What Receipt?Compare
Expensify for freelancers? A simpler option for solo work
Expensify is built for expense reports, approvals and teams. If you're one person tracking receipts for taxes, here's what actually matters, how Expensify's free and paid plans fit, and when What Receipt? is simpler.
Expensify is a well-known expense tool, and for good reason. It's built around expense reports: someone spends, submits a report, a manager approves it, and the company reimburses them or reconciles the corporate card. That's exactly right for a team. If you're a freelancer or a one-person business, though, nobody approves your expenses and nobody reimburses you. You just need every receipt captured, categorized and ready for tax time. Here's how the two compare for that job, as of October 2026.
What a freelancer actually needs
Before comparing apps, it helps to be clear about the job. For one person filing a Schedule C, a receipt system needs to:
- Capture everything quickly. Paper receipts before they fade, and emailed receipts before they're buried.
- Read the details for you. Vendor, date, total and tax, without typing.
- Sort by category. Ideally categories that map onto your tax form, so year-end is a sum, not a sorting job. (Here's a starting set.)
- Separate business from personal, and client from client. Especially if you bill some expenses back.
- Hand your accountant a clean export. Totals by category plus one row per receipt.
Approvals, reimbursements, policies and multi-person workflows don't appear on that list. That's the main difference between a team expense tool and a receipt app for one.
At a glance
| What Receipt? | Expensify | |
|---|---|---|
| Built around | Receipts for one person's records and taxes | Expense reports, approvals and reimbursement for teams |
| Free | 30 receipts a month, with categories, projects and CSV export | Unlimited SmartScans, mileage and CSV export; categories and tags need a paid workspace |
| Paid plan for one person | $6.99/month or $59/year (Pro), unlimited receipts | Collect, $5 per member a month (no annual option) |
| Team plans | No; one person per account, plus free read-only accountant links | Collect at $5 per member a month; Control from $18 per member a month on an annual plan |
| Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo, AOL, Fastmail and Zoho Mail auto-import (Pro); a forwarding address for any mailbox, including Outlook | Forward receipts to receipts@expensify.com | |
| Clients and projects | Tag any receipt by client, project or Personal | Tags (paid workspace) |
| Accounting software | Import files for QuickBooks Online (bank upload), Xero (bills) and Zoho Books; CSV and Excel | Direct QuickBooks Online and Xero connections (Collect); NetSuite, Sage Intacct and more (Control) |
| Mileage | No | Yes, free |
| Corporate cards and travel | No | Expensify Card, Expensify Travel |
| Apps | Web app on any phone or computer, Mac app; iPhone and Android coming | iPhone, Android, Mac, web |
| Local-only option | Mac Privacy Edition, $29 once, no account or cloud | No |
Expensify's details are from its pricing page and help articles on pricing and free features in October 2026. The $5 Collect price applies to organizations whose first workspace was created on or after April 1, 2025.
Where What Receipt? is the better fit
You're the only person in the workflow
Expensify's paid features assume a workspace with members, reports and approvers. As a freelancer you'd be submitting to yourself. What Receipt? has no reports or approval step: a receipt comes in, gets read, gets a category and a project, and it's done. Your weekly review is checking a list, not processing reports.
You want categories without paying
Expensify's free personal account scans unlimited receipts, which is generous. But per Expensify's help center, categories and tags need a paid workspace. For tax purposes, categories are the point. What Receipt? Free includes categories that learn from your corrections, plus projects and CSV export, for up to 30 receipts a month.
Your receipts are already in Gmail
Expensify takes email receipts you forward to receipts@expensify.com. What Receipt? Pro connects to Gmail and imports receipts on its own: the ones already in your inbox, including the last 90 days, and new ones within minutes. Import a past year catches up a whole tax year at once. If your receipts are scattered, here's how to find them in Gmail.
Your spending is mixed
A freelancer's receipts rarely sort neatly. There's the business card, the personal card that sometimes buys business things, and the client you bill expenses back to. What Receipt? tags every receipt with a project, such as a client, a side business or Personal. The Excel workbook gives monthly totals by category and by project, so your accountant sees only the business part.
You want missing renewals flagged
Software subscriptions are where freelancers most often lose receipts. What Receipt? spots recurring charges and tells you when one didn't show up this month, so a renewal sent to an old email address doesn't go missing at tax time.
You'd rather nothing left your computer
The Mac Privacy Edition is a one-time $29 purchase that reads, files and exports receipts entirely on your Mac. There's no account, no cloud copy and no subscription.
Where Expensify is the better fit
Expensify does a lot that What Receipt? doesn't, and if you need any of it, Expensify is the better choice:
- Someone else reimburses you, or you reimburse others. Expensify is built for submitting, approving and paying expense reports. If you're a contractor whose client wants reports in Expensify, use Expensify.
- You have a team, even a small one. Approvals, multiple members and admin controls are core to Expensify. What Receipt? is one person per account.
- You want a corporate card. The Expensify Card works with both the Collect and Control plans.
- You book business travel. Expensify Travel books flights, hotels, rail and rental cars, and creates the expenses and receipts for you.
- You need direct accounting sync. Collect connects to QuickBooks Online and Xero, and Control adds NetSuite, Sage Intacct and HR integrations. What Receipt? exports files that QuickBooks Online and Xero import (QuickBooks guide, Xero guide), but you do the import step.
- You track mileage. Expensify's free account includes distance tracking. What Receipt? doesn't track mileage.
- You want a native app in the App Store or Google Play today. What Receipt? runs in the browser on your phone for now.
- You want unlimited free scanning and don't need categories. If you'll sort receipts yourself later, Expensify's free account scans as many as you like.
Moving from Expensify
- In Expensify, export your expenses to CSV from the web (CSV export isn't available in the mobile app), and download the receipt images you want to keep.
- Start a free What Receipt? account and drop the receipt files in. They're read again automatically, so vendors, dates and totals come back without retyping.
- Connect Gmail (Pro) and use Import a past year to pull in emailed receipts, or set up your forwarding address in place of receipts@expensify.com.
- Keep your Expensify export somewhere safe. It's your record of what was already filed.
Questions
Is Expensify free for freelancers?
Partly. Per Expensify's help center, anyone with an account can scan unlimited receipts, forward receipts by email, track mileage and export to CSV for free. Categories, tags, approvals, reimbursement and accounting integrations need a paid workspace. Collect, the entry plan, is $5 per member a month.
Is What Receipt? cheaper than Expensify?
For one person, they're close. Expensify Collect is $5 a month. What Receipt? Pro is $6.99 a month or $59 a year, which works out to under $5 a month, with unlimited receipts and Gmail import. Under 30 receipts a month, What Receipt? is free, categories included.
Does What Receipt? do expense reports and approvals?
No. It's built for one person keeping receipts for their records and taxes. If you need to submit reports to someone for approval or reimbursement, Expensify is the better tool.
Does What Receipt? sync with QuickBooks or Xero?
It exports ready-made import files for QuickBooks Online (a bank upload) and Xero (bills), a Zoho Books import file, and plain CSV and Excel. It doesn't publish into them directly yet, so you do the import step.
Can I cancel What Receipt? any time?
Yes. Pro is billed monthly or yearly, and you can cancel from the billing page in Settings. You keep Pro until the end of the period you paid for.
Competitor details are from public pricing and help pages in October 2026 and may have changed. Spotted something out of date? Email hello@whatreceipt.app and we'll fix it.
