Tipalti vs. Airbase vs. Stampli: AP automation solutions compared

Choosing a P2P automation solution can be tough. The right financial automation solution can speed up your invoice processes, eliminate late supplier payments, detect and prevent fraud and errors, and build stronger vendor relationships.

Leading accounts payable automation solutions make complex manual processes simple and intuitive. Every AP solution provider promises to deliver a wide range of features, greater efficiency, cost savings, and optimized procure-to-pay processes. However, four key criteria separate the best AP solutions from the rest:

• Ease of Use
• Collaboration and Communication
• Invoice Approval Confidence
• Product Performance

When you’re choosing the right AP partner from the many offerings in the marketplace, look for one who consistently delivers on these criteria. Stampli, Tipalti, and Airbase are leading AP automation solutions with features like streamlined invoice processing and verification, ERP integration, and more. 

In this article, we’ll compare all three solutions’ capabilities, reputation, and features and help you decide which one best meets your needs.

Customer satisfaction

The G2 Satisfaction Score for AP Automation measures customer satisfaction with AP automation solutions. Based on reviews from real customers, it evaluates how well solution providers satisfy users’ needs. 

The score measures customer satisfaction in four categories:

• Implementation: How easily can you implement the solution?
• Usability: How easy is the solution to use?
• Relationship: How well does the solution provider build customer relationships?
• Results: How well does the solution deliver results?

By comparing each AP automation provider’s Satisfaction Scores, you can quickly identify the product that provides the best customer experience based on feedback from actual AP automation users.

Let’s look at the scores for Tipalti, Airbase, and Stampli.

Implementation Index

The Implementation Index comprises three scores: Ease of Setup, User Adoption, and Time to Go Live.

Of the three competitors, Stampli scored significantly higher in Ease of Setup, indicating it is the easiest solution to implement. Stampli also scored higher than the AP automation industry average for User Adoption and Time to Go Live – reinforcing its industry-leading reputation for fast deployment, implementation, and user adoption.

Usability Index 

Stampli is also a leader in the Usability Index, scoring higher than Tipalti and Airbase for Ease of Admin and at the top of the industry in Ease of Use, another indication of Stampli’s popularity among AP teams. 

Relationship Index 

Stampli scored highest in Quality of Support and Ease of Doing Business, and higher than the industry average for Likelihood to Recommend, indicating that Stampli is a leader in building strong customer relationships.

Results Index 

Stampli scored above the industry average for its estimated return on investment and how well it meets customer requirements, reflecting that Stampli’s AP automation consistently delivers results for customers.

Stampli: Comprehensive P2P automation built for real business

For organizations seeking a robust procure-to-pay solution that adapts to your existing processes rather than forcing wholesale changes, Stampli delivers enterprise-grade P2P capabilities with mid-market agility.

As a G2 Grid Leader and #1 for Highest User Satisfaction, Stampli has earned its reputation by solving the fundamental disconnect between procurement and AP that creates costly blind spots in financial operations.

Eliminate procurement and AP silos with unified P2P workflows

Traditional AP automation tools address invoice processing, while procurement systems handle purchase requests — but the gap between these processes creates what Stampli calls “obscurement.” This disconnect leads to duplicate data entry, approval bottlenecks, and zero visibility into committed spend until invoices arrive.

Stampli’s comprehensive P2P solution bridges this gap by connecting every step from employee purchase requests through final payment reconciliation in one unified workflow. Finance teams gain real-time control over spending commitments, not just after-the-fact invoice processing.

Core Stampli P2P capabilities

Intelligent AP automation foundation

At its core, Stampli provides industry-leading accounts payable automation powered by Billy the Bot™, its AI assistant trained on over $90 billion in annual spend. The solution automates invoice capture using advanced OCR, applies intelligent GL coding based on historical patterns, and manages configurable approval workflows with complete audit trails.

