# Receipt AI

Aiolum story: https://aiolum.com/story/receipt-ai/ · added 2026-11-11 · updated 2026-11-11

**In short.** Receipt AI (Receipt capture by text message, with AI extraction and sync to Xero and QuickBooks, United States): Live with paid plans from 2023, November 2026. Evidence grade E: no revenue figure was checked. Team: 2 founders; headcount not published. Launched 1 May 2023; still running.

Receipt capture by text message, with AI extraction and sync to Xero and QuickBooks · United States · AI-native · team of 2 to 10 · still running · group: Finance, risk and compliance

- Outcome: Live with paid plans from 2023, November 2026 (evidence grade of the headline number: E; no revenue figure)
- Launch: 1 May 2023; months from launch to the outcome: 42
- Team: 2 founders; headcount not published
- Outside funding: None; the founders say they funded it themselves
- Main factor: Product
- Meters, 1 to 4: evidence strength 1, copyable pattern 2, capital needed 1
- Tags: AI-native, Small team, Bootstrapped, Running, B2B, Finance

Links:

- Visit receipt-ai.com: https://receipt-ai.com/

**The product.** A service that turns a photo of a receipt, sent by text message, into a bookkeeping entry. The AI reads the date, vendor, tax and line items, picks a category and sends the receipt to Xero or QuickBooks Online. It also takes receipts by email, website upload and WhatsApp.

**Why it worked.** Sending a photo by text removes the app and the portal that travelling staff dislike. The company says the idea came from the founders' own bookkeeping work. Its pages put the text message first and the accounting sync second.

Evidence grades: A = disclosed by a public company, a filing or a payment processor, or verified by one; B = two or more independent reports agree, or a journalist confirmed it; C = a founder claim that no one else verified; D = reported, not verified: one founder claim or a third-party estimate with no second source; E = no revenue figure found, so the headline is a non-money fact and the other facts carry their own grades; calc = computed on this page from graded facts.

## Summary

Receipt AI is a receipt capture service: a person photographs a receipt and sends it by SMS, and software reads it. Line items are the single products listed on a receipt. The company says the AI extracts them, applies the user's categories and tax codes, and uploads the result to Xero or QuickBooks Online. Reconciliation is the step in which a bookkeeper matches each receipt to a bank transaction.

Queenie Peng and Ian Heraty founded it in Chicago. A founder article of 2 May 2025 says the product launched on 1 May 2023, with one user, and had 100+ businesses by May 2025. The product belongs to Big Green Company, which the site's structured data dates to 20 September 2020. Queenie Peng's article of 29 July 2023 calls Receipt AI the fourth product of that company.

No revenue figure stated by the founders was found. Starter Story titled its interview of 24 December 2024 "We Built A $1.5K/Mo AI App For Receipts". The interview text gives no figure, and a line lower on that page says US$14.4K a year, according to Starter Story. The company says customers pay, and it published prices in 2023: a yearly plan list in April and US$29 a month in June.

## Why did Receipt AI work?

### A text message replaces the app and the portal

The founders say they built the SMS upload first, because simplicity and access would matter most. The company says no app is needed. The home page lists SMS, email, website and WhatsApp as the four ways to upload.

### A customer signed up before the launch, on a yearly plan only

In the Starter Story interview the founders say they built a landing page with a yearly payment option only. They announced the launch on LinkedIn a month ahead. They say a customer signed up at once. They say the first sale came from the waiting list.

### The sync sends each receipt to the system where the books are kept

The company says the receipt is categorized, uploaded and matched to a bank transaction in Xero or QuickBooks Online. A company post says it was listed in the QuickBooks App Store after a four-month review.

## How it was built

These details come from the founders' interview and the company's own blog. They are grade C.

- The founders say both are developers and built the first version in about three months. They name Ruby on Rails.
- A company post of June 2023 says it moved the Rails app from Render back to Heroku, with a Postgres database.
- A company post of March 2024 says Postmark, an email delivery service, featured Receipt AI in an interview with the founder.
- The company says its AI extracts the data, and it does not name a model provider.

Sources: [2, 13, 14]

## Who tried this before Receipt AI, and why did they fail?

Two companies in our database of failed startups built finance or document software for small businesses and closed. The values below are from that database, read on 11 November 2026, and are not independently verified.

The failed startups come from our database of dead startups, retold here in our own words; Its entries are AI-assisted summaries of public sources, so they carry no evidence grade.

