Who are Brex's competitors?
Brex competes in five businesses, and its rivals differ by line. In corporate cards, Payments Dive reported on March 25, 2026 that American Express and large banks such as JPMorgan Chase and Capital One compete for business card customers with fintechs including Bill Holdings, Brex, Engine and Ramp; Capital One has owned Brex since April 7, 2026, after agreeing on January 22, 2026 to buy it for $5.15 billion. In spend and expense management, Navan's annual report for the year ended January 31, 2026 names Brex and Ramp, alongside Expensify, Oracle and SAP; American Express added expense software by buying Center in 2025 and agreed in April 2026 to acquire Hyper, an agentic expense management company. In bill pay, BILL's fiscal 2026 10-K says Brex and Ramp introduced bill payment products that could challenge its own. In travel, Navan and Engine sell booking tools with corporate cards, although Brex also partners with Navan through BrexPay for Navan. In business banking and treasury, Fast Company reported in August 2026 that Mercury expanded its spend management to keep customers from adopting Ramp and Brex. Ramp is the rival named most often next to Brex in these sources: on October 15, 2026 it said more than 85,000 companies use it to manage over $275 billion in annualized purchase volume, at a $60 billion valuation. Brex had about 35,000 clients when the Capital One deal closed, files no reports of its own, and is reported inside Capital One's domestic card business.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]
Data as of Nov 2, 2026 · Brex profile updated Oct 19, 2026 · 32 sources cited on this page · 56 fintechs profiled on this site · Markdown
How do Capital One, Brex's rivals and Brex itself describe the competition?
Brex files no annual report, so its owner's is the starting point. Capital One's 2025 Form 10-K (filed February 19, 2026), which disclosed the January 22, 2026 agreement to buy Brex for $5.15 billion, says its Credit Card business competes with issuers of Visa and Mastercard credit cards, American Express, private-label card brands and, to a certain extent, issuers of debit cards, and adds: "We also consider new and emerging companies in digital and mobile payments and other financial technology providers among our competitors."[3]
Rivals' filings name Brex directly. Navan's annual report for the year ended January 31, 2026 says its Expense Management and Corporate Payments offerings compete with "horizontal platform solutions with expense management features such as Expensify, Oracle, and SAP, corporate card providers, and expense management solutions such as Brex and Ramp." BILL's fiscal 2026 10-K (filed August 20, 2026) says "Brex, recently acquired by Capital One, and Ramp, firms primarily known for offering spend and expense management products, introduced bill payment products in recent periods", and that its BILL Divvy Card spending business could be challenged by these offerings.[4][7]
Trade press draws the same map. When American Express launched its first new business card in seven years, Payments Dive wrote on March 25, 2026 that "Amex and large bank rivals such as JPMorgan Chase and Capital One Financial compete for business card customers along with fintechs such as Bill Holdings, Brex, Engine and Ramp." On March 11, 2026 it reported that Brex, Navan and Ramp all issue corporate travel cards tied to expense management tools, as do Corpay, Tipalti and Bill Holdings.[1][8]
Brex's own comparison pages (undated, retrieved November 2, 2026) target Ramp ("Ramp can't keep up. Growing companies choose Brex."), American Express ("a high-fee corporate card focused on T&E"), BILL, SAP Concur and Mercury, which Brex says "gives you no-frills banking with limited functionality." When Brex and Navan announced BrexPay for Navan in October 2024, they said hundreds of enterprise customers were frustrated by "the gaps in the way legacy players like Amex and Concur work together."[14][15][16][17][18][9]
Who competes with Brex, where, and how do they compare on AI?
