Top 15 best free travel management software in 2024

30 Dec 2022 · 17
Business travel expenses often represent a considerable chunk of a business’s total expenditure, meaning many organizations are looking for cost-effective tools to help them manage their travel programs and reduce costs.
In this article, we cover the 15 best free travel management apps, travel companies, and software solutions for managing enterprise travel. Keep reading for a breakdown of features and pricing to help your business streamline business travel booking, manage travel expenses, and maintain travel policy compliance.

Top 15 free travel management software tools

Not all free travel management software is created equal. While some are end-to-end tools, others might focus on specific travel processes only, such as expense management. 
You’ll find our top picks broken down into the best free travel management software solutions for booking business travel, managing travel expenses and travel arrangements, and nice-to-have add-ons.

Best free travel management apps for managing business travel booking

Travelperk Corporate Travel Management Business Travel Services
TravelPerk is a travel management company that enables users to manage the entire business travel booking process via its centralized, end-to-end digital platform. Along with access to an industry-leading travel inventory for flights and accommodation,  users can also benefit from TravelPerk’s VAT recovery solution, a carbon offsetting program, and FlexiPerk, a cancelation policy that grants users the ability to cancel business trip arrangements up to two hours before departure with a guaranteed refund of 80%.
A good travel management solution should offer integrations with the most popular expense management tools. TravelPerk offers 18 different expense management integrations, as well as a huge catalog of other third-party integrations that help streamline processes.
Other key TravelPerk features include:
TravelPerk is the best business travel management app for all-in-one travel booking and management, as the TMC focuses solely on corporate travel management and the needs of businesses. See how TravelPerk can streamline your organization’s business travel program for free with a free demo.

TravelPerk pricing

TravelPerk offers a free Starter plan, with access to the following crucial tools:
  • Industry-leading travel inventory of flights, hotels, trains, and cars
  • 24/7 customer support
  • Travel data reports
  • Consolidated invoicing
  • Travel agent service
  • Access to TravelPerk’s negotiated rates
  • 5 free bookings per month
If you need more support and solutions, the Premium package costs $99/month and includes policies and approval processes, TravelCare risk management, FlexiPerk cancelation policy, and a concierge service.
The Pro package costs $299/month and includes an expenses API, budgets by cost center, a rates negotiation service, and access to negotiated rates.

TravelPerk ratings

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2. Booking.com for Business

Booking.com for Business homepage
Booking.com is an online travel agency and marketplace. Users can search for accommodation, flights, car rentals, and package deals. The search platform is available in 43 languages, and the company runs a rewards program and a range of discounted booking options.
Booking.com’s key features include:
  • Advanced search filters
  • Multilingual customer support
  • Low-cost guarantee feature
The company does offer a corporate travel booking option, Booking.com for Business. However, since the platform has been built with a focus on leisure travel, there are many features it doesn’t offer to companies.
For example, Booking.com offers limited transportation options. Plus, there is no VAT recovery function or carbon offsetting options, a lack of integrations with third-party solutions, and no traveler tracking.
While Booking.com’s platform is easy to use, there are many cost-saving benefits of using a travel management platform that’s designed for corporate use. For example, travel management companies can identify the best deals, negotiate significant corporate discounts, and scale to meet your business needs. Plus, keeping track of multiple invoices is much harder when making a large number of bookings via a platform like Booking.com.

Booking.com pricing

Booking.com is free to use, but third-party aggregators often charge customers specific fees.

Booking.com for Business ratings

Kayak for Business homepage
Kayak for Business is a free travel search and booking engine that functions in the same way as its consumer platform, Kayak. It’s a travel aggregator platform that searches hundreds of travel sites to find and display flight, hotel, and rental car options.
Users can automatically generate travel itineraries that include flight information, boarding passes, hotel, and restaurant reservations. Plus, companies can integrate their travel policies into Kayak for Business, which means that when trips are booked, managers will be shown whether they land inside the policy.
Other key Kayak for Business features include:
  • Discounted corporate rates
  • Points reward program
  • Price alert function
  • Reporting and tracking functionality
  • Expense integration
  • Price predictions
Keep in mind that since Kayak for Business is a search engine, the solution does not come with a customer service function. In fact, all refunds, travel amendments, and cancellations are handled by the providers themselves.

Kayak for Business pricing

Kayak for Business is free to use, although users don’t have access to any customer service support. All changes, cancellations, and refunds must be processed via the original provider, and there is no option to add users’ negotiated rates.
Biz+ and Enterprise plans start from $20 per trip booked, and include 24/7 customer support, among other features.

