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The Paper Keep vs Expensify.

For personal use, Expensify includes unlimited SmartScans, mileage, receipt forwarding and CSV export for free. Its paid product is strongest at company approvals and reimbursements; The Paper Keep is shaped around connected-inbox capture and durable personal records.

Updated August 2026 Based on public pricing & docs Expensify free personal accounts; paid workspaces from US$5/member/mo · The Paper Keep $3/mo flat

Two tools, two different jobs.

Pick by the job you need done, not the feature count.

The Paper Keep

A personal receipt archive that fills itself from your email.

No reports, no approvers, no workflow — receipts in, parsed, categorised, searchable, summarised per Australian tax year. $3/mo.

Expensify

Free personal expense capture plus corporate expense management.

Personal accounts include unlimited SmartScans, receipt forwarding, mileage and CSV export. Paid workspaces add categories, tags, approvals, reimbursements, company cards and accounting integrations.

The Paper Keep vs Expensify, in detail.

Everything below about The Paper Keep is shipped today — not a roadmap item.

Feature The Paper Keep Expensify
Getting receipts in
Scans your email inbox for receipts Gmail read-only OAuth; Yahoo, iCloud, Fastmail, custom IMAP — with up to 12 months of history on connect Forward each email to [email protected]
Personal forwarding address A unique address, so auto-forward filters just work Per-account address plus a ready-made Gmail filter Shared [email protected], matched via your login email
Native mobile apps Any mobile browser Capture-focused and polished
Unlimited scanning on the base price $3/mo flat, fair-use pacing Unlimited SmartScans are free for personal accounts; paid workspaces are per member
Personal-archive jobs
Built for keeping receipts long-term Originals untouched, email images archived before links rot Stores the scan; built around report submission, not archival
Household use — several people's receipts in one library Multiple inboxes, one account, no per-user pricing The unit is the employee on a company policy
Full-text search inside receipts OCR text, line items, notes, tags
Field-level audit history Report-level activity log
Tax time (Australia)
Australian tax-year summaries July–June, deductible and GST totals Custom date-range reports
Work-from-home deduction estimator
Expense reports, approvals, reimbursements By design — there's no workflow to administer The whole point of the product
Mileage tracking
Price
What it costs $3/mo or $30/yr, everything included Free personal account with unlimited SmartScans; Collect US$5/member/mo; Control custom from US$9/member/mo
Included Partial, paid extra, or workaround Not offered

Details for Expensify are drawn from its public website, documentation, and pricing pages as of August 2026, and may have changed since. All trademarks belong to their respective owners. Spotted something out of date? Email [email protected] and we'll fix it.

When Expensify is the right call.

The Paper Keep doesn't try to be everything. If any of these describes you, pick accordingly.

An employer reimburses you.

Submitting expense reports up an approval chain is Expensify's core competency. The Paper Keep has no concept of a report or an approver.

You administer company spending.

Corporate cards, policy rules, multi-level approvals — none of that belongs in a personal archive, and all of it is in Expensify.

You track mileage for reimbursement.

Expensify does distance rates natively.

When The Paper Keep is the right call.

You want the raw record preserved.

The Paper Keep retains the untouched original and raw email, and downloads inline images before retailer links expire.

Several inboxes should feed one library.

Connect household Gmail and IMAP accounts once instead of forwarding each order confirmation by hand.

You're keeping records for the ATO.

Five-year durability, July–June summaries, GST totals and WFH methods are the actual requirements of an Australian return — not report PDFs.

Expensify's free personal account is a credible choice for scanning receipts, tracking mileage and exporting expenses, while its paid workspaces are much stronger for company approvals, reimbursements and cards. The Paper Keep is the better fit when the job is automatic inbox capture, raw-record preservation, household archiving and Australian tax summaries. If your receipts end in a reimbursement, use Expensify; if they need to remain findable for a return or warranty claim, compare the archival trade-offs.

Want the wider field? See the full comparison or our roundup of personal receipt apps.

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