ApprovalMax: accounts payable automation software platform

The short answer

Buy ApprovalMax if you run Xero or QuickBooks Online, the thing that worries you is who signed off on a bill, and you want approvers who never touch the accounting system. Pricing by approved documents with unlimited approvers suits a company where twenty managers each approve a handful of invoices, because the people who slow you down cost you nothing to add.

Skip it if you want one platform doing capture, approval, payment execution and the ledger, because ApprovalMax deliberately sits beside your accounting system rather than replacing it. Skip it too if you run NetSuite and need a price before a sales call, since the NetSuite plan page publishes no figure at all, and skip it if your volume is heavily seasonal and you intend to bill monthly, because overage lands every month rather than averaging out.

Where ApprovalMax fits

ApprovalMax pricing

ApprovalMax publishes its pricing structure in detail and withholds the one thing you came for. Checked on 16 October 2026, the Xero and QuickBooks Online plan pages name three tiers, Standard, Advanced and Premium, each sold in Small, Medium and Large sizes set by approved documents a month, and then render the amount in the browser once you choose a currency and a billing period. An automated request gets an empty price. What is in the page text and can be relied on: the per-document overage rates, a 17% discount for annual billing, a 20% not-for-profit discount and a 14-day free trial with no credit card. So this is a page you have to open yourself, in your own currency, and that is the first instruction below.

What ApprovalMax publishes

Standard

Not published in the page text; the amount appears only in the browser (Per month, billed yearly or monthly, excluding tax, in Small, Medium or Large size)Approval workflows for bills, purchase orders and credit notes, automatic audit trail and reports, fraud detection, and ApprovalMax Capture at no additional cost. Small covers up to 100 approved documents a month, Medium up to 300, Large up to 500, with unlimited active approvers at every size.

Advanced

Not published in the page text; the amount appears only in the browser (Per month, billed yearly or monthly, excluding tax, in Small, Medium or Large size)Everything in Standard plus auto-approvals for requests that meet set conditions, request and workflow version history, bill-to-purchase-order matching and approved journal entries.

Premium

Not published in the page text; the amount appears only in the browser (Per month, billed yearly or monthly, excluding tax, in Small, Medium or Large size)Everything in Advanced plus standalone approval workflows for contracts, capital expenditure, expenses, quotes and reimbursements, public API access, phone support, batch payment preparation and verification, and single sign-on with passkey login.

ApprovalMax for Oracle NetSuite

Quote only, no figure published (Contact sales)Multi-step approval workflows without giving approvers NetSuite access, two-way sync and three-way matching, vendor bill, purchase order, expense report and journal approvals, and sales order approvals pulled from NetSuite. A volume discount is offered through sales.

Partner pricing

Quote only, reached through a contact form (Contact ApprovalMax for partner pricing)For firms offering bookkeeping, accounting or advisory services, sold separately from the published plan pages and listed alongside the Partner Program.

Structure as published on the ApprovalMax plan pages for Xero and QuickBooks Online and checked on 16 October 2026. The price elements arrive with an empty value and are filled in by script after you select a currency from AUD, EUR, GBP, NZD, SGD, USD or ZAR and a monthly or yearly term, so no plan amount is recorded here. The older pricing URLs are also dead: /pricing/xero, /pricing/quickbooks and /pricing/netsuite all returned 404, and the live pages carry the approvalmax-for prefix.

Four things set what you pay, and the first is the one most buyers get wrong.

1. Approved documents a month, which picks your plan size. ApprovalMax calls this Tiered Usage Pricing: Small up to 100, Medium up to 300, Large up to 500, each with unlimited active approvers. Pull last year's count of fully approved bills, purchase orders, invoices and expenses before you choose, and remember each approved batch payment request counts as one document. Rejected and cancelled requests do not count, which means a chaotic approval process with a high rejection rate is cheaper here than it is anywhere else.
2. Overage, which is charged rather than blocked. ApprovalMax states plainly that the allowance is not a cap: documents beyond it are billed per document at a rate set by the plan size, added to the next monthly invoice, or collected at the annual renewal date on annual billing. On the Xero page the Standard rates are 0.43 beyond 100 documents, 0.25 beyond 300 and 0.22 beyond 500, and the Advanced rates are 0.70 beyond 100, 0.39 beyond 300 and 0.33 beyond 500. Those numbers are published without a currency symbol, because the currency is a choice on the page, so read them as a unit rate in whichever of the seven currencies you select. The Premium row and the QuickBooks Online rates sit behind a separate link and are not recorded here.
3. The tier, which buys features rather than capacity. Bill-to-purchase-order matching and auto-approvals are the Advanced line; the public API, phone support and batch payment preparation are the Premium line. Because approvers are unlimited at every size, the tier and the document count are the only two levers that move the published bill.
4. Your accounting system, which decides whether you get a self-serve price at all. Xero and QuickBooks Online have published plan pages. NetSuite does not: that page offers Contact sales and Get a demo only. Accounting, bookkeeping and advisory firms are in the partner route instead, which is also a conversation rather than a rate card, and neither group can benchmark against anything on the public site.

