currency business account (MCAs)* along with global payment capacities to send 98+ major currencies globally. It is a one-stop financial stack for startups and businesses to manage their complete finance system on a single platform.

Aspire is built for globally distributed teams and founders who bank outside traditional US financial infrastructure. It offers a combination of high-interest business accounts¹ and treasury³ with cashback^ rewards on all eligible corporate card² spend, expense insights, and the highest FDIC insurance¹ compared to Brex or Ramp.

Key differences at a glance

While Ramp, Brex, and Aspire all offer expense management and financing solutions, their differences are in their features.

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Features and Functionality

Ramp Feature Highlights

Ramp's feature set is designed around one core principle: to help you save more money. Every tool, integration, and workflow pushes toward that goal.

• Robust spend optimizations. Ramp claims to save up to 5% on all your expenses via spend control and expense management.
  
• Real-time expense tracking and automated receipt matching. Ramp automatically captures transaction data and matches it with receipts. Your team can submit expenses from mobile or Slack, and finance gets clean, categorized data every time someone makes a transaction.
  
• Granular spend controls. Much like the major popular spend control platform, Ramp gives you the control to prevent overspending before it happens. It allows you to set limits by user, vendor, or category for each Ramp card.
  
• Strong integrations with accounting tools. Ramp syncs seamlessly with QuickBooks Online, Xero, NetSuite, and Sage Intacct. This reduces manual data entry and reconciliation time by maintaining direct transaction entry as soon as the transaction occurs.
  
• Bill pay and AP automation. Ramp offers invoice processing automation to handle payments, approval workflows, and payment scheduling, removing the need to manually handle invoices.
  
• Vendor insights and cost-saving recommendations. Ramp analyzes your spending patterns and flags opportunities to save.
  

Brex Feature Highlights

Brex is built for modern, fast-scaling companies, offering a basic banking solution as well. It doesn’t offer you cashback rewards; instead, it has a redeemable rewards points system.

• Categorized points system. Earn up to 7x points on rideshare and taxis, 4x on travel and restaurants, 3x on recurring software subscriptions, and 1x on everything else. For funded startups with heavy spending in these categories, the rewards add up faster.
  
• Brex AI Assistant. Brex uses AI to auto-categorize expenses, match receipts, and flag policy violations. The system learns from your company's spending patterns and gets more accurate over time, reducing the manual work required from finance teams.
  
• Global, multi-currency operations. Brex supports 210+ countries and up to 100 currencies. You can pay international vendors in their local currency, hold multiple currency balances, and move money across borders without relying on traditional wire transfers.
  
• Integrated business banking. Brex Cash accounts offer high-yield savings (rates vary based on market conditions), fast ACH transfers, and same-day domestic payments. You can hold operating capital in Brex and move it instantly to cover card spend or vendor payments.
  
• Startup-friendly underwriting and high credit limits. Brex evaluates your creditworthiness based on cash balance, revenue, and funding rather than personal credit scores. Funded startups typically receive credit limits that scale with their operations, often reaching six or seven figures.
  
• Travel and expense management. Brex includes integrated travel booking with real-time policy enforcement, automated per diems, and mileage tracking. Teams can book flights and hotels directly through the platform while staying within company policy.
  

Aspire Features Highlights

Aspire brings one finance platform for teams that operate across borders from day one. With Aspire, founders can manage all their finance-related workflows in one platform, right from opening a business banking account to issuing corporate cards² that take care of procurement and T&E expenses simultaneously.

• Multi-currency accounts. Hold balances in USD*, SGD*, EUR*, GBP*, and other major currencies. Pay vendors in their local currency without converting back to dollars first, reducing FX* costs and simplifying international operations.
  
• Corporate-card-style virtual cards with custom controls. Issue virtual cards² to team members with spending limits, vendor restrictions, and category controls. Each card functions like a traditional corporate card, but with the added flexibility of digital-first infrastructure.
  
• AP automation. Capture invoices, route them through approval workflows, and pay vendors in their local currency. Aspire handles the complexity of multi-currency AP without forcing you to manage multiple banking relationships.
  
• Low-cost foreign exchange. Aspire's FX* rates are normally more competitive than traditional banks or domestic-focused fintechs. For teams that move money internationally regularly, this can increase savings on currency exchanges.
  
• Integration with US accounting and payroll tools. Aspire syncs with accounting automation tools like QuickBooks and Xero, which most US startups commonly use. Transaction data flows directly into your books with proper currency handling and categorization.
  

Ramp vs Brex: Pros and Cons

Ramp Pros and Cons

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Brex Pros and Cons

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Which platform is best for you?

Selecting between Ramp vs Brex vs Aspire can be easy once you have mapped your startup goals. Based on what your business needs, founders can choose the finance platform that suits them the best.

Choose Ramp If You Value

• Expense management while already registered with a legacy bank
  

Ramp is an expense management platform, but it does not give you the benefits of business bank accounts. So, if your sole challenge is to gain control over your business expenses while a bank manages your money, Ramp is a good option.

• Deep AP-style automation and vendor-insight features.
  

If you're paying multiple vendors regularly and want to streamline bill pay, approvals, and reconciliations, Ramp's AP features are among the best in the market.

Choose Brex If You Prefer

• High-value rewards in key startup categories.
  

Funded startups that spend heavily on software, travel, and rideshare may maximize value from Brex's category multipliers. However, these are points and not monetary cashback that you can reinvest in your business.

• Integrated banking and AI-assisted expense workflows.
  

Brex consolidates banking, cards, and expense management into one platform. If you want to reduce the number of financial tools you're juggling, Brex's integrated approach makes sense.

Consider Aspire If You're Looking For

• Multi-currency accounts and low-cost FX.
  

Aspire is built for companies that operate globally from day one. If you're incorporated in the US but paying vendors in EUR*, GBP*, or SGD* regularly, Aspire's multi-currency infrastructure saves you time and money.

• Corporate-card-style controls plus strong AP automation.
  

Aspire combines the spend controls of platforms like Ramp with the multi-currency flexibility that domestic platforms lack. You get granular card controls, approval workflows, and invoice automation—all designed for global operations.

Final Verdict

Global News Wire predicts the expense management automation market will double by 2029. With more companies leaning towards payment and finance automation, choosing the right platform accelerates your growth.

Ramp is ideal for cost-conscious, early-stage teams that prioritize deeper insights and analysis of their spending patterns. Brex suits funded, global-facing startups that want to maximize rewards and consolidate financial tools. The category multipliers deliver real value for teams with heavy software and travel spend.

Aspire offers an alternative option for teams that need multi-currency flexibility and global-first infrastructure. If you're running a US-incorporated company but operating across multiple markets, Aspire gives you the tools to manage spend, pay vendors, and move money internationally—all from one platform.

Disclosure: AFT US LLC, d/b/a Aspire, is a financial technology company, not a bank. The Deposit Account and banking services are provided by Column N.A., Member FDIC. FDIC deposit insurance covers the failure of an insured depository institution. Deposits in the Deposit Account are FDIC-insured through Column N.A., Member FDIC and Column's Sweep Program Network Banks. Certain conditions must be satisfied for pass-through FDIC insurance to apply