Stampli’s Cognitive AI™ delivers up to 97-100% accuracy in PO matching by replicating human judgment in complex matching scenarios, while automated exception handling flags duplicate invoices and variances for review.

Employee-friendly procurement workflows

Stampli Procurement extends control upstream into the purchasing process through an intuitive self-service portal where employees can submit requests using natural language. Billy the Bot™ transforms free-form descriptions into structured purchase requests, with six pre-built templates covering common categories plus unlimited custom request types.

The solution’s unique “Stampli Trays” concept allows finance teams to configure multi-step fulfillment workflows that mirror existing processes. Each tray represents a different processing stage — purchasing review, budget approval, vendor selection — with automatic routing based on request type, amount, or department.

Multi-outcome request flexibility

Unlike rigid procurement systems, Stampli allows approved requests to generate different outcomes based on business needs: formal purchase orders in your ERP, internal Stampli POs for simpler purchases, service tickets for internal teams, or instant virtual card issuance through Stampli Card. This “any outcome for any request” flexibility handles traditional procurement alongside ad-hoc purchasing needs in one workflow.

Proactive budget management

Real-time budget tracking shows approvers the impact on their budgets before approving requests. Finance teams can set thresholds and receive alerts for over-budget requests, preventing overspending at the point of commitment rather than discovering budget overruns after the fact.

Comprehensive vendor lifecycle management

Advanced Vendor Management streamlines vendor onboarding with configurable workflows that collect required documents (W-9s, insurance certificates, banking details) and route for approval. The vendor portal reduces AP inquiries by allowing suppliers to check payment status and update information directly, while automated compliance checks prevent payments to vendors missing required documentation.

Integrated payment hub

Stampli Direct Pay consolidates multiple payment methods (ACH, wire, check, virtual card) on a single solution, supporting international payments in 150+ countries. Unlike competitors that push specific payment methods for revenue, Stampli maintains payment flexibility — it’s your business, your choice. The solution saves an average of 40+ clicks per payment versus manual bank processing.

Corporate cards built for AP workflows

Stampli Card brings corporate card spending under the same controls as AP invoices. Virtual and physical cards can be issued instantly as purchase request outcomes, with pre-coded GL assignments and spending controls. All card transactions flow through the same approval workflows, providing unprecedented visibility over card spend.

Collaborative communication platform

Every purchase request, PO, and invoice includes integrated discussion threads where AP staff, approvers, and vendors communicate directly within the solution. This eliminates scattered email chains and creates a searchable knowledge base tied to each transaction, making audits and inquiries significantly easier.

Deep ERP integration without disruption

Stampli’s pre-built integrations with 70+ ERP systems ensure your existing accounting setup remains unchanged while adding powerful P2P automation on top. Data synchronization happens in real-time, and because integrations are built in-house in advance, deployment typically takes days, not months.

As one customer notes on TrustRadius, “the system is incredibly intuitive, easy to deploy, use, and integrate with Sage Intacct.”

Proven results with industry-leading satisfaction

Stampli’s persona-centric design means each user sees only what they need — approvers get simple one-click approval screens while AP teams access comprehensive workflow management tools. This approach drives near-100% user adoption, eliminating the bypass behaviors that plague complex procurement systems.

With a 99% customer satisfaction rate and recognition as a G2 Grid Leader, Stampli consistently delivers rapid time-to-value with minimal disruption. The solution processes over $90 billion in annual spend, demonstrating its scalability and reliability for organizations of all sizes.

Plus, Stampli respects your vendor relationships — it will never contact your vendors to pressure them into accepting a specific payment method.

Pricing

Stampli offers simple monthly or annual pricing with unlimited users, vendors, and training.

Seamless integration with your ERP

Stampli’s philosophy of ERP integration stands in contrast to its competitors. Stampli builds ERP integrations in-house with the flexibility to support businesses in every industry, including complex multi-entity and multi-location organizations and businesses in highly regulated industries like healthcare. Stampli’s integrations can be deployed in days, not weeks, and you won’t need to hire developers, rework your ERP, or adapt your existing processes. Stampli can also support migration from one ERP to another without disrupting service.