Kayak for Business ratings

  • G2 rating: none
Enterprise for Business homepage
If your employees are traveling frequently and renting cars during their trip, using a corporate car rental solution can save your team time and money. 
Many end-to-end travel management tools, like TravelPerk, offer car rentals and other transportation verticals within their platforms. This makes it way easier to manage all of your employees' travel arrangements and bookings all in one place. However, if you’re looking for a car rental management option directly through a car rental agency, the Enterprise for Business solution is for you. 
Key features of Enterprise for Business:
  • 5% business discount on rental cars booked through Enterprise 
  • Dedicated account manager for your business 
  • Employees can bypass check-in counter for better experiences
  • Ability to ensure travelers comply with internal travel policies 
  • Spend forecasting based on current rates
Although Enterprise is one of the largest car rental providers in the US (and globally), keep in mind that joining a corporate car rental management program managed by Enterprise makes it difficult for employees to get discounts, comply with policies, and make reservations if they need to use another provider. 

Enterprise for Business pricing

Enterprise for Business is free to sign up for and use.

Enterprise for Business ratings

  • G2 ratings: none
Hotel Engine homepage
Hotel Engine is a corporate travel solution focused on corporate hotel discounts and management. With Hotel Engine, you can book hotels for your employees at discounted rates, while also keeping all of their trips and hotel expenses in one place. 
The downside of this, of course, is that this platform only focuses on hotels, meaning that flights, rental cars, and other travel must be managed separately. An end-to-end solution that keeps all of your travel arrangements in one place typically offers more value for most enterprise businesses. However, if you’re solely looking for hotel management, Hotel Engine offers a great software. 
Key features of Hotel Engine:
  • Up to 60% off corporate hotel accommodations  
  • Expenses dashboard makes streamlined billing and expense reports more manageable
  • Customizable dashboards and analytics makes travel spend easier to track and control
  • 24/7 support for your team 
  • Group travel bookings let you keep your whole team on the same page

Hotel Engine pricing

Hotel Engine’s free plan includes custom travel policies, up to 60% off discounts on hotels, and 24/7 member support.
If you need access to more flexible policies, such as unlimited changes without blackout dates, larger group bookings, and more, you can upgrade to their Business Premium plan from $167/month. 

Hotel Engine ratings

Airbnb for Work homepage
For teams who want to feel a bit more at home when they travel, travel for longer periods, or want to include team bonding activities in your corporate travel experiences, Airbnb for Work is a good travel management solution. It makes it simple for employees to self-book overnight stays without needing a reimbursement, to book offsite locations for team bonding or collaboration, or to book and manage team bonding activities. 
The upside: many other travel booking platforms, like Kayak or Booking.com, don’t include vacation home rentals or Airbnb-specific offerings, which means that Airbnb for Work gives you access to specialized stays you can’t find elsewhere. 
The downside, of course: since it’s specific to Airbnb, your options may be limited, and you can’t price-compare against the going rates for local hotels and other accommodation options. In addition, Airbnb for Work doesn’t offer any corporate discounts like other platforms do. 
Key features of Airbnb for Work:
  • Ability to book a variety of spaces for long trips, offsites, and more
  • Trips dashboard to see all of your team’s upcoming and past trips
  • Invoices and reporting tools make it easy to sync with your expense management platforms
  • Price alerts and payment groups help ensure compliance 
  • Add employees to your team to let them make their own booking with the company card, simplifying booking and reducing micro-management while eliminating reimbursements

Airbnb for Work pricing

Airbnb for Work is free to join.

Airbnb for Work ratings

  • G2 ratings: none

Best free travel management apps for managing travel expenses

Soldo homepage
Soldo is a payment and spend management automation platform suitable for businesses of any size that helps make payments and control and track spending.
The platform allows businesses to make payments using physical and virtual cards, set custom budgets and rules, track spending in real-time, automate administrative tasks, and connect accounting platforms.
To help businesses automate their workflows, Soldo offers several useful integrations with accounting, expense tracking, document management, and open banking solutions. Plus, the platform integrates with TravelPerk to allow users to export invoices into Soldo for all bookings made using a Soldo card.