Each competitor's scale is its own latest figure, on its own measure and period, so the figures are not one series. Brex had about 35,000 clients when Capital One completed the purchase in April 2026, per American Banker.
| Competitor | Where they compete | Dated scale figure | How they compare on AI | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ramp | Corporate cards and expense management, then bill pay, procurement, vendor management, accounting and accounts receivable; named with Brex in Navan's and BILL's annual reports and by Payments Dive. Brex's comparison page says "Ramp can't keep up" | More than $2 billion in annualized revenue; more than 85,000 companies managing over $275 billion in annualized purchase volume; $60 billion valuation (October 15, 2026) | Launched Glass, a model-agnostic AI workspace, AI Token Spend Management and Router.com, which Ramp says cuts inference costs up to 40% | Ramp (PR Newswire); TechCrunch; Navan 10-K; BILL 10-K; Payments Dive; Brex[11][19][4][7][1][14] |
| American Express | Business and corporate cards (named in Capital One's 10-K and by Payments Dive); expense management through its 2025 acquisition of Center, an expense management software company. Brex calls Amex "a high-fee corporate card focused on T&E" | Worldwide billed business of $1,670 billion in 2025, about 41 percent of it from small business and corporate clients | Agreed on April 16, 2026 to acquire Hyper, whose AI agents categorize and file expenses and check them against policy, for an expense management platform launching later in 2026 | American Express 10-K 2025; Capital One 10-K 2025; Payments Dive; American Express (Business Wire); Brex[5][3][1][6][15] |
| BILL (Bill Holdings) | Accounts payable and bill pay, plus BILL Spend and Expense and the BILL Divvy Card; its fiscal 2026 10-K says Brex and Ramp introduced bill payment products that could challenge it | Total payment volume of $371.3 billion in the year ended June 30, 2026; 479,300 businesses using its solutions at June 30, 2026, about 46,500 of them on BILL Spend and Expense | Launched BILL AI with its first suite of AI agents in fiscal 2026; says its W-9 agent eliminates 80% of the manual steps in collecting vendor W-9s | BILL 10-K FY2026; Payments Dive; Brex[7][1][16] |
| Navan | Travel and expense management with a corporate card; its 10-K names Brex and Ramp as expense management rivals, yet also lists Brex among card issuers it integrates, and the two sell BrexPay for Navan | Gross booking volume of $9.1 billion and payment volume of $4.1 billion in the year ended January 31, 2026 | Says its in-house AI customer service tool, Ava, handled approximately 52% of user interactions in the year ended January 31, 2026 | Navan 10-K FY2026; Brex; Payments Dive[4][9][8] |
| Mercury | Business banking for startups, expanded in August 2026 into budgets, policy enforcement and automated accounting to keep customers from adopting Ramp and Brex (Fast Company). Brex's comparison page calls Mercury "no-frills banking" | Over 450,000 customers (October 20, 2026); more than $650 million in annualized revenue (Fast Company, August 2026) | Agent cards, virtual credit cards that let AI agents make purchases under controls, and Command, Mercury's AI assistant | Fast Company; Mercury (Business Wire); Brex[10][20][18] |
| Expensify | Expense management for small and mid-sized businesses; named with Brex and Ramp in Navan's 10-K, and its own 10-K counts corporate card providers among its competitors | An average of 650,000 paid members across an average of 39,700 companies in the quarter ended December 31, 2025 | Concierge, its customer support engine, is powered by AI and supported with generative AI, per its 10-K | Expensify 10-K 2025; Navan 10-K FY2026[21][4] |
| Engine | Corporate travel booking plus the Visa-branded Engine X charge card for small and midsized companies (March 2026); its CEO said Ramp and Brex may focus on larger companies | About 33,000 companies and 1.2 million business travelers using its platform (March 2026) | Not disclosed in the sources cited | Payments Dive[8][1] |
How does Capital One ownership change Brex's position against its rivals?
What Capital One has said it is doing with Brex, in its filings, releases and its October 20, 2026 earnings call. Capital One does not report Brex's own revenue or client numbers.
