Ramp Review

Ramp Ratings at a Glance

Ramp Product Offering

Besides its feature-rich corporate charge card, Ramp provides a set of free financial management tools to assist businesses in handling their expenses, invoices and budgets. These tools are accessible to diverse business sizes, boasting features like automated expense categorization, receipt capture and approval workflows, making financial management easy. Here's a comprehensive overview of Ramp's product offering. 

Corporate Card

Corporate cards are a convenient means for companies and organizations with higher annual revenues and larger teams to manage employees' business expenses. Typically, such cards provide expense reporting features and better control over employee expenditures; however, they charge higher annual fees. Ramp's corporate charge card is free and offers businesses up to 1.5% cash back on all purchases. This means you won't incur user fees, annual fees, foreign transaction fees, late payment fees or additional charges for card issuance or replacement. 

Ramp does not apply interest charges because it doesn't allow you to carry over a balance — all balances must be paid in full at the end of each billing cycle. This is one of the primary differences between charge cards and traditional credit cards. Ramp corporate card targets U.S.-registered corporations and other non-individual LLCs; nonprofits can apply, but sole proprietorships and other unregistered businesses are ineligible. No personal guarantee is required for approval since Ramp serves mainly corporations. Instead, it considers your business cash balance, cash flow and other financial health indicators. 

According to Ramp's website, the corporate card provides a 10X to 20X higher credit limit than traditional credit cards to better accommodate the financial requirements of businesses. In addition, Ramp provides unlimited virtual and physical card issuances at no charge to accommodate businesses of varying employee sizes. Besides getting up to 1.5% cashback rewards, companies can save up to $175,000 in partner perks (including services like AWS and Slack) and free time-saving software. Ramp collaborates with top-tier companies to provide exceptional discounts and rewards in the industry.

The card offers more innovative and cost-saving features, which are also part of its broader financial management tools or features. For example, its AI-powered insights help you quickly identify duplicate expenses, claim unused rewards, seamlessly track payments and maintain complete visibility through real-time reporting. You'll get real-time spending alerts for significant transactions and an integrated expense policy lets you set specific thresholds for receipts and other requirements. You can control which vendors to include or exclude on any card. Although Ramp isn't a full accounting system, it integrates with popular accounting software used by small to mid-sized businesses, including QuickBooks, Sage and Xero. 

Expense Management 

Ramp provides all the tools you need to effectively manage and reduce wasteful spending, save time and eliminate expense management headaches. The automatic expense submissions make it easy to collect receipts, eliminate submission errors and enforce expense policies. Ramp automatically categorizes transactions according to your established rules; it auto-declines out-of-policy transactions and flags them to the managers and finance teams. With Gmail, Uber, Amazon Business and Lyft integration, Ramp can auto-collect and match receipts in minutes. It can even detect duplicate receipts. 

Users can take pictures of a receipt and text or email it to Ramp to match it to the appropriate purchase categories on the corporate card. Business owners can seamlessly embed approval flows and spending limits into employee cards for all expenses, from meals to SaaS. Furthermore, they can prevent unauthorized charges with precise point-of-sale restrictions by category, vendor and transaction level. You can instantly visualize every expense and generate reports on various aspects, such as the most frequently used merchant or the department with the highest spending, allowing you to identify spending trends. Ramp claims businesses that use its card save an average of 5% on spend.

Accounts Payable 

Ramp Bill Pay features streamline your accounts payable process, ensuring every bill is recorded, approved and paid automatically, eliminating the need for manual data entry or repetitive tasks. Ramp lets you pay vendors across 195 countries using USD or 40 foreign currencies. You can seamlessly upload PDF invoices you received from employees and create, approve and pay the bills in under a minute. Ramp Bill Pay employs AI to extract essential information from invoices, streamlining the accounts payable processes.

It can detect duplicate invoices, handle approval routing and match invoices to purchase orders. Ramp synchronizes all bills and payments with your accounting software, simplifying your accounting tasks. You can download a CSV AP aging report directly from Bill Pay to predict outflows and establish customized approval workflows. Ramp's payment platform automates check payments, securely handles ACH transfers and international wires and rewards you with up to 1.5% cash back when you make payments using a Ramp card. 