Soldo pricing

Soldo’s free version provides access for up to 5 users (up to 1 admin and 1 accountant) with 5 user cards and basic spend management features. Soldo is available in Italy and the UK, with passporting to over 30 countries in Europe.
Soldo also offers additional pricing tiers, with increased numbers of users, cards, purchases, and recurring payments available on each: 
  • Pro 5: from £30/month for up to 5 users (up to 2 admins/accountants)
  • Pro 10: from £60/month for up to 10 users (up to 3 admins/accountants)
  • Premium: from £90/month for up to 10 users (up to 3 admins/managers)

Soldo ratings

Pleo homepage
As one of Europe’s leading spending solutions, Pleo is an expense management app that helps businesses manage the entire expense reporting process from start to finish.
With Pleo, employees receive their own Pleo debit cards and get cashback on company spending. Teams can buy what they need, saving employees from out of pocket expenses and reducing time spent in the tedious reimbursement process. Pleo cards can also be added to Apple Pay, making work-related purchases even easier.
Once a purchase is made, users capture pictures of their receipts within the Pleo app, which are uploaded and submitted for approval. Custom rules can be created to flag expenses that need an extra layer of manager review, while the rest can be automatically approved.
The app also enables users to generate invoices, collect payments, track mileage, and plan trips. Employers can set individual spending limits for each Pleo card and adjust them as needed.
Pleo integrates with all major ERP, accounting, and finance software solutions and even with travel solutions, including TravelPerk. This integration enables the automatic reporting of trips booked in the TravelPerk system, and users can enjoy the benefits of one-click travel expense reporting.

Pleo pricing

Pleo offers a free Basic plan, available for up to three users—a great option for entrepreneurs and micro companies who are looking to automate company spending. Pleo also offers two premium options: 
  • Essential Plan: £12/user/month. Users can be reimbursed with or without cards, with free ATM withdrawals and spend limits available.
  • Advanced Plan: £14/user/month, offering 1% cashback, unlimited entity management, a Customer Success Manager, free external bookkeeper access, and open API access.

Pleo ratings

Read our full review of Pleo platform here.
Ramp homepage
Ramp is a “5-in-1” software that combines corporate cards, expense management, bill payments, accounting, and reporting into one platform.
Users can earn rewards, enjoy cost savings with customized spending insights, access built-in spend control, and access over $175,000 in partner rewards. Ramp also offers over 1,000 integrations with other software solutions—including seamless integration with the TravelPerk platform that allows users to automate travel and expense reports and receive 1.5% cashback on all travel expenses with Ramp.

Ramp pricing

Ramp is completely free to use and does not charge any card replacement fees, late fees, or interest.

Ramp ratings

Let’s take a look at Ramp’s review platform ratings:
Bill Spend homepage
BILL is an all-in-one expense management solution suitable for businesses of all sizes and industries. Its smart corporate cards make business travel expenses easy to track, categorize, and report.
The platform eliminates the need to create expense reports, gives users real-time visibility into spending, and enables users to create budgets and generate virtual cards, all from within one platform.
It also integrates with TravelPerk, allowing users to reap the benefits of a centralized portal where they can easily book, manage, and report on travel expenses.

BILL Spend & Expense pricing

The platform’s entire feature catalog is free to use, with no contracts or hidden fees.

BILL Spend & Expense ratings

Here are BILL Spend & Expense’s platform ratings:

Other tools and add-ons

App in the Air homepage
App in the Air is a personal travel assistant app that helps users plan, book, track, and manage their travel arrangements.
While the app is not specifically designed for business travel, the app includes several handy features such as itinerary tracking, the ability to check your journey’s carbon footprint, and airport tips from fellow travelers. It also offers integrations with various other travel management apps like TravelPerk.

App in the Air pricing

App in the Air is free to download and provides handy information including past flight statistics, the number of hours flown, and countries visited.
Premium plans start at $29.99 annually, and offers features such as automatic check-in, seat selection, real-time flight updates, and gate changes.

App in the Air ratings

  • G2 rating: none
MileIQ homepage
If your employees drive frequently for business purposes, then a mileage tracking app can help make managing their travel reimbursements so much easier. 
With MileIQ, your employees can track mileage automatically (and accurately) using GPS tracking, eliminating tracking and reporting responsibilities and making mileage reimbursements easier and more accurate. 
Key features of MileIQ:
  • Automatic mileage tracking
  • IRS compliant mileage logs
  • Easy reporting dashboards to see where your employees travel 
  • Single dashboard to track compliance and policies for as many employees as you need
  • Integrated payment and billing options make mileage payments easier than ever

MileIQ pricing

MileIQ has a free plan which includes up to 40 drives a month. 
If you need more drives tracked than that, or you want to get all your employees under the same Team account, MileIQ offers premium plans starting at $5 per user, per month.