Stampli provides quick implementation with live setup assistance and 24/7 customer support from AP and ERP experts. It offers three types of ERP integrations:

Pre-built integration: Fast and easy no-code integration via an application programming interface (API) that’s great for cloud applications. 

File integration: Uses customized file templates (created by Stampli) to import and export files easily with any on-premise or cloud ERP or accounting system.

Process integration: Support for existing processes requiring manual data entry or other specialized workflows.

Best-in-class customer support

An industry leader in Accounts Payable automation software, Stampli consistently ranks at the top of the G2 Grid® for AP Automation software. Stampli has been awarded for customer service, corporate citizenship, and excellence, including: 

• No. 2 in the G2 list of Best Accounting and Finance Products for 2023.
• Recognized By Forbes as one of America’s Best Startup Employers Of 2023.
• Best Accounts Payable Automation Solution, 2022 Fintech Awards.

Numerous case studies from happy customers and independent user reviews recognize Stampli for excellence in areas such as:

• Easy to use with an intuitive interface.
• Fast implementation and onboarding.
• Good AI/OCR for extracting invoice data.
• Integration with accounting software like NetSuite and QuickBooks.
• Streamlined workflows and approvals.
• Audit trail providing transparency.
• Reporting capabilities.
• Excellent customer support.

Simplified and centralized invoice management

Stampli’s AI assistant, Billy the Bot™, is designed to learn your Accounts Payable workflows and reduce the burden of manual processes through automation. It supports AP teams throughout the entire invoice lifecycle, from invoice capture to coding, three-way matching, approvals, and fraud detection. All communications, documents, and tasks are centralized on top of your invoices, giving you more control over your AP processes.

In addition to its AP automation solution, Stampli offers a range of advanced features to optimize your entire accounts payable workflow. These include virtual cards (Stampli Card), domestic and international payment solutions (Stampli Direct Pay), and employee expense management (Stampli Expenses).

Tipalti

Tipalti streamlines mass payment processing and accounts payable workflows. It provides businesses with a simple interface, internal controls for tax compliance, and global payment processing capabilities to enhance their AP processing efficiency.

Features

• Automated touchless invoice processing, PO matching, approvals, supplier payments, and payment reconciliation.
• Automated enforcement of policies and internal controls, audit trail, error detection, and role-based security to prevent errors and fraud.
• Proactively engages vendors to promote payment methods.
• PO requisition management to help companies manage purchase orders and control spending.

Pricing

Tipalti charges a $149 monthly access fee for its basic service. For other service tiers, it requires a sales call.

Tipalti customer-reported positives

Positive customer reviews for Tipalti mention the platform has several strengths, including the following.

Global payment solutions

Many reviewers praise Tipalti’s global mass payments solution for paying international vendors. “As a mid-sized business with a global supplier base, we found that Tipalti has been instrumental in streamlining our payment processes,” said one Capterra reviewer. They described how implementing Tipalti simplified their process of paying international suppliers and reduced processing errors. 

However, several reviewers criticized Tipalti’s requirement to pre-fund their Tipalti account before making payments. One customer simply said, “Cons: Having to find our Tipalti account to pay vendors.

Stampli Direct Pay simplifies domestic and international vendor payments without tying up your money. “Direct Pay is one of my favorite features!” said a business owner on G2. They described how using Stampli simplified the tedious manual process of making payments through QuickBooks Online, saying: “I simply select what invoices I want to pay and click pay. It’s seriously that simple.”

Tipalti: Customer-reported negatives

Tipalti customers also report some negative experiences with the platform.

Difficult onboarding process

Several customers reported onboarding challenges with Tipalti. One reviewer complained, “We started out our implementation with one consultant who simply could not deliver. Every requirement we had was a question they needed to forward to their engineering team.” The problems continued for 5 weeks until the customer escalated the issue.

