# Ramp tied its card business to customer savings

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/ramp-tied-its-card-business-to-customer-savings/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Eric Glyman](https://realalpha.app/people/eric-glyman/) · Eric Glyman is cofounder and co-CEO of Ramp. · Co-founded Ramp, now used by 85,000 businesses and building AI tools to automate finance and manage company spend.
- Host: [Christine Anderson](https://realalpha.app/people/christine-anderson/) · Global Head of Corporate Affairs, Blackstone
- Show: Inside Blackstone
- Episode: [Ramp Co-Founder and Co-CEO Eric Glyman on AI Adoption, Jobs, and Token Spend](https://realalpha.app/v/cgXAk8pZ1uA/), Nov 3, 2026
- Moment: 5:38 to 8:16 of the episode (3 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/ramp-tied-its-card-business-to-customer-savings/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/cgXAk8pZ1uA/?t=338

## Quote

> “What if we designed a business model where the more we help our customers save in terms of money and time, perhaps, **the faster we would grow**.”
> — [Eric Glyman](https://realalpha.app/people/eric-glyman/) at [5:59](https://realalpha.app/v/cgXAk8pZ1uA/?t=359) · Inside Blackstone

## Takeaways

1. Traditional card economics often reward customers for spending more.
2. Ramp bet that helping customers save could drive its own growth.
3. Its cost-saving pitch resonated more as businesses pulled back.

## About this segment

Eric Glyman says conventional card economics reward more spending, while Ramp built around saving customers money and time. That model resonated more when rate hikes pressured businesses.

From “Ramp Co-Founder and Co-CEO Eric Glyman on AI Adoption, Jobs, and Token Spend”, Nov 3, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/cgXAk8pZ1uA/)

## Transcript

From the transcript Inside Blackstone publishes with the episode.

[5:43](https://realalpha.app/v/cgXAk8pZ1uA/?t=343) And so we're helping businesses run leaner and faster. So one of the counterintuitive ideas you had was that a corporate card could be used to help businesses save money. Yeah. So why was that such a different concept? Well, if you just think about it, you know, most of the large providers out there are essentially marketing of spend more, get more. What if we designed a business model where the more we help our customers save in terms of money and time, perhaps, the faster we would grow.

[6:12](https://realalpha.app/v/cgXAk8pZ1uA/?t=372) And so our net promoter score is in the high 50s, you know, comparable with a company like Apple. And maybe, our Head of Design says something of, you know, we're trying to make a product people love in a space people usually hate. Pretty amazing for an expense management platform to have… Who knew. … that kind of followership. Yeah. Okay, so you've had this rapid growth, you know, went from $ 44 billion valuation in June of this year, to $ 60 billion four months later.

[6:38](https://realalpha.app/v/cgXAk8pZ1uA/?t=398) So is that, is that sustainable? You know, Ramp is doing, you know, well over $ 2 billion a year in revenue, growing north of 100% a year. And we're growing faster this year than we were this time last year, 25% faster. But zooming out of this question of, is it sustainable? I’d consider this, about 1% of all corporate payments in America flow through Ramp, which is remarkable. But it's, the version which I like better is 99% of payments are not on Ramp.

[7:07](https://realalpha.app/v/cgXAk8pZ1uA/?t=427) And if we doubled again, we'd only be 2%, doubled again only be 4%, only 8%. There's such a long way to go. We're still very early in the journey. I think that's part of what gets investors excited. Eric, was there a moment where there was a real inflection point that you think back on? Oh my gosh, in 2020, we launched. A month later, we were in the pandemic. And so… Not a great time… Not a great… … to be launching an expense management company.

[7:35](https://realalpha.app/v/cgXAk8pZ1uA/?t=455) It didn't seem that way. No one traveling. It didn’t… No one traveling, but it turned into this absolute blessing because everyone needed to figure out how do I manage expenses remotely? Yeah, fair. I can't just bring the receipt over. To 2022, when interest rates spiked, it really slowed down and killed a lot of the businesses that we competed against. Well, it's true that businesses were spending less, our value proposition of reduce waste resonated more strongly.

[8:04](https://realalpha.app/v/cgXAk8pZ1uA/?t=484) And so we've tried to use tough moments as a chance to sharpen our value proposition and be there. Do you feel like you learn more through those tough moments as a team?