| What changes | What Capital One said | When |
|---|---|---|
| Ownership and price | Capital One agreed to acquire Brex's outstanding equity for $5.15 billion, consisting of approximately $2.58 billion in cash and approximately 10.6 million Capital One shares; the deal closed on April 7, 2026 and Pedro Franceschi continues as Brex's CEO | January 22 and April 7, 2026[3][2] |
| Why it bought Brex | "Brex invented the integrated combination of corporate credit cards, spend management software and banking together in a single platform" (Richard Fairbank). CNBC reported that Capital One had become increasingly convinced that Brex's model would be the winning offering, citing a person with knowledge of its strategy | January 22, 2026[22][23] |
| Funding and sales leads | Brex is benefiting from the cost of funds from moving to Capital One's balance sheet and from early tailwinds of the Capital One brand; Capital One has stood up a program to share high-potential leads from across its businesses with Brex | October 20, 2026[13] |
| Travel | Brex's spend management platform will be integrated with the Capital One Travel Portal so businesses can manage corporate travel spend and policies; Fairbank called bringing the portal to Brex "probably a next year kind of thing" | October 20, 2026[13] |
| Small-business cards and banking | Over time Capital One can use Brex's spend management tools for its small business personal liability card customers, which needs more technology and data integration; Brex's banking services will be integrated with Capital One's, pairing Brex's business banking software with Capital One's payment capabilities | October 20, 2026[13] |
| Reporting | Brex was added to Capital One's domestic card business in the second quarter of 2026; adjusted third-quarter earnings excluded $0.06 per share of Brex integration costs | October 20, 2026[13] |
What companies are similar to Brex?
Companies selling the closest mix of corporate cards, spend software, bill pay, travel or business banking, as described in their own filings and releases or in trade press.
| Company | Why it is similar | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| Ramp | Corporate cards with spend management that now reach bill pay, closing the books and collecting revenue; Ramp says the majority of its customers use two or more Ramp products and a quarter use three or more (October 2026) | Ramp (PR Newswire)[11] |
| BILL Spend and Expense | BILL's spend and expense management product gives businesses charge cards, budgets and payments without manual expense reports, alongside BILL's accounts payable automation | BILL 10-K FY2026[7] |
| Navan | Combines travel booking with expense management and a corporate card; its 10-K describes a travel and expense management solution that integrates data across both workflows into a unified, end-to-end platform | Navan 10-K FY2026[4] |
| Mercury | Business banking for startups that added budgets, policy enforcement and agent cards in August 2026; Mercury says it serves one in three U.S. startups | Fast Company[10] |
| Expensify | Expense management that SMB employees often introduce bottom-up; Expensify says many customers use it in tandem with competitors' products | Expensify 10-K 2025[21] |
| SAP Concur | Travel and expense software that Brex markets against directly; SAP added two Joule agents for expense reports in March 2026 and lets joint customers create American Express Virtual Cards in Concur Expense | SAP News Center; Brex[24][17] |
What does the Brex profile record on this topic?
The rows below are the entries of the Brex AI strategy profile that bear on this page, as of Oct 19, 2026; the profile holds the full record of 14 dated moves, 7 use cases and 21 sources.
| Date | Move | Detail | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 21, 2026 | First Brex integration costs in Capital One's results | Capital One reported $96 million of pre-tax Brex integration expenses in Q2 2026, with Brex results included in its Credit Card business from April 7. | [25][26] |
| Apr 7, 2026 | Capital One completes the acquisition | Brex becomes part of Capital One with about 35,000 clients and its agent portfolio; Capital One plans to spend nearly $1 billion over three years on integration and retention, per American Banker. | [2][12] |
| Mar 18, 2026 | OpenAI runs spend on Brex; automation figures | Brex said it helps power OpenAI's global spend and that nearly 70% of expenses on Brex are handled entirely by automation, with more than $163 million in annual salary dollars freed in 2025. | [27] |
| Jan 22, 2026 | Capital One agrees to buy Brex for $5.15 billion | A roughly 50% cash, 50% stock deal disclosed with Capital One's Q4 2025 results; Brex was previously valued at $12.3 billion. Franceschi told CNBC that Brex did not have to pursue the deal, and Capital One said he would continue to lead Brex. | [22][23][28] |
| Dec 9, 2025 | Fifth Third commercial card runs on Brex | A multi-year partnership making the Fifth Third Commercial Card powered by Brex the default for the bank's commercial clients, with Brex's AI agents automating workflows; the companies said it unlocks $5.6 billion in annual card volume. | [29][30] |
| Aug 7, 2025 | EU licence | Brex said it could now directly issue cards and sell spend management to businesses in all 30 EU countries, having previously served only companies with a US presence. | [31] |
| Jun 12, 2024 | Brex drops its co-CEO model | Pedro Franceschi became sole CEO and Henrique Dubugras chairman; TechCrunch noted Brex had laid off 282 people, about 20% of staff, in January 2024. | [32] |
Who are Brex's biggest competitors?