### Hyperseed (2021 to 2024; funding US$12.0M burned; cause: Competition)

- Promise: AI that automates bookkeeping for small and mid-sized companies and connects to their financial software.
- Why it died: Its record says it could not stand out in a market held by QuickBooks and Xero.
- Record: 

### Docucharm (2019 to 2022; funding US$3.0M burned; cause: Competition)

- Promise: A cloud service that digitizes, files and retrieves business documents for operations teams.
- Why it died: Its record says Google and Microsoft offered integrated tools, and the cost of handling documents was high.
- Record: 

## What changed

Both predecessors sold into markets that large vendors held. Hyperseed faced QuickBooks and Xero. Docucharm faced Google and Microsoft. Receipt AI sits on the same side of that line, because it depends on QuickBooks and Xero.

It differs in one narrow job: capturing a receipt from a phone by text message. The company chose to be a listed app in the QuickBooks store, not a replacement for it. Whether this makes the business larger is not shown by any source.

## Can one person copy Receipt AI now?

**Verdict: The narrow job, yes. The proof of income, not yet.**

One small job in a larger system can be copied: capture the receipt where the person already is. The part that cannot be copied from this story is the revenue, because the founders state none in the sources read.

1. Pick one step of a bookkeeping flow that people avoid, such as filing receipts.
2. Let the user do it in a tool they already have, such as text messages.
3. Connect to the accounting systems that firms already use, and list the product in their app stores.
4. Offer a yearly plan before the launch, to test whether people pay.

**What is still open.** Other documents that people photograph on the road, such as delivery notes, mileage logs and work orders.

## How much revenue does Receipt AI make? The numbers, graded

A live product with paid plans stated by the company. The company published prices twice in 2023. No revenue figure is stated by the founders

| Fact | Value | Grade | Note | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Product launch | 1 May 2023 | C | Founder article of 2 May 2025: "2 years ago on May 1st, we launched Receipt AI." An archived home page of 6 October 2023 shows the product live. | [5, 10] |
| Older company: Big Green Company, founded 20 September 2020 | Receipt AI is its fourth product | C | The home page's structured data gives the foundingDate. The founder article of 29 July 2023 says she founded Big Green Company four years after she came to Chicago. It says Receipt AI is the fourth product. | [1, 3] |
| Earlier products of the same company | a zero-waste bag service in 2020; a food truck booking site, Popping.live | C | An archived page of biggreen.company of 20 December 2020 sells a Zero Waste Bag. The Starter Story interview names Popping.live as the product before Receipt AI. | [4, 2] |
| Founders | Queenie Peng and Ian Heraty | C | The article of 2 September 2025 is signed by both as the founders of Receipt AI. | [16] |
| Team size | 2 founders; headcount not published | C | The Starter Story interview says the founders built it themselves and used no outside developers. It does not give a headcount. | [2] |
| Funding | none; funded by the founders | C | Founder statement in the Starter Story interview: "We funded everything ourselves." | [2] |
| First sale | from the waiting list, on a yearly plan | C | Founder statement in the Starter Story interview. The landing page offered an annual payment option only. The archived pre-order page of 17 April 2023 shows yearly billing only. | [2, 19] |
| Starting subscription | US$29 a month | C | Company blog post of 29 June 2023. An archive copy of 26 October 2023 shows the same price and date. The live page now opens with a later notice about 10 free receipts from 10 July 2025. | [7, 18] |
| Headline of the Starter Story interview, 24 December 2024 | "$1.5K/Mo" | D | Only the title carries it. The interview text states no figure. A line lower on the same page says the founder "currently makes an average of $14.4K/year". A wearefounders.uk article of 23 April 2025 gives "$1,500 a month" as of late 2024. | [2, 8] |
| Company statement on customers | "Trusted by 300+ Accounting Teams and Business Travelers" | C | Home page, November 2026. No list of customers is given. The founder article of 2 May 2025 says "100+ businesses trust us". | [1, 5] |
| Receipts uploaded counter | 41,159+ receipts; US$40.9M+ total expenses | C | Home page counters, read on 11 November 2026. The receipt counter rose during that day. They count receipts and expense totals, not revenue. The archived page of 6 October 2023 showed 580+ receipts. | [1, 10] |
| Listing in the QuickBooks App Store | 3 November 2023 | C | Company post of Monday 6 November 2023: "Just last Friday". It says the work began on 3 July and took four months. | [15] |

How to read this table. Grade C is a statement by the company or a founder on its own pages or in an interview. Grade B is a date shown by an independent archive. Grade D is a headline written by a third party. No value is grade A.

