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Prepaid cards are the most used type of card in America, with over 24 million people using them to make purchases. Prepaid cards offer benefits such as reduced fees and interest rates for businesses that don’t have credit scores or bank accounts. They also allow consumers a way to take control of their finances by avoiding overdrafts and write-offs from traditional banks.
Prepaid business credit cards are for small company owners who cannot or do not want to apply for a traditional business credit card. They demand fewer credentials than business cards while also reducing the risk to the company owner. Small company owners may use these cards to keep track of staff costs. They do not, however, help to establish commercial credit.
The following are the best business prepaid cards:
Overall Best Prepaid Business Credit Card: Bento for Business
Bento for business is the best overall prepaid card for small business owners since it gives a two-month free trial to assist small companies to manage and save money during difficult times. We also discovered that Bento is the most cost-effective solution for firms with 11 to 25 cardholders, with monthly costs as low as $2.76 per card.
Pricing
- $29 per month for 1-10 cards
- $69 a month for 11 to 25 cards
- $149 per month for 26-100 cards
- If you have 101 or more cards, you have won. For the price, please contact Bento.
- There is no setup price.
- There is no ATM charge in the United States, although you may have to pay operating costs.
- Purchase transaction charge for signature/PIN: None
How to Use
Bento for Business may only accept funds transfers by automated clearing house (ACH) or wire transfer from an existing, confirmed bank or savings account. Your bank may charge an outbound wire transfer fee, and transfers may take two to three days to complete. This period of time is comparable to those of other prepaid business cards.
Load Limit
Deposits made with ACH or wire transfer have no daily limitations at Bento. Within two to three business days, funds should be accessible.
Features
- When renting a vehicle for business, you may add a collision damage waiver to your rental agreement. In the event of an accident or theft, you may be compensated up to the monetary worth of the car. If you’re renting a car for personal purposes, your personal vehicle insurance will cover you.
- Purchase protection: If your purchase is stolen or damaged during the first 90 days of using your Bento for Business prepaid debit card, you’re protected up to $10,000 per claim and $50,000 per year. You will either be refunded or the item will be fixed or replaced.
- Accounting system export: Sync with QuickBooks or other applications in real-time.
Dash Prepaid Mastercard: The best option for getting unlimited free cards.
If you want infinite free cards, go with the Dash Prepaid Mastercard. Dash does not impose any costs for using its service. This implies that setting up your account and issuing additional staff cards will cost you nothing. Dash only charges costs for expedited card shipment, hardcopy statements, closing an account, and having monies delivered to you in the form of a check.
Pricing
The Dash Prepaid Mastercard is free to open and use. You may also print as many extra employee cards as you like for free. Dash, on the other hand, has certain costs, including:
- Charges for expedited Dash card mailing are $35 per request.
- Fee for printed statements: $10.99 per month for each account that requests them.
- If you terminate your account and request the remaining money in the form of a check, there is a one-time cost of $39.99.
How to Use
Authorized account holders, such as the company owner, may load money into the Dash account via ACH transfers from the firm’s bank account. You can’t fill your account with cash or direct deposits.
Load Limit
There is no daily load restriction on the Dash Prepaid Mastercard. It does, however, impose a maximum load limit of $10,000 per corporate card and $100,000 overall.
Features
- Automatic load request approval: When employees submit a load request within their limit, they will get automatic approval.
- Automatic reloads: When your account balance goes below a certain threshold, Dash will execute a bank transfer.
- Every transaction is recorded in the Dash app, along with the merchant’s name, category, and date of purchase. Additional spending data, such as expense categories, receipt images, and purchase details, may be added by users.
- Customizable categories: To manage your workers’ purchases, you may simply build categories.
- Freeze/unfreeze cards: You may use the Dash app to freeze or unfreeze cards that have been misplaced. When the card is located, you may also use the app to unfreeze it.