Ramp is the rival named most often next to Brex: Navan's annual report, BILL's fiscal 2026 10-K, Payments Dive and Fast Company all pair the two. American Express, the one card issuer Capital One's 10-K names, reported $1,670 billion of billed business in 2025, about 41 percent of it from small business and corporate clients, and BILL, Navan, Mercury, Expensify and Engine compete in bill pay, travel, banking and expense software.
What companies are similar to Brex?
Ramp is the closest match, selling corporate cards with expense management, bill pay and accounting tools. BILL Spend and Expense issues the BILL Divvy Card; Navan combines travel and expense; Mercury pairs business banking with spend tools; Expensify and SAP Concur sell expense and travel software.
Is Ramp bigger than Brex?
On the figures available, yes. Ramp said on October 15, 2026 that more than 85,000 companies use it to manage over $275 billion in annualized purchase volume, at a $60 billion valuation. Brex had about 35,000 clients when Capital One completed its $5.15 billion purchase in April 2026. The measures differ, and Brex no longer reports its own figures.
How has Capital One's ownership changed Brex's competition?
Brex now competes with a national bank behind it. On October 20, 2026 Richard Fairbank said Brex benefits from Capital One's cost of funds and brand, that Capital One shares high-potential leads with Brex, and that Brex's spend management will later link to the Capital One Travel Portal and small-business cards.
How do Brex's competitors use AI?
On the record: Ramp launched Glass, an AI workspace, and AI token spend tools in 2026; American Express agreed in April 2026 to buy Hyper, an agentic expense management company; BILL launched its first AI agents in fiscal 2026; Navan says its Ava tool handled about 52% of user interactions; Mercury issues cards for AI agents; SAP added Joule agents to Concur.
- Amex floats first new business card in 7 years
- Capital One completes acquisition of Brex
- Capital One Financial Corporation Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025
- Navan, Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2026
- American Express Company Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025
- American Express to Acquire Hyper, Adding to Its AI Expertise and Expense Management Capabilities
- BILL Holdings, Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2026
- Engine aims to fix SMB cards
- Reimagining global cards and travel management for the enterprise
- Silicon Valley startups are about to hand corporate credit cards to AI agents
- Ramp Reaches $60 Billion Valuation as Annualized Revenue Tops $2 Billion
- Capital One pushes deeper into AI, business payments
- Capital One (COF) Q3 2026 earnings call transcript (The Motley Fool)
- Brex vs Ramp: A complete side by side comparison (undated page, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Brex vs Amex (undated page, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Brex vs BILL: A Complete Side by Side Comparison (undated page, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Brex vs Concur: A Complete Side by Side Comparison (undated page, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Brex vs Mercury: A complete side by side comparison (undated page, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Ramp reaches $60B valuation as it pushes deeper into AI
- Mercury Launches AI-Native Payroll (Business Wire via Morningstar)
- Expensify, Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025
- Capital One to Acquire Brex
- Capital One is buying startup Brex for $5.15 billion in credit card firm's latest deal
- SAP Showcases New AI Capabilities, Integrated Travel and Expense Enhancements, and Global Partnerships at SAP Concur Fusion 2026
- Capital One Reports Second Quarter 2026 Net Income of $3.0 billion, or $4.73 per share
- Capital One Financial Supplement, Second Quarter 2026 (Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.2)
- Brex Helps Power OpenAI Global Spend and Financial Operations
- Brex is joining forces with Capital One
- Fifth Third and Brex Partner to Bring AI-Powered Finance to Businesses, Unlocking $5.6B in Commercial Card Volume
- Fifth Third signs deal making fintech firm Brex the provider of its commercial cards
- IPO hopeful Brex scored major win to sell in the EU, plans UK expansion
- Fintech Brex abandons co-CEO model, talks IPO, cash burn and plans for a secondary sale
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