What Receipt?Compare
What Receipt? vs Shoeboxed: an honest comparison
How What Receipt? and Shoeboxed compare on price, scan limits, Gmail import, mail-in paper scanning and accounting exports, including where Shoeboxed is the better pick.
Shoeboxed has been around since 2007, and it does something most receipt apps don't: you mail it a stack of paper receipts and they come back as organized, checked data. If you're weighing it against What Receipt?, the real differences come down to three things: how much paper you have, how many receipts you get for the price, and whether you need direct accounting sync and several users today. Here's the comparison, as of October 2026.
At a glance
| What Receipt? | Shoeboxed | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes, 30 receipts a month, no card needed | No (30-day money-back guarantee; card charged at sign-up) |
| Entry price | $6.99/month or $59/year | $9/month or $97/year (Starter) |
| Receipts on the entry plan | Unlimited | 50 digital scans a month, 20 paper scans a year |
| Gmail import | Included in Pro, $6.99/month or $59/year | Pro plan and up, $29/month or $297/year |
| Mail-in paper scanning | No | Yes, the Magic Envelope (1 a year on Starter, 1 a quarter on Pro, 1 a month on Plus) |
| Capture | Camera (several in a row), photos, PDFs, screenshots | Mobile app, web upload, email, mail-in |
| Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo, AOL, Fastmail and Zoho Mail auto-import (Pro); a forwarding address for any mailbox, including Outlook | Gmail receipt sync (Pro and up), a Shoeboxed email address | |
| Accounting software | Import files for QuickBooks Online (bank upload), Xero (bills) and Zoho Books; CSV and Excel | QuickBooks Online and Xero integrations (Pro and up); CSV on every plan |
| Projects and clients | Tag any receipt by client, project or Personal | Categories and reports |
| Recurring charges | Detected automatically, with alerts when one goes missing | Not listed |
| Mileage | No | Yes, on every plan |
| Users | One person per account; free read-only accountant links | 3 on Starter, 5 on Pro, 10 on Plus |
| Apps | Web app on any phone or computer, Mac app; iPhone and Android coming | iPhone, Android, web |
| Local-only option | Mac Privacy Edition, $29 once, no account or cloud | No |
Shoeboxed's prices are list prices from its pricing page in October 2026, before any promotional discount. It also has a Plus plan ($79/month or $797/year) and a Paper Plus plan for heavy paper volume ($179/month or $1,997/year).
Where What Receipt? is the better fit
Most of your receipts are digital already
For a lot of people today, receipts arrive by email: subscriptions, online orders, rides, software. What Receipt? Pro imports them from Gmail automatically, including the last 90 days, and Import a past year catches up a whole tax year. That's included at $6.99 a month or $59 a year. On Shoeboxed, Gmail receipt sync starts on the Pro plan at $29 a month or $297 a year.
You don't want to count scans
Shoeboxed's Starter plan covers 50 digital scans a month and 20 paper scans a year, with per-scan charges after that. What Receipt? Pro has no receipt limit, so a busy month costs the same as a quiet one.
You want a free plan that stays free
If you only have a handful of receipts, What Receipt? is free for up to 30 a month: capture, automatic reading, vendor clean-up, categories, projects and CSV export, with no card on file. Shoeboxed doesn't have a free plan. It has a 30-day money-back guarantee, and your card is charged when you sign up.
Your spending is mixed
Most people's receipts don't sort neatly. There's a business card, a personal card that sometimes buys business things, a client you bill expenses back to. What Receipt? lets you tag every receipt with a project, such as a client, a side business or Personal, and exports totals by project as well as by category. One app handles all of it, and your accountant gets only the business part.
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 Shoeboxed is the better fit
We'd rather you pick the right tool than the wrong one:
- You have a lot of paper. This is Shoeboxed's real strength. You fill a prepaid Magic Envelope (postage is prepaid within the US), mail it in, and Shoeboxed scans the receipts, extracts the data, has people check it, and uploads it to your account. You choose whether the originals are returned or shredded. If you have a shoebox of old receipts and no time, that's hard to beat. What Receipt? only reads what you photograph or upload yourself.
- You want a person to check the data. Shoeboxed pairs automatic extraction with human verification. What Receipt? reads receipts automatically and learns from your corrections, but no one reviews them for you.
- You need direct accounting sync now. Shoeboxed's Pro plan and up connect to QuickBooks Online and Xero. What Receipt? exports files those apps import (see the guides for QuickBooks Online and Xero), and Zoho Books has a ready-made import file, but you do the import step.
- Several people submit receipts. Every Shoeboxed plan includes multiple users, from 3 on Starter to 10 on Plus. What Receipt? is one person per account.
- You track mileage. Shoeboxed includes a mileage tracker on every plan; What Receipt? doesn't track mileage.
- You want a native app in the App Store or Google Play today. Shoeboxed has iPhone and Android apps. What Receipt? runs in the browser on your phone for now.
Switching from Shoeboxed
- In Shoeboxed, export your receipts (CSV for the data, PDF for the images) and keep the files. Shoeboxed's own FAQ suggests exporting your account data before you cancel.
- Start a free What Receipt? account and drop in the receipt images or PDFs you want to keep working with. 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.
- For paper you get from now on, snap it with your phone's camera. You can take several in a row.
- When you're ready to leave, Shoeboxed's FAQ says to contact its billing team to cancel.
Questions
Is What Receipt? cheaper than Shoeboxed?
For most digital receipts, yes. What Receipt? Pro is $6.99 a month or $59 a year with unlimited receipts and Gmail import. Shoeboxed starts at $9 a month or $97 a year for 50 digital scans a month, and Gmail sync starts on its Pro plan at $29 a month or $297 a year. Under 30 receipts a month, What Receipt? is free.
Can I mail my paper receipts to What Receipt?
No. What Receipt? reads receipts you photograph, upload or forward. If you'd rather mail in a stack of paper and have it scanned for you, Shoeboxed's Magic Envelope is built for that.
Does What Receipt? have a free plan?
Yes. Up to 30 receipts a month, with camera, photo and PDF capture, automatic reading, categories, projects and CSV export. No card is needed.
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 yourself from the billing page in Settings.
Competitor details are from public pricing and product pages in October 2026 and may have changed. Spotted something out of date? Email hello@whatreceipt.app and we'll fix it.