MileIQ ratings

Tripkicks homepage
Tripkicks is an add-on that provides insights and alerts for travel plans to help users optimize travel experiences.
Tripkicks key features include:
  • Highlighting preferred suppliers to ensure travel program compliance
  • Health and safety alerts
  • Up-to-date safety and emergencies information
  • Highlighting less-expensive alternatives
  • Monitoring of travel spend against budget to optimize cost savings

Tripkicks pricing

Tripkicks’ basic package is free and offers access to client billing and custom checkout features. Users are limited to four projects.
The Premium packages start at $29/user/month for unlimited projects and additional features.

Tripkicks ratings

  • G2 rating: none
PackPoint homepage
For frequent travelers, PackPoint is a handy packing list app that creates packing lists based on the length and type of your trip (business, leisure, or bleisure) and the weather at your travel destination.
Users can also add details of any travel activities during their trip, like swimming, hiking, beach days, snowsports, etc, as well as information on whether they’ll have access to laundry facilities or not.
Once users have entered this information, PackPoint creates a custom packing list with several categories (essentials, toiletries, etc). Users can check off their packed items and hide items they won’t need.

PackPoint pricing

PackPoint offers both a free and paid version of the app. The paid version is available for $2.99 annually and offers additional features such as the ability to create custom packing lists and activities.

Packpoint ratings

  • G2 rating: none
TripIt homepage
TripIt helps frequent travelers—whether for leisure, business, or bleisure travel—keep all of their itineraries and travel plans organized and in one place. Simply forward your confirmation emails to the TripIt email address and it’ll add your plans to your trip and organize your itinerary. This way, you’ll always know where to be when, and what’s coming up next. 
Although TripIt is designed for personal use, it can also be helpful as a business travel management app, and even syncs with some business travel management platforms. The downside is that it can be difficult to share TripIt itineraries with others, meaning that travel managers can’t use TripIt to manage and understand the entire team’s travel plans. 
Also, TripIt doesn’t help manage booking processes—it’s solely focused on your on-the-go travel plans and updates.   
That said, there’s many helpful features of TripIt:
  • Mobile itinerary and notifications, automatically generated from your travel documents
  • Carbon footprint shows you offset options for your travel plans
  • Document storage lets you add PDFs, QR codes, and more to your itinerary 
  • Calendar sync updates your calendar with your travel plans

TripIt pricing

TripIt is free for their basic plan, which includes core features plus up to three documents per trip. 
If you need more than that, or want to access their premium features like fare alerts, trip reminders, and more, you can upgrade to their TripIt Pro plan for $49 per year.  

TripIt ratings

Does my company need to use travel management software?

Yes! Small businesses, startups, and large enterprises all need a business travel management system to manage their travel programs. One of the simplest ways to reduce costs from corporate travel is to explore one of the many small business travel services on the market.
When organizations rely on processes that aren’t designed or optimized to suit how their employees travel, they’re likely losing precious time, money, and resources throughout the booking lifecycle.
Here are a few ways travel management software can save you time and money:
  • Booking processes can be completed in a few minutes and a couple of clicks
  • You can make significant cost savings by accessing discounted corporate rates, larger travel inventories, and VAT refundable invoices
  • You can reduce travel and expense costs by integrating your travel policy into the software
  • Employees can self-book their travel, reducing the micro-management involved in traditional booking processes
  • You can relieve your admin of handling all travel arrangements, booking requests, itinerary changes, and cancellations

What to look for in travel management software

From legacy systems to mobile apps, there are many travel software options on the market to choose from.
Here are the key features to look out for when browsing travel management software:
  • The ability to integrate travel policies and approval workflows
  • Access to real-time travel spend data and reporting functionality
  • A wide range of business integrations (e.g. Slack, Ramp, PayHawk) that fit with your company’s tech stack
  • A simple and intuitive user experience that supports self-booking
  • Access to 24/7 customer support
  • Extensive inventories and flexible booking options
  • Consolidated invoice management

Find the best travel and expense management software

With an effective travel and expense management provider, companies can ensure that each corporate trip is handled smoothly, with expenses organized and employees happy. Cost-effective and hassle-free, these softwares will revolutionize the process of planning and executing team trips. 
Reach out to TravelPerk today to see how the team can optimize your corporate travel, and provide valuable tips and insights into how you organize your business trips for the future.
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