The PEX Prepaid Visa: The best option for scalability
PEX Prepaid Visa is ideal for big organizations since it can accommodate up to 150 employees depending on the account level selected, which is much higher than some of the other cards on our list. It also allows for an infinite number of daily transactions and loads. It does, however, include a $49.95 startup cost and a monthly subscription of up to $300. In addition, you must maintain a minimum balance of $50 in your PEX account.
Pricing
- Core package: $75 a month for up to 20 cards; beyond the 20th card, additional cards are $4 each. When you spend $50,000 in a single month, the $75 membership cost is eliminated. For smaller organizations, the Core account is also available on a per-card basis, beginning at $8 per month.
- Up to 100 cards are included in the Pro plan, which costs $200 each month. After your 100th card, more cards cost $2 apiece. When you spend $50,000 in a single month, the $200 membership charge is eliminated.
- The unlimited subscription costs $300 per month and includes up to 150 cards. After your 150th card, further cards cost $2 apiece. To find out whether your monthly membership cost may be waived, contact PEX.
- $49.95 one-time setup charge
- There is no cash access with the PEX Prepaid Visa from ATMs or POS terminals in the United States.
- Purchase transaction charge for signature/PIN: None
How to Use
You may only transfer money with the PEX Prepaid Visa via ACH transactions or wire transfers. This implies that loading money onto the card will take two to three days and may include a wire transfer charge.
Load Limit
You may load an unlimited amount of money onto your PEX business prepaid card every day. Individual load transactions, on the other hand, are capped at $25,000 by PEX.
Spending Limit on PEX Prepaid Visas
One of the few business prepaid cards without a daily spending restriction is the PEX Prepaid Visa. This means that you and your employees can spend as much as you want on each card and account. Keep in mind the $25,000 limit on your credit card amount.
Features
PEX Prepaid Visa provides a variety of spending restrictions, including the ability to limit spending on individual cards based on merchant categories or particular hours of the day, as well as refuse purchases depending on your preferences.
PEX provides real-time transaction reporting, and the PEX application programming interface (API) may be integrated with current business systems to provide businesses with a tailored, automated payment platform that can handle millions of transactions each day. PEX transactions are also available in the following formats for download:
- QuickBooks Desktop file for QuickBooks Online
- Xero Open Financial Exchange (OFX) file
- (CSV) files
Emburse Prepaid Mastercard: Best for Businesses With Remote Employees
Unlike the other prepaid business debit cards on our list, the Emburse Prefunded Mastercard is suitable for firms with a large number of scattered workers or off-site contractors since it provides both virtual and physical cards. This card can be a suitable choice if your workers solely require internet spending options.
Pricing
- $50 a month for the basic package, which includes up to ten cards.
- Business: $7 per user, with 10 to 100 cards included.
- There is no setup price.
- There is no cash access with the Emburse Prefunded Mastercard from ATMs or POS terminals in the United States.
- Purchase transaction charge for signature/PIN: None
Users with a Business account may add as many cards as they like for free. Purchase requests, shared budgets, and deductions, for example, are all user-specific capabilities. To provide several workers access to these functionalities, you’ll need to create distinct user accounts.
How to Use
Prefunding and invoice-based funding are also available for the Emburse Prefunded Mastercard. With funding, Emburse functions similarly to a PayPal or Venmo account, with money held in a third-party account. For certain customers with a track record of success, invoice-based finance is available via a line of credit.
Load Limit
There is no daily load restriction with Mastercard. After authorization, funds may take up to three days to arrive in your account.
Features
- Expensify, NetSuite, QuickBooks, and Xero are just a few of the accounting programs that may be integrated.
- Data may be exported to CSV or Excel and then loaded into other accounting applications.
- Set spending limitations, category restrictions, and time constraints on virtual cards.
- The capacity to switch on and off cards with a single click
Emburse also provides emergency wire transfers, virtual and physical cards, single sign-on (SSO) for quicker employee addition and removal, and split billing. Accountants may divide expenditures into many transactions for various cost categories using split billing. Finally, Emburse provides a 60-day free trial.