A poor onboarding experience makes a lousy first impression, especially with something as crucial as a financial management platform. In contrast to Tipalti, Stampli’s implementation support team excels at supporting customers through implementation. “We were up and running within weeks of signing our contract…the few times we had to reach out for support, we were chatting with a real person within one minute,” is how one customer described their positive onboarding experience with Stampli.

Integration challenges

Although Tipalti advertises several ERP integrations, customers report that the user experience can be subpar. An accounting manager on Capterra describes a painful experience integrating Tipalti with NetSuite: “Overall it started out pretty good. As volume started to pick up and required purchase orders to be created through Teampay, we started seeing blatant sync/connection issues with Netsuite.” They concluded by saying Tipalti “had not lived up to the promise” of a smooth integration.

Broken integrations frustrate AP teams and cost time and money to fix. Stampli pre-builds its integrations so they can be integrated seamlessly and support full native ERP functionality. “Stampli simply solved our AP problem,” said one CFO on G2. “My experience with their team and product has been exceptional from the introductory sales call through ‘go live’…The integration with Sage Intacct is flawless, the best of the handful of products that we integrate. I would enthusiastically recommend Stampli to any business that needs to organize and modernize its AP processes.”

Inexperienced support staff

Users have reported challenges with the support team’s technical expertise, particularly with complex problems. One user complained about their implementation experience in a lengthy rant on G2. “Onboarding was incomplete and long,” they began, and continued, “They forgot to setup some important things like the second admin, subcompany, and ACH instructions.” The review goes on to describe repeated customer service failures over several months.”

As the industry leader in customer support, Stampli has the experience and expertise to resolve the challenges facing AP teams. “My finance team knows how much I love Stampli because I sing its praises so often,” says one AP manager. “Implementation was quick and quite easy, and while we don’t run into problems often, customer support is always super fast to respond and kind to explain what’s happening and how to resolve it.”

Airbase

Airbase combines modules for guided procurement, corporate cards, expense management, and accounts payable in three service tiers: 

• Standard (up to 200 employees): Basic functionality with limited access to special features.
• Premium (up to 500 employees): Enhanced functionality without enterprise-level features.
• Enterprise (up to 5,000 employees): Full functionality and all features.

Pricing

Airbase offers three service packages. Certain features and modules are only available at higher-priced tiers, and pricing for each tier is customized according to customers’ needs.

Airbase customer-reported positives

Customer reviews say Airbase has many strengths, including the following:

User-friendly interface and support

Customers report that Airbase has an intuitive, user-friendly interface. “We really like the simplicity of Airbase,” said one customer on G2. “It’s very user-friendly, and we like that our employees only have to use one system for all spend-related tasks.” However, the same reviewer complained the interface had usability shortfalls, saying, “I…hate that there are so many things that needs to go through support rather than being able to handle on our end like unapplying payments.” Other customers had similar reviews. For example, another reviewer said that although they also found Airbase easy to use, the lack of user-level configurability “brings some inefficiencies.”

In contrast, customers praise Stampli for its ease of use and customer support. One reviewer describes their experience with a laundry list of the things they appreciate about Stampli’s interface: “It’s a modern and full-screen UI with lots of thought to user experience and ease of navigation. 

Great internal communication system to reach out to all parties involved on an invoice, good approval workflow that’s easy to build and review, intuitive searches, granular user accesses, allows for custom fields, quick and friendly chat help for questions or issues…and a fantastic onboarding experience.”

All-in-one expense and AP management

It should come as no surprise that as a spend management platform, Airbase receives kudos for its all-in-one expense management features. Customers describe how this comprehensive approach helps them manage all aspects of their spending. One strategist stated, “Airbase serves as a one-tool-fits-all approach to our expense tracking and management, particularly as it relates to corporate cards and travel, and gives us full visibility and control over that process, saving us time and money.”