You can set up recurring bills for your regular vendor payments, customizing the frequency and end date to your needs. You can add the vendor's W9 tax information or request it directly from Ramp. The platform supports amortization for bills thanks to integration with NetSuite, and you can import a PO into the Bill Pay. Ramp Bill Pay incorporates Flex, a payment solution that empowers you to control your domestic and global cash flow, make vendor payments on your terms and maintain vendor satisfaction. It allows you to delay vendor payments to align with your bill payment schedule. However, using Flex to finance your bill attracts small charges.

Vendor Management 

With Vendor Management, you can automatically monitor your vendor data and transactions, simplifying spending analysis and insights. You can instantly track and extract crucial contract details from Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) names to start and end dates and receive automatic reminders 60 and 30 days before contract renewals are due. Ramp leverages real transaction data to provide accurate software pricing benchmarks, allowing you to assess if you're getting a good deal by uploading your contract. It also helps you understand the cost per user for various software SKUs, enhancing your negotiation capabilities. 

Ramp's expert negotiator can help you negotiate vendor contracts and seamlessly handle time-consuming vendor communication on your behalf. In this regard, Ramp acts as your strategic procurement partner, communicating with your vendors throughout the process without feather-ruffling and offering a white-glove experience to meet all your contract requirements. This benefit ensures that software purchases don't take up your time or cost too much money. Ramp can negotiate payment processing, SaaS and Cloud on diverse contracts, including new purchases and contract renewal.

You can try Ramp Negotiations with a single vendor contract for free and, if satisfied, discuss monthly fees with your account manager.

Third-Party Integrations

Ramp simplifies your finance operations through ready-to-use software integrations with popular accounting, collaboration and security tools. It integrates with accounting systems, including QuickBooks, Xero, Sage and NetSuite fast-track bookkeeping. The HRIS integration streamlines onboarding. You can efficiently manage spending and receive vital alerts directly from Slack. And via integration with Gmail and Lyft, you can automate expenses. 

This feature improves company-wide productivity. A more secure onboarding experience is possible thanks to Ramp's best-in-class integration with Microsoft Azure, Okta, Google Suite and 1Password. The platform offers 80+ bank connections, enabling you to automate payments in a single platform, including ACH, corporate card and international wires, streamlining transaction flows. Its integration with Microsoft Outlook further enhances time-saving by automatically retrieving receipts from your inbox, transferring only essential data to Ramp without forwarding and securely deleting it when no longer necessary.

Educational Resources and Other Free Tools

Ramp offers rich educational resources comprising blog articles, case studies, guides, podcasts, reports and fraud detection webinars. Specific content is varied but aims to adequately and reliably educate clients on accounting and other vital company information. In addition, Ramp provides a host of free and valuable tools. For instance, it offers the mission statement generator tool, an AI-powered system that enables businesses to automatically generate a compelling mission statement by answering five simple questions. The VC database, another free tool, is an extensive compilation of leading venture capitalists and angel investors spanning various sectors and investment stages. 

The burn rate calculator enables you to calculate your burn rates seamlessly. The burn rate refers to the rate at which a company spends its available cash or capital to cover its operating expenses before it becomes profitable. It measures how quickly a company uses up its funds to sustain its operations. Calculating your burn rate is essential to understand how long your business can operate before running out of funds, helping you make informed financial decisions and secure additional capital if needed. Other free tools include a company name generator, invoice generator, employee cost calculator, expense classifier, pricing intelligence database, startup cost calculator and many other tools.

Ramp offers customers support via live chat and chatbot channels. There's no phone support. Suppose you want to contact Ramp for inquiries related to your account, card issues or any other concerns. In that case, you can use your Ramp dashboard. On the bottom right corner of your screen, click on the (?) icon; the bot will ask if you're an existing customer. Select Yes or No accordingly, then select "Contact Support." Subsequently, you can fill out your details, describe your inquiries in the form that appears and email the support team.