What costs extra

• Overage is the main variable charge: every approved document beyond the monthly allowance is billed at the plan-size rate, so a steady overrun is a real line item rather than a rounding error.
• A Training Package is sold separately: two 60 minute expert-led sessions, a product walkthrough, custom training for administrators and users, and advice on your existing workflows. It carries a Buy now button and a note that the price excludes tax, but no figure appears in the page text.
• ApprovalMax Capture, the OCR product, is the notable non-extra. Both plan pages state twice that it is included in all plans at no additional cost, which is worth confirming in writing because capture is a paid add-on at several competitors.

Implementation and commercial terms

The rows below are what the ApprovalMax plan pages confirm as of 16 October 2026. Read the absence of a plan amount as a step in your process, not as a hidden fee: the figure exists, it just only renders in a browser session that has chosen a currency.

Published price

Structure published, amount not in the page text

Pricing metric

Approved documents per month, 100, 300 or 500 by plan size

Approvers

Unlimited active approvers at every tier and size

Annual discount

17% for annual billing, with the allowance pooled at 12 times the monthly limit

Not-for-profit discount

20% once subscribed

Currencies

AUD, EUR, GBP, NZD, SGD, USD and ZAR, selected on the page

Implementation fee

None published; a paid Training Package is the only service sold, with no figure shown

Support

24/5 customer support, with live chat limited to trial customers

Free trial

14 days, all features, no credit card required

Budget this in three steps. Open the Xero or QuickBooks Online plan page yourself, in your currency, and read the figure for the size your document count puts you in; take the 14-day trial to confirm the tier, since all features are open during it; then model overage against the next size up, because ApprovalMax itself says that a regular overrun is usually cheaper solved by moving up a size, and the rate falls as the size rises. Weigh annual billing on how uneven your volume is: the 17% discount comes with a pooled annual allowance, so a busy quarter balances a quiet one, while monthly billing charges overage every month. If you run NetSuite or you are an accounting firm, there is no published number to work from at all, so ask for the rate and the volume discount in writing before you compare it with anything.

Source: the ApprovalMax pricing page for Xero, checked 16 October 2026. Confirm current prices with the vendor before you budget.

What ApprovalMax gives up

How ApprovalMax compares

In accounts payable automation the first useful cut is what the vendor will tell you before a sales call, because it decides whether your evaluation is modelling or negotiation. BILL publishes full per-user rates and Tipalti a starting platform fee, both checked on 25 September 2026. ApprovalMax publishes its whole structure and renders the amount in the browser. Medius publishes two packages and no figure at all. Every price cell below comes from that vendor's own pricing page and nothing is estimated.

What to test in an ApprovalMax trial

The trial is 14 days, needs no credit card and opens all features, which makes it genuinely useful rather than a lead form with a timer. Two weeks is enough to settle the tier and the size, so spend it on those two questions rather than on a tour.

1. Count before you configure. Pull last year's fully approved bills, purchase orders, credit notes and expenses by month, and find your worst month rather than your average. That number decides whether you are Small, Medium or Large, and the gap between the two candidates is what the overage rates are for.
2. Open the plan page in your own currency and billing period and record the figure. The amount only renders in a browser after you pick from AUD, EUR, GBP, NZD, SGD, USD or ZAR and a monthly or yearly term, so take the screenshot during the trial and attach it to the order form. Confirm the Premium overage rate and the QuickBooks Online rates separately, since those sit behind another link.
3. Rebuild the approval chain that actually stalls, not the clean one. Model the real routing for the manager who goes quiet for a week, test escalation and reassignment, and check what the audit trail shows afterwards. Because approvers are unlimited, add every one of them in the trial rather than a sample, and see whether people outside finance will use it without training.
4. Test the tier boundary deliberately. Push a bill against a purchase order to see whether bill-to-PO matching, which is an Advanced feature, is something you need, and try a standalone workflow for a contract or a capital expenditure request, which is Premium. If neither earns its place, Standard with Capture included is the honest answer.
5. Settle the commercial terms while the trial is live. Ask what the Training Package costs, since the page shows a Buy now button and no figure, whether a volume discount applies to you, and what happens to your approval history and audit trail if you leave. Confirm the 20% not-for-profit discount if you qualify, and if you are on NetSuite or you are an accounting firm, get a written rate here, because there is no published one.

Frequently asked questions about ApprovalMax