## Pricing

Receipt AI plans as described in the company's article of 3 October 2025; the amounts are not published (grade C)

| Plan | Per month, billed yearly (US$) | Per month, billed monthly (US$) | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo, pre-order page of April 2023 | 15 |  | 1 person, up to 800 receipts a year; the company's page showed US$179 a year |
| Start up, pre-order page of April 2023 | 30 |  | 1 to 4 people, up to 1,600 receipts a year; the company's page showed US$360 a year |
| Starting subscription, June 2023 |  | 29 | company blog post of 29 June 2023; an archive copy of 26 October 2023 shows the same price |
| Pro |  |  | 1 member, 100 pages a month, no accounting sync; amount not published |
| Business Basic |  |  | 5 members, 500 pages a month, Xero and QuickBooks sync; amount not published |
| Business Advance |  |  | 10+ members, 2,500 pages a month, priority support; amount not published |

The site shows no price list today. The article says the amounts appear after a visitor enters an email address. The company's pre-order page, archived on 17 April 2023, listed two yearly plans. A company blog post of 29 June 2023 says new users start with a subscription of US$29 a month. The home page's structured data describes a free trial of 10 receipts.

## When did Receipt AI launch, and how did it grow? Timeline

From a zero-waste bag company in 2020 to a receipt service in 2023 that sold its first plan from a waiting list. Each entry carries its grade.

- **20 December 2020** (grade B [4]): An archived page of biggreen.company sells a Zero Waste Bag to stores. Its footer reads "2020 Big Green Company".
- **1 May 2023** (grade C [5]): Receipt AI launches with one user, according to the founders' article of 2 May 2025.
- **29 June 2023** (grade C [7, 18]): A company post says the free trial is replaced by a starting subscription of US$29 a month.
- **3 November 2023** (grade C [15]): Receipt AI becomes available in the QuickBooks App Store.
- **24 December 2024** (grade D [2]): Starter Story publishes the founders' interview under the title "We Built A $1.5K/Mo AI App For Receipts".
- **3 October 2025** (grade C [6]): A company article names the plans Pro, Business Basic and Business Advance and gives their limits. It publishes no amount.

## What could go wrong for Receipt AI?

- **What is not verified.** No revenue figure was found. Starter Story's title and a wearefounders.uk article give US$1.5K a month as of late 2024. No founder sentence in the downloaded interview states it, and the same Starter Story page also says US$14.4K a year. The company says that customers pay, and it published prices in 2023. No independent source confirms that customers pay. A payment-processor profile or a named paying customer would settle it. The older company, Big Green Company, was founded on 20 September 2020, according to the home page's structured data. The founder article of 29 July 2023 agrees. Receipt AI itself launched on 1 May 2023.
- **Counters, badges, logos and testimonials.** The home page shows "Trusted by 300+ Accounting Teams and Business Travelers", counters of receipts and expenses, "#1 Receipt AI App" and "Rated 5★ on G2.com". The founders' article of 2 May 2025 said "100+ businesses trust us". The "As seen on" row has logos of Xero, Karbon, QuickBooks, Product Hunt, Futurepedia, Toolify, Substack and There's An AI For That. No source ties the badge, the ranking or the logos to a verified result. The company's June 2024 post calls a G2 review its first 5-star review. G2 answered 403 to the check of 11 November 2026, so its page was not read.
- **Testimonials on the home page.** Twelve testimonials carry a first name or a full name, with a role, a country, a platform or "Verified G2 Reviewer". None has a photo. Three quotes were already on the archived home page of 6 October 2023 under the same first names. The G2 quote is worded differently and is longer than the version in the company's June 2024 post. Web searches for four other quotes found no copy under another name. This does not confirm that the people are customers.
- **Price and dates.** No price list is public today. The company says it hides the amounts so that it only talks to serious buyers. Its 2023 prices are known from an archived pre-order page and a blog post. The blog post of 29 June 2023 now opens with a notice dated 10 July 2025, added later. No review-gating or review-buying statement was found in the pages read.

