Comparison

Pleo vs Circula

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Pleo

Streamline business expenses with a leading European spend platform. Automate spending, receipt submission, and reimbursements without extra tools or delays. Gain real-time visibility and manage budgets efficiently.

Highlights
  • Instant spending with physical or virtual cards
  • Snap receipts to ditch manual expense reports
  • Quick reimbursement without payroll delays
  • Real-time transaction visibility
  • Smart spend limits and approval flows
  • Automated reconciliation for accounting
Features
Read full description

Your business expenses, streamlined. Welcome to Pleo, Europe's leading business spend platform. Trusted by 40,000+ companies across Europe, we give you everything you need to spend, submit, and get reimbursed, built for how your business works. No extra tools. No expense report headaches. No waiting until payday to get your money back. For you Spend instantly with a physical or virtual Pleo card. Snap a receipt in seconds and ditch manual expense reports forever. Get reimbursed quickly, without waiting for the next payroll cycle. Track your money and see exactly what you've spent and where. For your finance team Real-time visibility across every single transaction. Smart spend limits, approval flows, and budgets all in one place. Accounts payable managed smoothly from purchase to payment. Direct sync with your existing accounting system. Automated reconciliation so month-end closing takes minutes, not days. How it works Make a purchase, snap your receipt, and you're done. Your finance team sees it instantly. No chasing, no spreadsheets, no surprises at month-end. Pleo is available across 16 European markets. Fully regulated and built to scale with your business.

About

Circula

Streamline employee expense, credit card, and benefit management with this digital and automated solution. It offers seamless integrations with financial and HR systems, ensuring a compliant and efficient end-to-end process. Enhance employee satisfaction and strengthen your employer brand with hassle-free administration.

Highlights
  • Mobile app with OCR Scanner & web-app
  • Automated per diem calculation & currency conversion
  • Up-to-date travel expenses and tax guidelines
  • Automatic receipt control
  • Automatic expense creation & auto-receipt matching
  • Integrations to DATEV, Personio, TravelPerk
  • Configurable workflows & travel policies
Features
Read full description

With Circula, your business expenses manage themselves. Circula is the flexible spend management platform for European finance teams, bringing employee & travel expenses, corporate credit cards, accounts payable, and employee benefits together in one app. From the first receipt to the pre-accounted booking in your downstream system, Circula closes the loop. With Circula you can: • Get per diem rates for trips calculated automatically • Snap a photo of a receipt or invoice, no more manual data entry • Pay directly with physical or virtual company credit cards • Get invoices captured automatically and routed for approval • Approve your team's expenses on the go • Keep an overview of the benefits budget and use it with ease • Catch duplicates and policy violations before they become a problem • Export clean, GoBD-compliant data straight to financial and payroll accounting Compliance isn't an afterthought at Circula, it's part of every process from day one. Circula keeps data clean, tax-compliant, and audit-ready, without any manual effort. Thanks to Circula AI, more than 60% of all expenses are already export-ready at the moment of submission, with no manual work for accounting required. More than 3,000 companies and 250,000 users in over 25 countries worldwide trust Circula, including About You, DATEV, Deutsche Fußball Liga, Noerr, and Securitas. Circula was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Berlin. Download Circula today.

Screenshots

Pleo4 screens
Circula4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is monetization model: Pleo at free against Circula's freemium. Pleo also leads on update cadence (weekly vs every 3 weeks) and iOS requirement (16.0 vs 18.0). Circula's advantage is review sentiment (46% vs 25%). On price, rating, ratings volume and ads there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for Pleo against 4.6 for Circula. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 191 and 72 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 25% of Pleo's written reviews are positive against 46% of Circula's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Pleo ships an update weekly, Circula every 3 weeks. Both last shipped on November 6, 2026.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Pleo versus Circula: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPleoCircula
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (191 ratings) — better4.6 (72 ratings)
Positive reviews25.0% of reviews45.8% of reviews — better
Number of ratings191 — better72
Update frequencyWeekly — betterEvery 3 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree — betterFreemium
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad — better
Requires iOS16.0 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size154 MB336 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperPleo Technologies ApSCircula GmbH

Customer experience

Pleo

All ratings191 ratings
Positive92.1%
Neutral2.1%
Negative5.8%
Written reviews128 reviews
Positive25.0%
Neutral8.6%
Negative66.4%

Circula

All ratings69 ratings
Positive92.8%
Neutral1.4%
Negative5.8%
Written reviews48 reviews
Positive45.8%
Neutral20.8%
Negative33.3%

Bugs and requests

Pleo

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Missing 'New Expense' button
  • Disappearing receipt upload button
  • Inconsistent behavior with Face ID/Touch ID
  • Expenses not syncing properly across devices

Requested features

4 requests
  • Customizable expense categories
  • Integration with accounting software
  • Ability to split expenses between personal and business
  • Real-time balance visibility on the card

Circula

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Pleo

No in-app purchases

None

Circula

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Pleo free?
Pleo is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Circula free?
Circula is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Pleo or Circula?
Pleo is rated higher. Pleo averages 4.7 out of 5 from 191 ratings, while Circula averages 4.6 from 72 ratings.
Do Pleo or Circula have ads?
Neither Pleo nor Circula shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Pleo or Circula?
Pleo ships an update weekly, and Circula every 3 weeks. Most recently, Pleo was updated on November 6, 2026 and Circula on November 6, 2026.

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