Renewly vs Cledara
Renewal tracking with contract extraction from $149 a month vs Cledara's virtual-card subscription management at $75-500 a month. Contract layer vs payment layer.
CledaraRenewly
Proactive Renewal Tracking
Best for:
Operations and procurement teams (1-500 employees) who need simple, affordable renewal tracking without the complexity of full CLM
Cledara
SaaS Subscription Management with Virtual Cards
Best for:
SMBs and startup finance teams whose primary problem is SaaS subscription chaos and who want virtual cards to gate spend
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
Detailed breakdown of capabilities and features
Setup & Usability
| Feature | Renewly | Cledara |
|---|---|---|
| Self-Serve Setup | ✓ | ✓ |
| No Sales Call Required | ✓ | ✓ |
| Transparent Pricing | ✓ | ✓ |
| Instant Time-to-Value | ✓ | ✓ |
| All Contract Types | ✓ | - |
Renewal Tracking
| Feature | Renewly | Cledara |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic Extraction from Master Agreement | ✓ | - |
| Automated Renewal Alerts | ✓ | ✓ |
| Auto-Renewal Clause Detection | ✓ | - |
| Notice Period Extraction | ✓ | - |
| Portfolio Health Score | ✓ | - |
| Voice of Vendor leverage signals | ✓ | - |
Self-Serve Product Surface
| Feature | Renewly | Cledara |
|---|---|---|
| Renewly Inbox: forward vendor emails to a per-account alias | ✓ | - |
| Term Library: cross-contract clause search | ✓ | - |
| MCP server with OAuth 2.1 | ✓ | - |
| Public REST API | ✓ | ✓ |
Subscription Payment Control
| Feature | Renewly | Cledara |
|---|---|---|
| Virtual Cards per Subscription | - | ✓ |
| Cancel by Freezing Card | - | ✓ |
| Accounting Integrations (Xero, QuickBooks, NetSuite) | - | ✓ |
| Invoice Capture and Coding | - | ✓ |
| Approval Workflows for New Apps | - | ✓ |
Pricing & Value
| Feature | Renewly | Cledara |
|---|---|---|
| Free Tier | ✓ | - |
| Entry Price | $0/month | $75/month |
| Starting Price | From $149/month | $200-500+/month |
| All Contract Types Covered | ✓ | - |
Cledara: Strengths & Limitations
Strengths
- Virtual card per subscription gives finance direct payment control
- Easy cancellation by freezing or deleting a card
- Accounting integrations (Xero, QuickBooks, NetSuite)
- Real-time directory of software in use
- Simple SMB-friendly pricing tiers
- Markets a 23% reduction in SaaS spend on average
Limitations
- SaaS-only - no support for services, leases, or non-SaaS vendor contracts
- Subscription/payment-driven, not contract-extraction-driven (no notice period or auto-renewal clause extraction from your actual paperwork)
- App caps on lower tiers (20 apps on Basic, 75 on Premium)
- Renewal context comes from invoices, not the contracts themselves
- Premium and Pro tiers needed for serious automation
- No leverage signals (vendor M&A, layoffs) tied to your renewal window
Not a good fit if:
Teams that need contract-level visibility (notice periods, auto-renewal clauses, term lengths) extracted directly from the master agreement
Pricing Comparison
Renewly Pricing
- Transparent, public pricing
- No sales calls required
- Cancel anytime
Cledara Pricing
Three published tiers: Basic at $75/mo (up to 20 apps), Premium at $200/mo (up to 75 apps), Pro from $500/mo (advanced automation, integrations, dedicated support).
Note: Cledara pricing typically requires custom quotes and may include implementation fees, training costs, and per-user charges.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between Renewly and Cledara?
Different angles on vendor cost. Cledara is a subscription-payment platform - issue a virtual card per SaaS app, see what is being charged, freeze the card to cancel. Renewly is a contract-tracking platform - upload the actual master agreement, extract the renewal date, auto-renewal clause, and notice period, get alerted before each window closes. Cledara catches the invoice. Renewly catches the clause that triggered the invoice in the first place.
Is Cledara cheaper than Renewly?
Cledara starts at $75/month for up to 20 apps. Renewly starts at $149/month for the Starter tier (or free for up to 5 contracts). The relevant question is what each tool actually does for you. If the problem is unmonitored SaaS spend, Cledara's virtual cards solve it. If the problem is missed notice periods and surprise renewals, Renewly solves that. Many finance teams need both.
Can I use Renewly and Cledara together?
Yes - they cover different layers. Cledara controls the payment side (virtual cards, accounting integration). Renewly tracks the contract side (renewal dates, notice periods, auto-renewal clauses across SaaS, services, leases). Use Cledara for spend control, Renewly for renewal control.
Does Renewly extract notice periods and auto-renewal clauses from my contracts?
Yes - this is the core of the product. Upload a contract PDF and Renewly extracts the renewal date, auto-renewal clause, notice period, term length, and contract value. Cledara works from invoices and subscription metadata, which means notice periods buried in the master agreement are not surfaced. If you want to know which contracts auto-renew in 30 days unless you give 60 days notice, Renewly answers that.
Which is better for a 50-person startup?
It depends on the problem. If your finance lead is drowning in SaaS invoices and wants to gate every payment with a virtual card, Cledara at $75/month is purpose-built for that. If your finance lead has been burned by an auto-renewal nobody flagged, Renewly from $149/month is purpose-built for that. The two are complementary more than competitive.
The Bottom Line
Choose Renewly if...
Your bottleneck is missed renewals and surprise auto-renewal invoices, you need notice periods and auto-renewal clauses extracted from your actual contracts (not just invoices), and you have non-SaaS vendor contracts (services, leases) that need tracking too.
Choose Cledara if...
Your bottleneck is unmonitored SaaS subscription spend, you want to gate every payment with a virtual card, and your stack is small enough (under 75 SaaS apps) to fit Cledara's tiers.
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