While Ramp assures a prompt response, you must understand that this channel doesn't provide the same immediate interaction as phone support. Ramp makes for an excellent ease of usage, featuring a clean dashboard and a mobile app that complements its cloud-based software; additionally, it offers an extensive list of FAQs and live onboarding events for user assistance. Ramp's Bill Pay demo is available on YouTube and on the company's websites. You can also potentially connect with the team via LinkedIn, Instagram and especially Twitter, where the company maintains an active presence. 

Ramp highly prioritizes user privacy and leverages industry-leading best practices to maximize protection. Some of these measures include robust encryption protocols (HTTPS during data transmission and AES-256 or higher standards at rest), compulsory multi-factor authentication, SAML SSO account protection, tokenization to protect card and CVV numbers, regular penetration testing, external auditing, WAF and DDoS Protection and other essential security measures.

Information provided during the application is used for personalized service delivery, marketing and to verify your business to prevent fraud. This data is securely stored online and protected against unauthorized access or cyber threats. Ramp doesn't share or sell users' data to any third party. The platform employs highly respected vendors, including Finicity and Teller, to link your bank account. These third parties also offer the highest level of security. For more constructive information about measures Ramp takes against fraud prevention and individual steps you can take for enhanced fraud protections, Ramp provides various insightful articles on that for customer perusal. 

Ramp's charge card and financial management software are entirely free to use, and when you use the charge card, you'll earn up to 1.5% cash back on all your expenses. Ramp doesn't charge user fees, annual fees, foreign transaction fees, late fees or interest charges. However, using Flex to finance your bill attracts a small fee, which is clearly shown to you before proceeding. The expert negotiator also attracts charges. However, the platform allows you to try it with a single vendor contract for free. If satisfied, you can then discuss monthly fees with your account manager.

Ramp offers a robust, user-friendly and highly intuitive mobile app on iOS and Android platforms with many innovative features to enhance user experience. It allows you to submit receipts in a snap, view card details, review real-time transaction data, pay as you go, lock cards, request limit changes and offer reimbursements for out-of-pocket spending and mileage. Additionally, you can use it to view and mark transactions as accidental, request policy exceptions, correct merchant information and include attendees for meals. In the iOS app, you can smoothly switch between profiles if you have multiple logins with Ramp, enhancing your mobile experience.

Ramp offers an excellent user experience with a clean and uncluttered dashboard. It provides a charge card and financial management software completely free of charge, with users earning up to 1.5% cash back on card charges. The onboarding process takes just minutes, complemented by live training and ensuring a quick start. Numerous educational resources, from blog articles to webinars, help businesses maximize platform usage and gain valuable accounting knowledge. Ramp's highly intuitive mobile app offers seamless on-the-go access to its numerous financial tools, further enhancing the user experience. Benzinga considers Ramp a highly recommendable platform. 

Ramp vs. Competitors

Ramp corporate card's closest competitor is the Brex card. Both are similar — they offer numerous integrations with existing software, provide valuable discounts on commonly used business services and do not require a personal guarantee. In addition, both come with no annual fee or foreign transaction fees. While both cards offer rewards for all spending, the Brex card provides significantly higher reward rates. However, the Ramp card offers savings by analyzing your spending habits and suggesting ways to reduce expenses based on your specific transactions. 

The Ramp card goes beyond what a traditional business credit card typically provides, offering a robust suite of bookkeeping-related benefits that offer a competitive edge compared to the Brex card. Conventional credit cards like the Capital One Spark Cash Plus might be ideal if you're a sole proprietor looking for a simple cashback card for your business spending. However, they charge fees and don't come close to Ramp regarding benefits.

Ramp is a cutting-edge platform that combines corporate cards, expense management, bill payments, accounting and reporting into a single, straightforward and cost-free solution designed to streamline business operations and reduce costs. It is well-suited for startups, small and mid-sized businesses, the financial services sector and remote work environments. The mobile app is highly intuitive and optimized to enhance accessibility. 

The platform also provides a wealth of educational resources and training materials, providing learning opportunities that enhance user experience. The onboarding process is hassle-free, taking just minutes. However, Ramp lacks immediate and efficient customer support, and you cannot carry over balances since it is a charge card. Overall, Ramp provides a comprehensive suite of business tools, making financial management more accessible and cost-effective.

Frequently Asked Questions