# Pleo — Expense Management Pleo by Pleo Technologies A/S holds a panel rating of 3.5/5 from 6 AI judges (category median 3/5), as of 2026-10-29. Provenance: EU-Made; sovereignty: not determined. - Vendor: Pleo Technologies A/S (https://www.pleo.io/de) - Category: [Expense Management](https://whats-best.ai/software/expense-management.md) - Provenance (editorial classification): EU-Made - Canonical page: https://whats-best.ai/software/expense-management/pleo - Alternatives: https://whats-best.ai/software/expense-management/pleo/alternatives ([markdown](https://whats-best.ai/software/expense-management/pleo/alternatives.md)) - Data as of: 2026-11-04 · evaluated 2026-10-29 · oldest source captured 2026-10-28 **AI-generated.** Every score, rationale and verdict here is written by a panel of AI judges from public evidence — an analysis, not a hands-on test. Every fact quotes the vendor page it was read from. No score can be bought. How scores are made: https://whats-best.ai/methodology ## At a glance - Vendor: Pleo Technologies A/S - Headquarters: Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 28 Oct 2026 - Data hosting: Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 28 Oct 2026 - Free plan: Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 28 Oct 2026 ## The panel's verdict Pleo is an expense-management product from Pleo Technologies A/S of Copenhagen; its company cards are issued by Pleo Financial Services A/S under Danish FSA supervision on a Mastercard licence. The strongest category is accounting export at 7-8: one-click, GoBD-compliant sync to DATEV under stated DATEV Corporate Partner status, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and NetSuite named, and a documented export API. Receipt capture, cards and spend control, and sovereignty each cluster at 7, with hosting on AWS Ireland plus Azure and Google Cloud in the EU. Weakest are approval and policy at 6 — the judges found no public information on deputies, escalation, pre-approval of trips or several legal entities in one account — and reimbursement and VAT at 5-6, where the automatic VAT split sits only in the Optimise tier and we found no public information on meal deductions, multi-day calculation or foreign VAT reclaim. Pricing transparency spans 6-7: per-user prices of 14 € and 18 € are published, but the Start tier's price, VAT treatment and minimum term are not among the captured figures. No spread exceeds one point. **Speaks for it:** - One-click, GoBD-compliant sync to DATEV Unternehmen online and the DATEV Buchungsdatenservice under stated DATEV Corporate Partner status - Physical and virtual Mastercards issued by the named entity Pleo Financial Services A/S, with per-card limits, one-click freezing and automated category blocks - Receipts fetched automatically from Gmail, Outlook or Microsoft 365 inboxes with a 30-day look-back, with duplicates caught before accounting - Per-user prices published at 14 € and 18 € with annual billing and a minimum of 3 users, beside fee tables for currency, payments, ATM and reimbursements - A subprocessor list with locations and email notice of changes, with hosting on named EU infrastructure including AWS Ireland **Held against it:** - Automatic VAT splitting marked not included in the Start and Build tiers - We found no public information on ISO 27001 or SOC 2 certification - The processor chain names US providers — Anthropic for AI-product enablement, HubSpot for CRM, JP Morgan for account-to-account payments - The Start tier's per-user price, VAT treatment, minimum term and setup cost are not among the captured figures - In-app reimbursements not included in the Start tier, at 0,90 % on the two upper tiers **Best for:** - You hand your books to a DATEV tax adviser and want the paperless, GoBD-compliant one-click sync the bench scored highest - You want card-first spend control from a named, Danish-supervised issuer, with limits, freezing and real-time notifications - Your staff claim German statutory mileage and per diems and capture most receipts on a phone - You want most of your annual cost computable before committing: two tiers are priced per user and the fee schedule is detailed **Avoid if:** - You need automatic VAT splitting below the top tier — the pricing table marks it not included in Start and Build - Your data-protection review cannot accept US processors in the chain — the published list names Anthropic, HubSpot and JP Morgan among them - You make many local payments or ATM withdrawals on the Start tier — 1,50 € per local payment and 5 € per withdrawal