Pricing: Kwevio is free, and here is how it is funded
Let's be upfront about it, no hedging : Kwevio is a free expense management app. There is no trial that slams shut after fifteen days, no credit card to enter « just in case », no essential feature locked behind a paywall. You install the app, you record your business expenses, you export your receipts, and it costs you nothing. This page exists to answer the fair question everyone asks when faced with a free tool : « fine, but then how is it funded ? ». We answer it with full transparency.
Kwevio is free : here is what that includes
When we say « free », we mean the core of the product : everything you need day to day to track, document and export your business expenses. None of these features is throttled or reserved for some hypothetical paid version. In concrete terms, you get the following for free :
- Expense entry by category : meals, accommodation, transport, supplies, telecommunications, plus any custom categories you create to match your activity.
- Mileage expense calculation based on official rates, with handling of the vehicle's fiscal horsepower and a full history of your trips.
- Automatic receipt recognition (OCR) : photograph a receipt and the app reads the amount, date and merchant to pre-fill the expense.
- VAT handling : rate breakdown, recovery of deductible VAT, totals ready for your accounting.
- Calendar synchronisation to automatically match your meetings and trips with your expenses.
- Excel and CSV export of your expense reports, ready to hand over to your accounting department, your accountant or your payroll software.
- Offline mode : record expenses even without a connection, with synchronisation happening as soon as the network returns.
- Multi-country and multilingual support, for travel abroad and international teams.
At heart, the promise is simple to state : the free expense report Kwevio offers covers the entire journey, from the photo of a restaurant receipt all the way to the Excel file sent to accounting. Where other tools break that journey up to sell each step separately — OCR here, export there, multi-currency as an add-on — Kwevio takes the opposite stance : everything in one block, for free. That consistency matters, because an expense report is only worth something if it can go all the way through the circuit, through to reimbursement and the accounting entry.
That list is the entirety of expense management. There is no hidden « Pro version » that would unlock OCR or export : those features are here, for everyone, from day one.
Why Kwevio is free
A free product always raises a basic question : why ? The answer is both a philosophy and a deliberate adoption strategy.
A philosophy : expense management should be a given
Filing an expense report is not a luxury. It is an administrative chore that millions of freelancers, travelling employees and very small businesses have to deal with every month. Charging for access to even this basic tool means adding friction exactly where it should be removed. Kwevio starts from the principle that tracking your own business expenses should not be conditional on a subscription. It is a useful service, and we want it to be available to as many people as possible.
A strategy : adoption before monetisation
Kwevio is a young app, created by Xavier Deloffre within FACEM WEB, in Arras, France. For a tool like this to deliver real value, it first has to be used : by freelancers, sales reps, tradespeople, consultants, teams. Being free is the most honest way to remove the barrier to entry. Rather than asking for money from people who have not yet been able to judge the app's usefulness, we prefer to give the tool away, earn trust, and build the project's sustainability on healthy foundations. Adoption first, monetisation later — and we explain below how that monetisation will work, without ever degrading your experience.
This twofold logic — philosophy and adoption — is not a slogan. It has concrete consequences for how we build the product. Because the core is free, we have no incentive to make it artificially complicated or frustrating in order to push you toward a higher tier. We have no « wall » to erect in the middle of your workflow. Our only incentive is for the app to be useful enough that you keep it, talk about it, and perhaps, later, find value in the side content layer. That is a healthier relationship than one with a vendor who deliberately degrades the free product to sell the paid one.
No credit card, no hidden limits
Many so-called « free » apps are free in appearance only. You are asked for your credit card to « activate the trial », the number of expense reports is capped, monthly exports are limited, or the OCR is degraded to push you toward the paid plan. None of that happens with Kwevio.
- No credit card required to create an account or use the app. You do not have to provide any payment method whatsoever.
- No limits on the number of expenses recorded, categories created, receipts photographed or exports generated.
- No countdown : this is not a 14 or 30-day free trial that turns into a bill. The free core of expense management is not a temporary promotion.
- No advertising in your expense management space. The place where you record and review your expenses stays a private space, plain and ad-free.
You install it, you use it, full stop. It really is that simple.
How the project will be funded tomorrow
Free is not magic : developing, hosting and evolving an app has a cost. We have chosen to defer monetisation and to build it around one guiding principle : it must never degrade the expense management experience. Here is the direction we are considering.
A layer of content and reviews about the services you use
When you record your business expenses, you are in fact documenting a great many services : car-sharing trips, flights, restaurants, hotels, places visited. Kwevio plans to build, on top of and alongside expense management, a layer of useful content around those services. Two distinct kinds of content :
- Declarative reviews : opinions you voluntarily leave about a restaurant, an airline, a car-sharing service. You choose to share your experience, or not.
- Aggregated, anonymised content : price benchmarks, rankings and trends, built from anonymised and aggregated data. No individual expense, no name, no information that could identify you appears in it.
This content layer is meant to become a service in its own right, useful beyond simply recording expenses : knowing whether a given route is expensive, spotting a good restaurant while travelling, comparing rough price levels. It is on this side layer, and not on your private management, that the business model will rest.
