Spendesk vs Airwallex: compare on fees, features and benefits

If you’re a busy finance team in a business with a headcount of over 100, chances are you’ll need help managing expenses. Spendesk and Airwallex are both popular spend management platforms with additional features to help streamline broader financial operations. 

Read on to find out which is best for you as we compare them on price, features and benefits.

What is Spendesk?

Founded in 2016, Spendesk is a spend management platform primarily designed to help businesses better control the expense process and manage company spending. Its features include card controls, spending limits, tracking tools, invoice management and spending reports. 

Spendesk also offers some additional financial operations features such as card issuing.

What is Airwallex?

Airwallex is an end-to-end spend management platform. In addition to expense management, we facilitate cross-border FX and bill payments, global entity management, and multi-currency cards.

Where Spendesk focuses on domestic expense management, Airwallex provides a platform to unify global spend management across entities. Airwallex features also extend beyond expense management, to payment acceptance/checkouts, multi-currency accounts in 23+ currencies, transfers & FX and international cards.

Airwallex is most suited for businesses with:

• International entities

• International vendors

• Multi-currency payment acceptance/checkout

• NetSuite integrations

Compare Spendesk with Airwallex

Use our comparison table to see how Spendesk measures up against Airwallex on fees, features and benefits.

*0% from wallet balance, otherwise FX fee of 0.5-1% may apply

For more information, see Sources & References section.

Spendesk fees explained

Spendesk charges a monthly subscription fee with three tiered plans available: Essential, Scale, Premium¹. It also charges an additional fee for every successful card transaction, both domestic and international.

• Monthly subscription fee: three plans: Essential (£199 p.m.), Scale (£599 p.m.) and Premium (from £1,499 p.m.). Each plan provides progressively more advanced capabilities and integrations.

• Transaction fee: the first transactions are free (100 for Scale, 500 for Premium), then come in pre-bought packages of 100 transactions for £50 (Scale) or 500 transactions for £150 (Premium). Transactions not bought in packages cost 75p each.

• Entity fee: £100 per additional entity.

• International transactions: an additional 3% is charged on every international transaction.

Airwallex fees explained

Airwallex also charges a monthly subscription and per user cost, but includes global business accounts, market-leading FX, international payouts and payment acquiring. This makes spend management a part of a holistic global payments platform for your business.

• Monthly subscription fee: Airwallex Spend features come in two plans: Grow (£49 p.m. - includes all spend features) or Accelerate (£999 p.m. - includes account management support, NetSuite integrations and global entity management).

• Per active user fee: first 5 active users free, then £6-12 per active user.

• Additional inclusions in Airwallex plans:

  • Global business accounts: free multi-entity, multi-currency business accounts for accepting and holding 23 currencies.

  • Borderless virtual cards: spend directly in 10+ currencies with virtual and physical cards without being charged any foreign transaction fees.

  • International FX and payments: free international payouts for 110+ countries. If you need to convert currency, our FX rates are interbank rate + 0.5% for USD, HKD, CNY, AUD, EUR, GBP, CAD, SGD, CHF, NZD, JPY, or 1.0% for all other currencies.

  • Payment acquiring: Airwallex supports online payments from 160+ local payment methods in 180+ countries, including digital wallets, cards and more.

For more information on Airwallex pricing please visit our pricing page.

Airwallex vs Spendesk additional features compared

There are some major differences between Spendesk and Airwallex. Let’s explore each in more detail so you can decide which suits you best.

Global entity management

• To manage multiple entities on Spendesk, finance managers must toggle between entities and duplicate workflows.

• Airwallex provides a single, centralised view of all entities.

Borderless cards

• Spendesk company cards are physical or virtual employee debit cards, with customisable budgets and the ability to set spending ‘rules’. They support all currencies supported by MasterCard3.

• Airwallex Borderless Cards can be used in 10+ currencies, or any currency supported by Visa. The first five employee cards are free.

International capabilities

• Spendesk charges FX on international transactions at 3% above the interbank rate. Its products do not include global payouts, multi-currency business accounts or international reimbursements, so users will need third parties to manage these (e.g. global banks).

• Airwallex is a more holistic financial solution, offering global multi-entity management, 0% international payouts and market-leading FX rates.

Accepting payments

• Spendesk is an expense management solution and does not function as a payment gateway.

• Airwallex supports online payments from 160+ local payment methods in 180+ countries, including digital wallets, cards and more.

Advanced expense management

• Spendesk offers sophisticated card controls with spending limits set by team and title, one-off approval cards, the ability to set employee ‘rules’ and approval requests.

• Airwallex lets you set budget limits, send international reimbursements, track and control spend, manage multi-layer approvals and submit expenses.

Final thoughts: Spendesk vs Airwallex

Spendesk is an expense management platform, whilst Airwallex is an end-to-end financial solution that covers expense management amid a broad suite of global payment capabilities. Although Spendesk offers sophisticated spend management features, it struggles to support businesses with international entities, employees or customers. It is also costly with expensive fixed monthly plans and variable transaction fees. As you grow internationally Airwallex will scale with you. By using our platform for business accounts, transfers, employee cards, FX and reporting features, you’ll be able to save money elsewhere. In contrast, Spendesk is likely to become more expensive and difficult to use as you scale globally.

Sources & References

For more information on Airwallex, visit Airwallex Business Account and Airwallex pricing.

• https://www.g2.com/products/spendesk/pricing

• https://www.saasgenius.com/reviews/spendesk/#pricing-

• https://helpcenter.spendesk.com/en/articles/4110745-supported-currencies

Disclaimer: We wrote this article in Q4 2024. The information was based on our own online research and we were not able to manually test each tool or provider. The information is provided for educational purposes only and a reader should consider the specific requirements of their business when evaluating providers. If you would like to request an update, feel free to contact us at [email protected].