# Expense management: what AI models recommend, October 2026

Finance AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition. Asked as "expense management software" and as "employee expense reporting tool", six framings each, to fourteen models with search on, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. Page: https://finance-ai-index.com/spend/expense-management/

**Standing:** Ramp leads with 35% of first choices; verdict contested. 52 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| # | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ramp | 35% | 8% | 53 |
| 2 | Zoho Expense | 21% | 5% | 38 |
| 3 | Expensify | 10% | 17% | 64 |
| 4 | BILL Spend & Expense | 6% | 11% | 46 |
| 5 | Brex | 4% | 12% | 34 |
| 6 | Navan | 4% | 7% | 27 |
| 7 | Rippling Spend | 4% | 8% | 24 |
| 8 | SAP Concur | 4% | 44% | 45 |
| 9 | Spendesk | 2% | 0% | 11 |
| 10 | Emburse | 0% | 0% | 14 |
| 11 | Rydoo | 0% | 30% | 10 |

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: Ramp, Spendesk; alternatives Airbase, BILL Spend & Expense, Brex, Navan
- GPT-5.4 mini: Rippling Spend; alternatives Brex, Navan, Payhawk, Ramp
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Ramp; alternatives Airbase, Brex, Navan, Rippling Spend
- Perplexity Sonar: Payhawk; alternatives BILL Spend & Expense, Expensify, Procurify, SAP Concur
- Grok 4.1 Fast: Navan; alternatives Expensify, Rippling Spend
- Mistral Small: Airbase; alternatives BILL Spend & Expense, Eco, Ramp
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Airbase, Ramp; alternatives Brex, Payhawk
- Llama 4 Maverick: no first choice
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Brex, Ramp; alternatives BILL Spend & Expense, Expensify, Rydoo
- Kimi K2: Expensify, Ramp; alternatives Brex, Emburse
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Airbase, Ramp; alternatives Expensify, Rippling Spend, SAP Concur, Zoho Expense
- MiniMax M2.5: Expensify, Rippling Spend, SAP Concur; alternatives Airwallex, BILL Spend & Expense, Navan, Paylocity
- GPT-6 Luna: Ramp; alternatives Brex, Navan, SAP Concur
- Muse Glimmer 30B: Navan, SAP Concur; alternatives Airbase, Paylocity, Rippling Spend, Rydoo

## Sources the answers cite

77 of 84 answers came back with a source list, from 14 of 14 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- bill.com: 42 answers, 62 citations
- ofx.com: 36 answers, 36 citations
- ramp.com: 34 answers, 52 citations
- airwallex.com: 33 answers, 41 citations
- learn.g2.com: 30 answers, 40 citations
- g2.com: 29 answers, 47 citations
- brex.com: 28 answers, 36 citations
- emburse.com: 27 answers, 37 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://ofx.com/en-us/blog/best-expense-management-software-solutions (34 answers)
- https://bill.com/blog/best-expense-management-software (24 answers)
- https://airwallex.com/en-us/blog/best-expense-management-software (22 answers)
- https://emburse.com/resources/best-expense-management-software (21 answers)
- https://spendesk.com/blog/best-expense-management-software (17 answers)
- https://g2.com/categories/expense-management (16 answers)
- https://learn.g2.com/best-expense-management-software (16 answers)
- https://learn.g2.com/expense-management-software-for-mid-market-teams (16 answers)
- https://rippling.com/blog/best-expense-management-software-for-your-company (16 answers)
- https://techrepublic.com/article/expense-management-software (16 answers)

## Warned against

- Expensify: 11 of 64 labels negative. "criticized for complex and unintuitive interfaces, unexpected fees, unreliable credit card syncing, and poor customer support" (Mistral Small, negative prompt)
- SAP Concur: 20 of 45 labels negative. "Cautions: Slow OCR, rigid workflows, and approver experience issues are common in larger enterprise rollouts." (Muse Glimmer 30B, negative prompt)
- BILL Spend & Expense: 5 of 46 labels negative. "BILL/Divvy (bugs and support)" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt)
- Brex: 4 of 34 labels negative. "Brex (Avoid if you are a bootstrapped or traditional small business)" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt)

## Movement since September 2026

Floor: 10 points of share, measured on the calibration repeat.
Same leader: Ramp at 33%.

- Spendesk: 11% to 2%, −8. Inside the floor by 2 points · rank 3 → 9 of 46.
- Expensify: 4% to 11%, +7. Inside the floor by 3 points · rank 6 → 3 of 46.
- Zoho Expense: 17% to 22%, +5. Inside the floor by 5 points · rank 2 of 46, unchanged.
- Airbase: 2% to 7%, +5. Inside the floor by 5 points · rank 10 → 5 of 46.
- Brex: 0% to 4%, +4. Inside the floor by 6 points · rank 13 → 6 of 46.
- Rippling Spend: 9% to 4%, −4. Inside the floor by 6 points · rank 4 → 7 of 46.
- Navan: 4% to 2%, −2. Inside the floor by 8 points · rank 7 → 8 of 46.
- BILL Spend & Expense: 9% to 7%, −2. Inside the floor by 8 points · rank 5 → 4 of 46.
- Ramp: 34% to 33%, −1. Inside the floor by 9 points · rank 1 of 46, unchanged.
- SAP Concur: 2% to 2%, ±0. Inside the floor by 10 points · rank 9 → 12 of 46.
- Emburse: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 10 points · rank 14 → 13 of 46.

## Record

- Method: https://finance-ai-index.com/methodology/
- Raw judge labels and full responses: https://finance-ai-index.com/data/
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Finance AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition, finance-ai-index.com.