What to Look for in a Business Bank
Business banking isn't just personal banking with a different label. The right account needs to match your operating model: how you collect revenue, pay vendors, whether you handle cash, and how your bank data connects to accounting software.
Key dimensions we evaluated: monthly fees and minimums, transaction limits, cash deposit policies, ACH and wire fees, accounting software integrations, FDIC coverage, and support quality when things go wrong.
Mercury: Best Overall for Startups
Mercury has become the de facto standard among Y Combinator companies. No account fees, no minimum balance, free domestic wires, and a best-in-class API that integrates natively with QuickBooks, Xero, Stripe, Gusto, and dozens of other tools.
The virtual card features, instant issuance, per-merchant spending limits, automatic receipt matching, are enterprise-quality at no cost. Mercury's startup perks program provides credits at common SaaS tools most startups use anyway.
Pre-revenue to Series A: Mercury
Revenue $1M+ with expense complexity: Relay
Need physical branches or cash handling: Chase Business Complete
VC-backed with corporate card needs: Brex
Relay: Best for Multi-Account and Expense Management
Relay's signature feature is the ability to create up to 20 separate checking accounts within a single login, a game-changer for founders practicing profit-first accounting or needing to segregate funds by project. Each sub-account is a fully-functional checking account with its own account number.
Team debit cards with individual per-employee or per-category spending limits add operational control that most banks charge significant monthly fees to replicate.