Airwallex vs Tipalti: Compare fees, features, and benefits

Rethinking your finance tech stack? Both Airwallex and Tipalti can help streamline operations, reduce costs, and give real-time control over payments.  

This guide compares the two platforms across core areas like global payments, spend control, accounts payable (AP), and pricing. We’ve looked into specs, customer feedback, and integrations to help you decide.

What is Airwallex?

Airwallex is a global financial platform that helps businesses manage their spending and payments in one place, especially when operating across different countries. With Airwallex, you can open accounts in over 23 currencies – like GBP, USD, and EUR – without having to set up offices abroad. This makes it easy to receive, hold, and pay money locally while avoiding the high and sometimes hidden currency fees often found with providers like Tipalti.

What sets Airwallex apart is how everything for managing expenses is built in. You can issue company cards, set spending controls, process bills, and track expenses – all within a single system. Airwallex also connects to tools like Xero, NetSuite, and QuickBooks, and gets businesses up and running quickly, without the complex setup or need to keep money locked in pre-funded wallets. This gives finance teams more control, flexibility, and clearer costs compared to traditional solutions.

Regulated in the UK and holding 60+ licences worldwide, Airwallex is trusted by companies including Brex, Qantas, McLaren Racing, and Navan. Teams choose Airwallex for its speed, transparency, and control.

What is Tipalti?

Tipalti is designed to help businesses automate their accounts payable processes, making it easier to manage supplier onboarding, capture invoices, handle tax compliance, set up approval workflows, and process mass global payouts.

Its main strength lies in handling complex AP tasks for finance teams that need to pay many vendors around the world. Tipalti offers features like invoice scanning, tax form collection, and detailed approval chains to support companies with high transaction volumes and strict regulatory requirements.

Similar to Airwallex, Tipalti focuses on supplier payments and vendor management, rather than providing tools for team expenses or company cards. It does not offer accounts to receive or hold funds, nor employee card features – teams looking to manage their own spend or internal expenses would need another solution alongside Tipalti.

Implementation can be more time-consuming, with additional setup fees, and pricing – especially for international payments – can be less transparent due to higher or hidden FX rates and extra bank charges. Tipalti is best suited for enterprises with complex, high-volume supplier payment needs and structured finance processes

Read more: What is spend management? Process and benefits

Airwallex vs Tipalti, at a glance

Accounts payable 

Tipalti offers invoice scanning, PO matching, approval routing, W-8/W-9 tax form collection, and supplier onboarding. These features are useful for finance teams processing thousands of supplier payments across countries.

However, this comes with cost and complexity. Implementation can take weeks and often involves an onboarding fee.  

Airwallex simplifies accounts payable through Bill Pay and Payouts:

• Bill Pay: Upload and pay invoices directly from your wallet. Set multi-layer approvals, automate reimbursements, and manage expenses in one place. Included in the Grow plan and above.

• Global Payouts: Pay suppliers in 200+ countries and 60+ currencies. Use local cost-effective rails (available for 120+ countries), SWIFT, or instant transfers to other Airwallex users. FX is 0.5–1% above the interbank rate and real-time.

• Automation: Sync with Xero, QuickBooks, and NetSuite. Use APIs or prebuilt components to automate batch payments and reduce manual errors.

• Visibility: Track statuses in real time, trigger alerts, and reconcile spend across teams or entities.

Expense management and card control

Airwallex includes built-in card controls. You can issue virtual or physical cards to staff, fulfill reimbursements, set custom limits, and monitor spend in real-time. Expenses sync automatically to the platform, and integrations with Xero and QuickBooks speed up reconciliation.

This helps finance teams manage recurring subscriptions, travel, and operational spend without chasing receipts.

Read the Truvi case study.

Tipalti does not offer team card tools. It focuses on supplier payments and has no employee expense functionality and relies on reimbursements. For internal spend control, teams would need a separate platform.

Global payments

Airwallex supports payments in over 150 countries and 60+ currencies at live rates, and 100 at spot rates. You can open currency accounts in key markets including the UK, EU, US, China, and Australia. Funds can be received with local bank details and held or exchanged at low FX rates.

Transfers are processed quickly. 90% arrive within one business day, with clear payment tracking. FX margins start from 0.5–1%, and rates are locked in real time.

Tipalti supports 196 countries and 120 currencies, but only for outbound payments. You cannot receive or hold funds. Its core is mass payout automation, which suits platforms working with large networks of contractors or suppliers. FX rates are not transparent by default and often marked up.

How much do they cost?

Airwallex offers four pricing tiers. Explore starts at £0/month (if you deposit or hold £10k+) or £19/month otherwise. It includes multi-currency accounts, transfers to 150+ countries, transparent FX of 0.5–1%, and up to 10 company cards. Grow costs £49/month and adds Expense Management, Bill Pay, and up to 50 cards. Accelerate is £999/month with support for multiple entities, NetSuite integration, and a dedicated account manager. For large-scale or embedded finance use cases, custom pricing is available.  

Tipalti starts at £99/month, with custom tiers for larger teams. Implementation fees typically begin around £1,500, with additional costs for features like OCR scanning or tax compliance. Tipalti does not publish FX rates, and payouts may involve additional bank or intermediary fees.

Read more: How to manage team expenses with virtual debit cards

What real users are saying

Airwallex reviews like the clean interface, fast setup, strong customer service, and FX savings. Many mention the ability to move money quickly across borders and manage spend in one place.

Tipalti reviewers praise its AP automation depth and regulatory coverage, particularly for global payouts and tax compliance. However, they note setup is time-consuming and the platform can be overbuilt for small teams.

Final verdict: Which platform is right for your business?

If your company needs global supplier payouts with tax compliance and invoice automation, Tipalti is a proven enterprise option. It works best for businesses with large AP teams and structured processes.

If your focus is spend control, fast international payments, and low-cost FX with minimal admin, Airwallex brings better value and usability. It suits scale-ups, SaaS companies, e-commerce brands, and teams operating in multiple currencies.

Airwallex brings together accounts, cards, FX, and payments in one place. It is simple to use, fast to set up, and built for modern finance teams.

How a trip to tinsel town inspired a change in spend management

Disclaimer & Sources

We wrote this article in Q3 2025. The information was based on our own online research and we were not able to manually test each tool or provider. The information is provided for educational purposes only and a reader should consider the specific requirements of their business when evaluating providers. If you would like to request an update, feel free to contact us at [email protected].

• https://tipalti.com/

• g2.com/products/tipalti/reviews

• g2.com/products/airwallex/reviews