Control your subscriptions with vendor cards

Gain control and visibility over your subscriptions and recurring vendor spend by creating dedicated cards that you can limit and lock to specific vendors.

When to use a vendor vs regular card

Use a vendor card for recurring payments tied to a specific vendor, especially when the payment happens online or through a vendor portal.

Subscriptions (software and tools billed monthly or yearly).
Online advertising platforms (e.g. ad accounts billed through a platform checkout).
Recurring service providers paid online.
Recurring non-subscription spend that still happens regularly with the same vendor (e.g. office supplies ordered online from the same retailer).

Use a regular Pleo card (virtual or physical) for individual employee spending, especially for in-person and day-to-day expenses.

Travel (transport, meals, hotels).
Client entertainment.
One-off purchases that are linked to an individual employee.

Example: one person, two spending types

If an employee pays for both recurring tools and day-to-day expenses (e.g. a marketing lead):

Use a vendor card for recurring vendor payments (e.g. an ad platform).
Use a regular card for travel and one-off purchases.

This separation makes it easier to track company-wide recurring costs while keeping individual spend linked to the employee who made it.

Create and use vendor cards

Create vendor card

Vendor cards can be used as soon as they are created. The status changes to Active as soon as the card has been added as a payment method on the vendor's website.

Vendor card settings

Limit
Each vendor card can have its own weekly, monthly or yearly limit. The limit can be specified in a currency different from the Account currency.
Vendor lock
Select specific vendors the card can be used at. Transaction attempts at any other merchants will be blocked.
Default accounting values
Set default category, tag, team and tax code for the recurring expenses you make with the vendor cards.

Good to know:

Only Admins and extended controllers can create and edit virtual vendor cards.
Vendor cards always need an owner assigned to the card, but only the owner can see the card details in Cards.
It's possible to reassign a vendor card to a different owner, in this way, your subscription payments won't fail - even if the current owner leaves.
Vendor cards cannot be paired with Apple Pay or Google Pay.
Tip: Create one vendor card per major vendor to make recurring spend easier to review (e.g. use separate vendor cards for your main subscription tools, ad platforms, and key suppliers).

Delete a vendor card

Learn how to safely stop using a vendor card by deleting it in the Pleo web app.

Before disabling (recommended)

Make sure to update the payment method with the vendor first, otherwise future subscription payments may fail.

If you still need the subscription running, consider creating a replacement vendor card and updating the vendor’s billing portal first.

To destroy a vendor card, follow these steps:

Click Cards on your desktop
Select the relevant vendor card
Open the card settings and click Freeze card
Choose Destroy card and confirm

Detect recurring spending

Recurring Vendors gives an automatically generated overview of subscriptions based on card expenses and invoices (DE only).⁠

Recurring Vendors tracking is available on Essential, Advanced, and Beyond plans and is only visible to Admins.⁠

In Pleo, navigate to recurring vendors
You can use the filters at the top to refine the view (time range, buyer, team, payment method)
You can also change the sorting to better explore your data (high spend, low spend, last paid etc…)
The overview helps you understand your spending at recurring vendors and see the buyers responsible for the expenses⁠

Good to know:

It may take a few months for the algorithm to add the subscription to the Recurring Vendors overview.
⁠Recurring Vendors doesn’t include an overview of your Pleo subscription payments.
On Beyond plans, you can enter contract renewal details (including contract renewal data, usage included, and notes). Pleo will automatically remind you when a contract is due to be renewed.

Control your subscriptions with vendor cards

When to use a vendor vs regular card

Create and use vendor cards

Delete a vendor card

Detect recurring spending

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