Another user compared Airbase to other platforms, calling it “better at bills than Bill.com, and better at expense reports than Expensify. 

But, as with any one-size-fits-all solution, trying to build a system that works for everyone usually means making trade-offs and sacrifices that work for no one.

Despite the advantages of an all-in-one system, some Airbase customers complained about inadequate spend reporting, which in some cases impacted the ability to reconcile accounts with ERPs. Others said some Airbase AP features were limited. For example, one reviewer said maintaining accuracy in invoice coding required “a high level of engagement from the AP Manager.”

As the only finance operations platform centered around accounts payable, Stampli drives efficiency across the P2P cycle. One CFO describes how Stampli excels at accounts payable automation. “Outstanding product and service,” they begin. “The system is very easy to use to process payments, both for accounting and payees. The integration of corporate card management and charge recording makes it even better! And the support is first-rate. The functionality of multiple approval processes while maintaining internal controls consistent with company policy is exceptional as well.”

Negative Airbase reviews

Here are some of the things Airbase customers didn’t like.

Technical issues

Customers across all review sites reported technical issues with the Airbase web platform and mobile app. Complaints included difficulty getting integrations to work during implementation, with some users reporting ongoing issues. One business owner reported they had so many problems integrating Airbase with Xero that it “[m]akes any benefits to the entire system hardly worth it.”

Technical issues can quickly turn a positive experience into a negative one, especially if they crop up during implementation. Stampli minimizes technical disruptions to customers through continuous improvement and proactive customer support. A TrustRadius reviewer describes this approach as “An AP game changer,” saying Stampli “listens to their customers, continually upgrades the product, and has impeccable customer support.” They praise Stampli’s customer service, calling it “probably one of the best I’ve encountered in my 30 years’ experience as a vendor and customer.” 

Corporate credit card policies

Customers generally liked Airbase’s virtual corporate credit cards, citing the cards’ versatility for managing employee expenses and other expenditures. One business owner said that the cards act as a “more controlled and simplified expense manager, with functional workflow capabilities and a cashback bonus with card usage,” and by centralizing spending, help them “easily control expense limits, card terminations/suspensions and onboarding new employees.”

Other customers were more critical of the cards. One customer complained of a lack of statement details and fewer protections against fraud and improper use than regular credit cards. Others criticized the need to pre-fund credit cards, saying it can negatively impact cash flow.

Corporate credit cards should help you manage cash flow and reduce fraud and errors. Stampli Card lets you control accounts payable and employee spending, gives real-time oversight of transactions, and has no pre-funding requirements. One customer shares how the combination of Stampli Card and Stampli’s AP platform has given them more visibility and control: “Stampli has taken away the arduous task of sending e-mails for approvals. I can see easily what hasn’t been approved…

For credit cards, we have much better tracking to ensure we have receipts and proper approvals. As far as using the credit card itself, it’s very easy and convenient to upload receipts and then route them to the correct person to approve.”

Stampli: The #1 choice for AP & P2P automation

Are you tired of dealing with workarounds? Stampli’s AI-powered solution replaces spreadsheets, ERP work, and manual data entry with an efficient, powerful solution. With Stampli you can enjoy streamlined, seamless workflows without changing your business processes. Stampli centralizes all communications, tasks, and documents on the invoice so you have all the information you need in one place.

Billy the Bot™ streamlines and optimizes manual tasks and gives you real-time visibility and control over your entire P2P process. By working alongside your AP team, Billy helps you stay on top of cash management and effortlessly manage AP tasks.

Stampli’s versatile suite of integrated products and compatibility with over 70 ERPs make for swift deployment, helping companies like Beyer Mechanical reduce invoice lifecycles to 48 hours.

Want to learn more about how Stampli can help your invoice and payment management workflow? Contact us today for a free demo and see why Stampli is the best choice for financial automation.