Why choose this path rather than the classic subscription ? Because a subscription on expense management would amount to taxing an administrative obligation : you would pay for the right to track your own spending. The content layer, on the other hand, creates new value — useful information about real services — that other players (advertisers, partners) may have an interest in funding, without it weighing on you. Funding thus comes from an additional, optional service, not from a toll placed on the essentials.
Strictly opt-in participation
A key point : participation in this content layer is voluntary (opt-in). You only feed the aggregated, anonymised content if you have explicitly agreed to. If you simply want to use Kwevio as a private expense manager and share nothing, that is perfectly possible : you keep every free feature without contributing anything. The choice is yours, and it is reversible.
Advertising : only on the side content
Yes, there will eventually be advertising. But not anywhere, and above all not in any way. Our rule is clear and we stick to it :
- Never in your private expense management space. The screen where you record an expense, photograph a receipt or export a report will carry no advertising. It is your workspace, and it stays clean.
- Only on the side content : the review pages, the rankings, the price benchmarks, that is, the content layer described above. That is where, and only where, advertising may appear.
In practice, advertising will rely on recognised networks : AdMob within the mobile app and AdSense on the web side. In both cases, ad display will be conditional on your consent, in compliance with the GDPR : a clear consent banner, a genuine choice, and the ability to change your mind. No intrusive advertising forced into the middle of your work.
Privacy at the heart of monetisation
A business model built on content and advertising raises a legitimate worry : will my data be sold ? Our answer is no, and here is how we organise it.
- Your expense data stays yours. The detail of your spending — who, what, how much, when — belongs to your private space. It is not put up for sale, nor handed over to third parties.
- Aggregation happens through anonymisation. The price benchmarks and rankings mentioned above are built from data stripped of any identifying element. What circulates are rough magnitudes and trends, not your personal accounts.
- Opt-in is the rule. You only contribute to aggregated content if you have chosen to. The default is non-participation.
- Advertising consent complies with the GDPR. Ad tracking, where it exists on the side content, is subject to your explicit and revocable agreement.
In other words, monetisation is built alongside your private data, from anonymised and voluntary signals, and not by reselling the contents of your expense report.
In concrete terms, this means a data point such as « this user spent €42 at this restaurant on this day » never leaves your space in that form. What may, in time and with your agreement, feed a price benchmark is a stripped-down signal : for example « the average bill in this category of restaurants falls within this range », computed across a large number of contributions and impossible to trace back to a person. The distinction between private, identifying data and aggregated, anonymous signal is the backbone of the whole approach.
Possible additional avenues
Beyond content and advertising, other funding avenues may be explored, always within the principles above. We mention them in the interest of honesty, without promising anything fixed :
- Partnerships and affiliation : when the content layer points toward a service (a hotel, an airline, a restaurant), partner or affiliate links may generate revenue, at no extra cost to you.
- An optional premium plan, later : it is possible that an optional paid plan may appear one day, bringing extra advanced features. The principle would remain the same : the core of expense management stays free, and premium would be a « plus » rather than the unlocking of essentials.
These avenues are possibilities, not costed commitments. We are not announcing any price grid, tiers or dates : it would be dishonest to pretend we know them today.
Our transparency commitment
Everything above rests on one simple commitment : to tell you the truth about the business model, today and tomorrow. We commit to :
- Keep the core of expense management free : entry, categories, mileage, OCR, VAT, calendar, export, offline.
- Never display advertising in your private expense management space.
- Make any participation in aggregated content conditional on your explicit consent (opt-in).
- Comply with the GDPR for advertising consent and data processing.
- Clearly communicate every change to the model, rather than slipping it through silently.
Frequently asked questions
Is Kwevio really free ?
Yes. All expense management features — entry by category, mileage expenses, receipt OCR, VAT, calendar synchronisation, Excel and CSV export, offline mode, multi-country — are free, with no limits and no credit card required. This is not a temporary trial : it is the free core of the product.
Will there be advertising in my expense reports ?
No. Your private expense management space will never carry advertising. Advertising (AdMob in the app, AdSense on the web) will appear only on the side content — reviews, rankings, price benchmarks — and only with your GDPR-compliant consent.
Will my data be sold ?
No. The detail of your spending stays private and is not sold. The aggregated content (price benchmarks, rankings) is built from anonymised data, and your participation is opt-in : you only contribute if you have explicitly agreed. By default, you share nothing.
Will I have to pay later ?
The core of expense management stays free. An optional premium plan may eventually appear for advanced features, but it would never gate access to the essential features, which remain free.
Do I have to take part in the review layer to use the app ?
No. You can use Kwevio purely as a private expense manager, sharing and feeding nothing. Participation in the content is voluntary and revocable at any time.
In summary
Kwevio is a free expense report app : the whole management core is offered, with no credit card, no limits and no advertising in your private space. The project will be funded tomorrow by a layer of anonymised, opt-in content and reviews, with advertising restricted to the side content and GDPR-compliant — possibly complemented by partnerships and an optional premium plan. Our commitment : transparency, and respect for your privacy. There is no reason to wait.