there ## Scores by judge and criterion Scores out of 5, each judge scoring independently against the published rubric (v1). "n/r" = not rated: the vendor publishes no price, or the judge found no public information on that criterion. | Criterion | The Travelling Employee | The Office Manager | The Controller | The Finance Lead | The Tax Adviser | The Skeptic | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Receipt capture & expense claims | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | | Company cards & spend control | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | | Approval workflows & expense policy | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 | | Reimbursement, travel allowances & VAT | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 | 2.5/5 | | Accounting handoff & DATEV | 4/5 | 4/5 | 4/5 | 3.5/5 | 4/5 | 3.5/5 | | European sovereignty | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | | Pricing transparency | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3/5 | | **Weighted verdict** | **3.5/5** | **3.5/5** | **3.5/5** | **3.5/5** | **3.5/5** | **3/5** | ### The judges - **The Travelling Employee** (v1.0): A sales engineer on the road three days a week, with hotel bills in three currencies and a glovebox full of parking tickets. Wants to photograph a receipt and be done, mileage and per diems worked out without a spreadsheet, a company card so private money is never spent, and the money back on the account within days rather than at the end of the quarter. - **The Office Manager** (v1.0): Runs the office of a thirty-person agency and is the one who chases missing receipts every month. Wants a card for each project lead with a limit she sets, software subscriptions on their own virtual cards, receipts that arrive without reminders, an export the tax adviser accepts, and a monthly price she can work out before the trial ends. - **The Controller** (v1.0): Owns the travel and expense policy of a manufacturer with four legal entities and twelve hundred staff. Wants approval chains by cost centre and amount, limits checked before a claim is submitted rather than after it is paid, duplicates and private spending caught, budgets that cards draw from, and an audit trail that shows who approved and changed what. - **The Finance Lead** (v1.0): Closes the month for a hundred-and-fifty-person Mittelstand company and books card spend from three banks. Wants card statements that reconcile by themselves, booking proposals with account, tax key and cost centre, receipts that reach DATEV with the booking, reimbursements paid in one SEPA run, and nothing that has to be retyped. - **The Tax Adviser** (v1.0): A Steuerberaterin whose clients send their expenses from five different tools. Wants per diems and mileage at the statutory rates, the input VAT read from a receipt that actually qualifies for the deduction, substitute receipts only where the law allows them, scanned originals archived GoBD-compliant, and bookings that arrive in DATEV with the receipt image attached. - **The Skeptic** (v1.0): Has seen "no more expense reports" turn into a card programme with a currency fee on every hotel abroad and a per-user price that counts everyone who ever logged in. Reads "DATEV integration" that means a CSV, "AI receipt scanning" with no word on where the receipts are read, card terms that leave the issuer unnamed, and subprocessor lists that stop at the hosting provider — and asks what leaving would cost. ## European sovereignty — proven facts Built only from facts on the vendor's own pages; a dimension we could not prove is left open, never scored as zero. Headline: not determined. | Dimension | Finding | Points | Source | |---|---|---|---| | Legal entity | Not determined | — | — | | Hosting location | Not determined | — | — | | Hosting options | Not determined | — | — | | Open source | Not determined | — | — | | Data processing agreement | Not determined | — | — | | Transfer impact assessment | Not determined | — | — | ## Key facts Each fact is the vendor's own statement, cited to the source page it was read from ([S*n*] → Sources). **Compliance** - Documents available: MSA, DPA, subprocessors list, privacy policy, GDPR docs linked in footer [S5] - DPA available: yes [S4] - DPA available: yes [S9] - DPA available: yes [S10] - DPA available: Vereinbarung zur Datenverarbeitung · Datenunterverarbeiter · Datenschutz · DSGVO [S13] - DPA available: yes [S15] - DPA available: Vereinbarung zur Datenverarbeitung verlinkt im Footer [S16] - Fca authorisation: Pleo Financial