Wells Fargo Business Secured Card: Best Prepaid Business Card Alternative
Although the Wells Fargo Business Secured Card is not a prepaid company debit card, it does allow business owners to establish credit. That isn’t possible with any of the other cards on our list. In every other aspect, this card functions like a prepaid card, with a spending limit equal to the amount of money you deposit in your account, up to a maximum of $25,000. There is no monthly fee, but outstanding amounts are subject to a variable annual percentage rate.
Pricing
- Credit line: Put $500 to $25,000 in a collateral account equivalent to the credit line’s amount.
- APR (Annual Percentage Rate): 11.90% + prime
- Annual fee: $25 per card, with a limit of ten cards.
- Fees for international transactions: none
Because this is a secured business credit card rather than a prepaid business credit card, there are recurring costs if you hold a balance. The yearly cost takes the place of the monthly fees charged by the prepaid business credit cards on our list.
How to Use
Your accessible funds will be equivalent to the cash deposit you make when applying for the card, which may range from $500 to $25,000. You may boost your credit limit by depositing funds into your bank’s collateral account.
Load Limit
You’ll have access to credit limits ranging from $500 to $25,000 with the Wells Fargo Business Secured Card.
Spending Limit
You are only allowed to spend up to your credit limit. If you wish to utilize a part of your credit limit again, you must first pay off your amount.
Features
You may receive cashback or points-based incentives with the Wells Fargo Business Secured Card:
- Cashback: Get 1.5 percent cash back on every dollar you spend on purchases; redemption is simple: you’ll get a statement credit or the bank will deposit cash rewards in your qualified checking or savings account once a quarter.
- Points: Earn 1 point for every $1 spent on net purchases, plus 1,000 additional points for spending $1,000 in any monthly billing period; points may be redeemed for gift cards, goods, or airline tickets.
What Are Prepaid Business Credit Cards and How Do They Work?
Prepaid business credit cards function in the same way as a business credit card and a checking account do. You load money into your account and issue employee cards instead of borrowing money from the bank as you would with a corporate credit card. There is no extra interest applied to purchases since you load your own cash, unlike with a standard credit card.
Company prepaid cards are ideal for business owners who wish to provide staff cards or who do not meet the requirements for a typical business credit card. There are fewer requirements than for a company credit card, and the risk to the owner is lower since they are not borrowing money. You should get your cards within seven to ten days after being accepted.
After that, you may start issuing more staff cards and keeping track of their spending. You may establish daily and expenditure category spending limits to keep tabs on employee spending. You may also switch employee cards on and off with a single click, providing you with more control over your spending.
Advantages
- Approval does not need a credit check: It’s simple to be accepted since the money must come from your cash on hand rather than a bank.
- Control employee spending: On individual employee cards, you may establish daily or category-specific spending restrictions. You may also lock and unlock cards from your prepaid card dashboard.
- You can keep your spending under control: Because you’re not borrowing money from the bank, prepaid cards help you keep your expenses under control. As a result, you can only spend the money you have on hand.
Disadvantages
- You’ll need to put money on the card: Because the money must be preloaded, you must have cash on hand to utilize a prepaid business card properly. A small business credit card, on the other hand, permits you to borrow money from the bank up to a certain credit limit.
- There are no cashback or travel rewards available: There are no incentives on prepaid business credit cards. Consider a small company credit card if you want to earn rewards.
- The account still has costs attached to it: Despite the fact that prepaid business cards do not charge interest, they nevertheless have certain costs. There are costs for setting up the card, using the ATM, and maintaining each card and your account, for example.
Prepaid Cards for Businesses: How We Rated Them
We looked for a selection of business debit cards that may be used by a variety of businesses. When evaluating the best-prepaid credit cards, we looked at four factors: pricing, features, scalability, and liability.
Conclusion
Prepaid cards are a good alternative for businesses of all sizes that want stringent employee spending guidelines but don’t want to take on the personal risk that comes with company credit cards. Low monthly fees and a variety of loading and spending choices are available on the finest prepaid business cards.
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