## Sources

1. Receipt AI home page, read 11 November 2026 — https://receipt-ai.com/ (grade C). Read in full, with its structured data. Source for the product, the counters, the badges, the logos, the testimonials and the Big Green Company founding date.
2. Starter Story: We Built A $1.5K/Mo AI App For Receipts, 24 December 2024 — https://www.starterstory.com/stories/receipt-ai (grade D). Read in full. The founder's answers give the team, the funding, the first sale and Popping.live. The figure appears only in the title. A line lower on the page gives US$14.4K a year.
3. Receipt AI article: Why do we start Receipt AI?, 29 July 2023 — https://receipt-ai.com/articles/why-do-we-start-receipt-ai (grade C). Read in full. Signed by Queenie Peng. Source for Big Green Company and the fourth product.
4. Big Green Company home page, Internet Archive copy of 20 December 2020 — http://web.archive.org/web/20201220213359/https://www.biggreen.company/ (grade B). Read in full. Shows the zero-waste bag product and the 2020 footer. The live biggreen.company site could not be reached.
5. Receipt AI article: From Zero to $5M Tracked, 2 May 2025 — https://receipt-ai.com/articles/from-zero-to-5m-tracked-the-2-year-journey-of-receipt-ai (grade C). Read in full. Source for the launch on 1 May 2023 and the 100+ businesses.
6. Receipt AI article: Receipt AI Pricing & Plans, 3 October 2025 — https://receipt-ai.com/articles/receipt-ai-pricing-plans-simple-options-for-every-team-size (grade C). Read in full. Source for the plan names and limits and for the statement that amounts are not shown.
7. Receipt AI article: From Free Trial to Paid Trial — https://receipt-ai.com/articles/from-free-trial-to-paid-trial (grade C). Read in full. Dated 29 June 2023 on the page. Source for the US$29 a month starting subscription. A notice about 10 July 2025 was added later above the original text.
8. wearefounders.uk: Texting Their Way to $1.5K/Mo, 23 April 2025 — https://www.wearefounders.uk/case-study-texting-their-way-to-1-5k-mo-receipt-ai-com/ (grade D). Read in full. A retelling with the same details as the Starter Story interview. It names no source. It gives the figure as of late 2024.
9. Receipt AI article: Receipt AI earns 5-Star Review on G2, 25 June 2024 — https://receipt-ai.com/articles/receipt-ai-earns-5-star-review-on-g2 (grade C). Read in full. Source for the first 5-star G2 review and an earlier wording of the quote on the home page.
10. Receipt AI home page, Internet Archive copy of 6 October 2023 — http://web.archive.org/web/20231006055932/https://receipt-ai.com/ (grade B). Read in full. Shows the earlier counters and testimonials.
11. Receipt AI terms of service and privacy policy, read 11 November 2026 — https://receipt-ai.com/privacy_policy (grade C). Read in full. The footer names Big Green Company. The privacy policy says the service is not intended for people under 18.
12. Receipt AI article: We Launched 3 Times to Get 1 Product Right, 15 August 2025 — https://receipt-ai.com/articles/we-launched-3-times-to-get-1-product-right (grade C). Read in full. Says the product launched twice and was then rebuilt; the later versions are the same product.
13. Receipt AI article: How to switch hosting from Render to Heroku for your Ruby on Rails application — https://receipt-ai.com/articles/switch-hosting-render-to-heroku-ruby-on-rails (grade C). Read the opening. Source for Rails, Render, Heroku and Postgres.
14. Receipt AI article: Receipt AI is Featured by Postmark, 15 March 2024 — https://receipt-ai.com/articles/receipt-ai-is-featured-by-postmark (grade C). Read in full. The Postmark newsletter itself was not read.
15. Receipt AI article: Receipt AI is Now Officially Available on the QuickBooks Store, 6 November 2023 — https://receipt-ai.com/articles/receipt-ai-on-quickbooks-store (grade C). Read in full. The QuickBooks store page itself was not read.
16. Receipt AI article: Built in Chicago With Love, 2 September 2025 — https://receipt-ai.com/articles/receipt-ai-chicago-journey (grade C). Read in full. Names the two founders.
17. Database of failed startups, local export — /method/#dead (grade C). Record pages read on the website on the day of writing. AI-assisted summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors.
18. Receipt AI article: From Free Trial to Paid Trial, Internet Archive copy of 26 October 2023 — http://web.archive.org/web/20231026173135/https://receipt-ai.com/articles/from-free-trial-to-paid-trial (grade B). Read in full. Shows the date of 29 June 2023 and the US$29 a month price as the company wrote them in 2023.
19. Receipt AI home page, Internet Archive copy of 17 April 2023 — http://web.archive.org/web/20230417220952/http://receipt-ai.com/ (grade B). Read in full. A pre-order page of the company with two yearly plans, Solo and Start up, two weeks before the launch.

Contact: aiolum@livyden.com. Run Receipt AI? Send corrections or a verified figure to aiolum@livyden.com (subject: Correction: Receipt AI).