Services UK Ltd · Electronic Money Regulations 2011 · 1020730 [S9] - Fca authorisation: Pleo Financial Services UK Ltd · Electronic Money Regulations 2011 · FCA · 1020730 [S11] - Financial authority authorisation: Pleo Financial Services A/S · Danish Financial Supervisory Authority [S6] - GDPR: yes [S16] - GDPR available: yes [S9] - GDPR page: yes [S10] - Legal docs: Master Service Agreement · Vereinbarung zur Datenverarbeitung · Datenunterverarbeiter · Datenschutz · DSGVO [S8] - Regulation: FSA & PCI regulated [S4] - Trust security page: yes [S10] - UK fca authorisation: Pleo Financial Services UK Ltd · Financial Conduct Authority · Electronic Money Regulations 2011 · 1020730 [S15] **Hosting** - Card issuer: Pleo Financial Services A/S · Finanzmarktaufsicht Dänemarks · Mastercard International Incorporated [S3] - Card issuer: Pleo Financial Services A/S · Mastercard International Incorporated · Finanzmarktaufsicht Dänemarks [S13] - Card issuer regulation: Pleo Financial Services A/S · Mastercard International Incorporated · Finanzmarktaufsicht Dänemarks [S12] **Integrations** - Accounting count: 20 [S4] - Accounting export: yes [S9] - Accounting interfaces: yes [S5] - Accounting software: Pleo connects with all accounting software; expenses can be exported [S8] - Accounting systems: DATEV · Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central · NetSuite · yes [S2] - Datev: DATEV integration, GoBD compliant, one-click sync [S4] - Datev kr: automatische Übertragung von Transaktionen, Belegen und Eingangsrechnungen in DATEV · yes [S16] - Datev partner: DATEV Corporate Partner · yes [S16] - Datev sync one click: yes [S16] - Datev unternehmen online: Austausch von Belegen und Daten zwischen Unternehmen und Steuerberatung · yes [S16] - Datev uo sync: automatische Synchronisation von Rückerstattungen, Mitarbeiterausgaben und Eingangsrechnungen · yes [S16] - Developers page: yes [S10] - Dynamics 365: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, one-click exports [S4] - Export accounting: Accounting exports support filters, bulk edits and review details [S15] - Export webhooks: Webhook notifications are sent on export job events; polling GET https://external.pleo.io/v2/export-jobs is a fallback [S17] - Hibob: HiBob HRIS sync [S4] - Hris: no · no · yes [S5] - Hris count: 20 [S4] - Hrworks: HRworks HRIS sync [S4] - Legal docs: Legal pages list Data Processing Agreement and Sub-processors [S11] - Marketplace: yes [S4] - Mcp: no · no · yes [S5] - Multi currency: yes [S16] - Netsuite: NetSuite integration [S4] - Personio: Personio HRIS sync [S4] - Travelperk: Schnittstelle zu TravelPerk; Zahlung mit Pleo-Karte, automatische Erfassung und Verbuchung von Ausgabendetails und Rechnungen [S2] - Xero: Xero integration available; Pleo claims connection takes under 10 minutes [S15] **Legal** - Address: Kopenhagen · Ravnsborg Tværgade 5C, 4. · Dänemark [S3] - Address: Ravnsborg Tværgade 5C, 2200 Copenhagen, Denmark [S6] - Address: Kopenhagen · Ravnsborg Tværgade 5C, 4. · Dänemark · 2200 [S16] - Board members: Andreas Bernström · Lise Kaae · Jeppe Carøe Rindom · Niccolo Perra · Johan Erik Larsson Brenner · Merritt Susanne Hummer · Vanessa Ann Bailey · Julia Ann Herendeen · Adrienne Gormley [S6] - Business partner banking circle: Banking Circle · Account to Account Payment Services · EU [S7] - Business partner danske bank: Danske Bank · Account to Account Payment Services · EU [S7] - Business partner jp morgan: JP Morgan · Account to Account Payment Services · US [S7] - Business partner marqeta: Marqeta · Card Payment Services · US customers only · US [S7] - Business partner mastercard: Mastercard · Card Scheme · US [S7] - Card issuer: Pleo Financial Services A/S · Mastercard International Incorporated · Finanzmarktaufsicht Dänemarks [S2] - Card issuer: Pleo Financial Services A/S · Mastercard International Incorporated · Danish FSA [S4] - Card issuer: Mastercard International Incorporated [S10] - Card issuer: Cards issued by Pleo Financial Services A/S under Mastercard licence; supervised by Danish FSA [S5] - Card issuer: Pleo Financial Services A/S · Mastercard International Incorporated [S16] - Card issuer license: Pleo Financial Services A/S · Mastercard International Incorporated [S6] - Card issuer license: Cards issued pursuant to a license from Mastercard International Incorporated [S7] - Card issuer supervision: Pleo Financial Services A/S · Finanzmarktaufsicht Dänemarks · Mastercard International Incorporated [S8] - Card ownership: Zahlungsdienstleister und E-Geld-Emittent · Pleo Financial