Melio vs Bill.com Pricing, Fees and Monthly Cost

Melio vs Bill.com comes down to team size and how much you want to pay for seats. Melio charges per account, from $0 to $80 a month, with a set number of free ACH payments on each plan. BILL charges $49, $65 or $89 per user a month, and its automatic QuickBooks Online and Xero sync starts on the $65 Team plan. For a two to five person US business, Melio usually costs a third to a quarter as much. BILL earns its price with custom approval policies, AR in the same account and ERP sync on Enterprise.

Both are bill pay tools first. If what eats your week is typing invoices into QuickBooks rather than sending the money, read the last section before you pick either one. Every price below comes from melio.com/pricing and bill.com/pricing, both checked on October 13, 2026.

Melio vs Bill.com at a glance

	Melio	BILL (Bill.com)
How you pay	Per account: Go $0, Core $25, Boost $55, Unlimited $80 a month	Per user: Essentials $49, Team $65, Corporate $89 a month; Enterprise quoted
Billed annually	Core $20, Boost $44, Unlimited $64 a month	No annual rate shown on the pricing page
Extra users	$10 a month each on Core and Boost; unlimited on Unlimited; Go is one user	Every user is a full seat
Free ACH payments	5 on Go, 20 on Core, 50 on Boost, unlimited on Unlimited	None
Standard ACH	$0.50 after the free allotment	$0.59
Paper check	$1.50	$1.99
Faster payments	Fast check $20, overnight check $50, same-day ACH 1% capped at $75	Faster ACH $11.99, expedited check $14.99 to $24.99, instant payment 1% ($9.99 minimum, $100 maximum)
Pay by card	2.9%	2.9%
International	Global ACH in USD $20; local currency at conversion rates	USD wire $19.99; FX wire free, exchange rate applies
QuickBooks Online and Xero	Sync from Core ($25)	Automatic 2-way sync from Team ($65 per user); Essentials is manual CSV import and export
Approvals	Custom approval workflows from Core	Approval workflows on every plan; custom approval policies from Corporate
Bill capture	AI bill capture on every plan	AI multi-line bill coding from Team

Is Melio cheaper than Bill.com?

Yes, for almost every small business. Melio's top self-serve plan, Unlimited at $80 a month, includes unlimited users and unlimited ACH payments. Two users on BILL Team already cost $130 a month before a single payment goes out. BILL only gets close when one person runs AP alone on Essentials and pays few vendors, and even then you give up automatic accounting sync.

The gap is structural, not a promotion. Melio makes most of its money on payment fees and paid speed, so it keeps the subscription low. BILL sells seats, so its bill grows with every approver and clerk you add.

What Melio vs Bill.com costs a real team each month

Here is the arithmetic for three US businesses on monthly billing. The plan picked on each side is the cheapest one that includes QuickBooks Online sync, because almost nobody buying either tool wants to re-key paid bills into the ledger.

Two users, 30 ACH payments and 5 checks a month

Melio Core is $25 plus $10 for the second user, so $35. Ten ACH payments past the 20 free cost $5 and five checks cost $7.50. Total: $47.50 a month. BILL Team is $130 for two seats, plus $17.70 in ACH fees and $9.95 for checks. Total: $157.65 a month. Dropping to BILL Essentials saves $32 but turns the QuickBooks connection into a CSV you upload by hand.

Four users, 120 ACH payments and 20 checks a month

Melio Unlimited is $80 with every user and every ACH payment included, plus $30 for checks. Total: $110 a month. BILL Team is $260 for four seats, $70.80 in ACH fees and $39.80 in checks. Total: $370.60 a month. If you need custom approval policies, that is BILL Corporate: $466.60 a month.

A sole owner paying 12 vendors

Melio Go costs nothing for 5 ACH payments, then $0.50 each, so $3.50 a month, but Go has no QuickBooks sync. Melio Core at $25 covers all 12 and syncs. BILL Essentials is $49 plus $7.08 in ACH fees, with manual CSV for the ledger. For a solo owner, Melio Core is the clear pick on price.

Your mix of checks, card payments and rush payments will move these numbers, so redo them with last month's payment count. Our Melio pricing breakdown and Bill.com pricing and fees guide list every plan and fee in one place.

When Bill.com is the better choice

Paying more for BILL makes sense in four situations.

• Your approval rules are complicated. Custom approval policies, such as routing by amount, department and vendor, come with BILL Corporate. If an auditor or a board cares who approved what, that matters more than $50 a seat.
• You want payables and receivables in one account. BILL's plans cover AP and AR together, with spend and expense alongside.
• You run NetSuite, Sage Intacct or Dynamics. BILL Enterprise syncs with them. Melio's NetSuite sync sits on Unlimited, but most ERP-led finance teams end up comparing BILL Enterprise against platforms like Tipalti and AvidXchange instead. Our Tipalti vs Bill.com comparison covers that step up.
• Your accountant already lives in BILL. Many US accounting firms run client AP inside BILL, and staying on the same platform as your bookkeeper saves real time.

When Melio is the better choice

Melio wins on cost and simplicity for most companies under about 20 people. The free ACH allotments mean a business paying 40 vendors a month on Boost pays no ACH fees at all, and Unlimited removes seat math entirely. The 90-day trial of the paid plans with unlimited free ACH payments lets you run a full quarter of payables through it before you pay anything. If your approvals are "the owner says yes," you will not miss BILL's custom policies.

Watch two costs. Paying vendors by card is 2.9% on both, which turns a $4,000 invoice into $116 in fees. And rush payments on Melio are 1% capped at $75, against BILL's $11.99 flat for faster ACH, so a late approval on a large bill can cost more on Melio.

Can you switch from Bill.com to Melio?

Yes. Both connect to QuickBooks Online and Xero, so the ledger stays the source of truth while you move. Export your vendor list from BILL, invite vendors to share bank details in Melio, and run both for one payment cycle so nothing is paid twice or missed. Plan the switch right after a payment run, and cancel BILL only when the last scheduled payment has cleared. Once payments land, match them against the bank with bank reconciliation software so the first month on the new tool closes cleanly.

What neither price covers is getting invoice data in

Both tools capture a bill so that you can pay it. That is fine for the header (vendor, amount, due date). It is a weaker fit when your cost is in the data itself:

• You need line items, quantities and unit prices for job costing, inventory or a price audit.
• Some bills are paid outside the tool, by your bank, an ERP or a company card, and still need to be entered.
• You want 600 invoices in a spreadsheet for year-end or a client handover.

That job is what we sell. PayablesAgent reads invoices, bills and receipts and returns vendor, invoice number, dates, tax, totals and every line item as Excel or CSV, or as QuickBooks Online bills on the Plus plan. It is $49 a month for 2,500 pages with no per-user fee, or $149 for 10,000 pages and three seats. It does not move money, so most teams keep Melio or BILL for payments and use it for capture. If you are deciding between the two because data entry is the pain, test that part first: see how bills land in the ledger on our import bills into QuickBooks Online page, or compare the wider field in accounts payable software for small business.

Melio vs Bill.com and which one to pick

Pick Melio if you are a US small business with fewer than about ten people touching payables, you pay mostly by ACH and check, and QuickBooks Online or Xero is your ledger. Core or Unlimited will cost a fraction of BILL. Pick BILL if you need custom approval policies, AR in the same platform, Enterprise ERP sync or the same tool your accounting firm runs. And if the real problem is entering invoices rather than paying them, keep whichever payment tool you already have and price capture on its own: the Melio alternative and Bill.com alternative pages show how that stacks up.