Services A/S [S2] - Card ownership: Pleo Financial Services A/S [S6] - Card ownership: Zahlungsdienstleister und E-Geld-Emittent · Pleo Financial Services A/S [S8] - Card ownership: Pleo Financial Services A/S [S12] - Card ownership: Pleo Financial Services A/S · Pleo Financial Services A/S [S13] - Card ownership: Pleo Financial Services A/S [S16] - Content responsible: Pleo Technologies A/S [S6] - Controller anthropic: Anthropic, PBC · AI-product enablement · US [S7] - Controller ashby: Ashby · Recruiting Processes · US [S7] - Controller aws: AWS · Application Infrastructure, Cloud Hosting · Ireland, EU [S7] - Controller everlaw: Everlaw · Privacy Management · EU [S7] - Controller freshworks: Freshworks · Customer support · EU [S7] - Controller gcp: Google Cloud Platform (GCP) · Analytics, App Functionalities · EU [S7] - Controller gong: Gong · Insights Analysis · EU · yes [S7] - Controller google ireland: Google Ireland · Productivity suite · EU [S7] - Controller grafana: Grafana · Data Visualization · US [S7] - Controller hubspot: Hubspot · Marketing Activities · US [S7] - Controller launchdarkly: Launchdarkly · Improve Application Feature Development · EU [S7] **Pricing** - Build credit limit: 20000 · eligible customers [S5] - Build price: annual · 3 · 14 [S5] - Customer count: 40000 [S8] - Free trial: Kostenlose Testversion verfügbar [S2] - Free trial: yes · 40,000+ [S9] - No prices on homepage: Only a 'Preise' link; no prices stated on this page [S1] - Optimise credit limit: 100000 · eligible customers [S5] - Optimise price: annual · 3 · 18 [S5] - Start credit limit: 5000 · eligible customers [S5] **Product** - Accounting exports: yes [S5] - Accounting sync: sync expenses, reimbursements and invoices with accounting system [S4] - Accounting sync: yes [S10] - AI expense reviews: AI expense reviews: automatically detect and flag transactions outside guardrails [S11] - AI spend guidelines: AI spend guidelines: employees can ask Pleo's AI what is allowed [S11] - Approval flows: yes [S3] - Approval workflows: Approval workflows route expenses, invoices and reimbursements automatically [S11] - Atm withdrawal fees: free · 5 EUR per withdrawal · free [S5] - Audit reporting: Audit and reporting: real-time spend visibility and complete audit trail [S11] - Auto card freezing: Auto-card freezing when receipts are missing [S11] - Auto preaccounting: receipts are automatically pre-accounted [S8] - Budgets: Budgets: track spend by team, project or entity [S11] - Build features: reimbursements, mileage, AI expense policies, flexible card limits, up to 15 purpose-bound cards, approval flows, merchant management, cash management [S5] - Card controls: yes [S3] - Card controls: Custom card controls: built-in card limits, automated blocks on ATM withdrawals or specific categories [S11] - Card freeze: yes [S3] - Card fx fees: 1.75% · 2.00% · 1.49% [S5] - Card issuer: Mastercard [S11] - Card issuer: Cards are issued pursuant to a license from Mastercard International Incorporated [S15] - Card issuer mastercard: Mastercard · 30000000 [S3] - Card limits approvals: Erweiterte Kartenlimits und anpassbare Genehmigungsprozesse [S2] - Cash treasury subaccounts: 3 · no · 5 [S5] - Cashback: Cashback auf alle Kartenausgaben [S3] - Cashback: no · no · yes · eligible customers [S5] - Central receipt storage: all receipts stored in one central place [S8] - Claim europe number one: "Europas Nr. 1 Ausgabenlösung" claim based on number of companies served in Europe [S13] - Company size segments: 1000+ · 1-49 · 50-1000 [S5] - Currencies supported: 50 [S3] - Customer count: 40000 · europaweit [S3] - Customer count: 40000 [S4] - Customer count: 40000 [S16] - Customer count claim: Over 40,000 companies across Europe [S1] - Customer count claim: over 40,000 companies across Europe [S5] - Direct reimbursements setup guide: Pleo offers a guide for setting up direct reimbursements, letting employees manage their own reimbursement payments [S15] **Subprocessors** - Anthropic: Anthropic · AI-product enablement · US [S7] - Aws hosting: AWS · Hosting Services · Ireland, EU [S7] - Azure hosting: Microsoft Azure · Hosting Services · EU [S7] - Change notification: yes [S7] - Dora location disclosure: yes [S7] - Enfuce: Enfuce · Payment Processing · Frankfurt, EU [S7] - Freshworks freshdesk: FreshWork & FreshDesk · Support Ticketing System · EU [S7] - Gcp hosting: Google Cloud Platform (GCP) · Hosting Services · EU [S7] - Hubspot CRM: HubSpot · Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System · US [S7] - List: Datenunterverarbeiter-Seite im Footer verlinkt [S16] - Notion labs: Notion Labs · Customer Support · EU [S7] - Page available: yes [S10] - Saltedge: Saltedge · Open Banking Compliance with PSD2 · Frankfurt, EU [S7] - Twilio: Twilio · Analytics Functionalities · EU [S7] **Support** - Channels: yes · yes [S5] - Help centre: Help Centre · FAQ [S2] - Help centre: yes [S16] - Status page: yes [S16] 92 more facts on the canonical page: https://whats-best.ai/software/expense-management/pleo ## Questions ### Is Pleo European? Yes. whats-best.ai classifies Pleo as EU-Made. ### Where does Pleo store data? Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 28 Oct 2026. ### Does Pleo have a free plan? Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 28 Oct 2026. ### What are the best alternatives to Pleo? As of 3 Nov 2026, the panel rates [Moss (4/5)](https://whats-best.ai/software/expense-management/moss), [N2F (3.5/5)](https://whats-best.ai/software/expense-management/n2f) and [Spendesk (3.5/5)](https://whats-best.ai/software/expense-management/spendesk) highest among the other 18 Expense Management products evaluated. Ratings that look equal are rounded to half stars; the order uses the unrounded rating, then the name. The highest-rated European alternative is [Moss](https://whats-best.ai/software/expense-management/moss) (EU-Made). Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: [how scores are made](https://whats-best.ai/methodology#ordering). The full list, with European products first: [Pleo alternatives](https://whats-best.ai/software/expense-management/pleo/alternatives). ## Head-to-head - [Pleo vs Spendesk](https://whats-best.ai/compare/pleo-vs-spendesk.md) - [Pleo vs Moss](https://whats-best.ai/compare/moss-vs-pleo.md) ## What this page leaves out - 20 product facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. - 6 legal facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. - 2 compliance facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. - 2 integrations facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. - 1 pricing fact could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and was left out of this page and of the panel’s material. - 3 sovereignty dimensions could not be confirmed on the vendor’s own pages and are shown as unknown. - 6 of the readings below were written against an earlier fact sheet — a fact has been corrected, added or pulled since. Until the panel next runs on this product you are reading the older judgement. ## Sources - [S1] Vendor homepage: https://www.pleo.io/de (checked 2026-10-28) - [S2] Features page (travel expenses): https://www.pleo.io/de/business-travel-expenses (checked 2026-10-28) - [S3] Features page (company cards): https://www.pleo.io/de/firmenkarte (checked 2026-10-28) - [S4] Integrations page: https://www.pleo.io/de/integrations (checked 2026-10-28) - [S5] Pricing page: https://www.pleo.io/de/pricing (checked 2026-10-28) - [S6] Legal notice: https://www.pleo.io/de/impressum-page (checked 2026-10-28) - [S7] Subprocessor list: https://www.pleo.io/en/sub-processors (checked 2026-10-28) - [S8] Receipt capture & expense claims — found from sitemap: https://www.pleo.io/de/beleg-scanner (checked 2026-10-28) - [S9] Receipt capture & expense claims — found from sitemap: https://www.pleo.io/en/receipt-scanner (checked 2026-10-28) - [S10] Company cards & spend control — found from sitemap: https://www.pleo.io/en/virtual-cards (checked 2026-10-28) - [S11] Company cards & spend control — found from sitemap: https://www.pleo.io/en/spend-controls (checked 2026-10-28) - [S12] Approval workflows & expense policy — found from sitemap: https://www.pleo.io/de/invoices-approvals (checked 2026-10-28) - [S13] Approval workflows & expense policy — found from sitemap: https://www.pleo.io/de/expense-policy-builder (checked 2026-10-28) - [S14] Reimbursement, travel allowances & VAT — found from sitemap: https://www.pleo.io/de/rueckerstattungen (checked 2026-10-28) - [S15] Reimbursement, travel allowances & VAT — found from sitemap: https://www.pleo.io/en/direct-reimbursements-setup (checked 2026-10-28) - [S16] Accounting handoff & DATEV — found from sitemap: https://www.pleo.io/de/integrations/datev (checked 2026-10-28) - [S17] Accounting handoff & DATEV — found from sitemap: https://developers.pleo.io/reference/export-api/export-api-overview (checked 2026-10-28) --- Cite as: whats-best.ai, "Pleo — Expense Management", AI panel analysis, as of 2026-11-04. https://whats-best.ai/software/expense-management/pleo Corrections: https://whats-best.ai/correct/1072?target=page