Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.
Want to jump straight to the answer? The best online business banking accounts come from Novo Bank, Mercury, or Radius Bank.
What makes a great bank for business purposes?
A good bank needs to have online banking capabilities. There are online-only banks as well as physical branches offering online banking services.
While most banks today have some type of online portal, not all of these are created equal.
The best business checking accounts have dozens of online features, like mobile deposits, digital bill pay, and fraud alerts.
You’ll also need to consider other banking products that you can access online. I’m referring to things like business savings accounts, merchant services, credit cards, and small business loans.
Whether you run a startup or a multi-million dollar well-established corporation, I’ll show you the best online business banking solutions to fit your needs.
Top 6 Online Business Banking Accounts For 2021
There are hundreds of different online business bank accounts on the market today. But these are the top ones that I recommend:
- Novo — Best online banking for freelancers and entrepreneurs
- Mercury — Easiest way for startups to manage reserve cash
- Radius Bank — Best online banking for growing businesses with tons of transactions
- Axos Bank — Best business banking that you can also treat your employees to
- Chase Business Complete BankingSM — Best for those who also need in-person banking
- BlueVine — Best for new businesses to keep (and grow) cash
I’ll highlight the type of online accounts offered, prices, benefits, and other online banking solutions for each one below.
The Best Online Business Banking Reviews
#1 – Novo — The Best for Freelancers and Entrepreneurs
- No monthly fees
- ATM fee reimbursement
- No minimum balance
- Integrations w/ third-party software
Novo is our top choice for freelancers, entrepreneurs, and small business owners of all stripes.
That’s because they offer great online banking solutions with features and tools to help entrepreneurs grow and maintain their business.
Here’s an overview of top features and benefits of this online bank:
- No monthly service fees
- Refunds at all ATMs
- Free incoming and outgoing ACH transfers
- Free domestic and foreign wires
- Free mailed bank checks
- No minimum balance requirement
The reason we love them for entrepreneurs is because of the wide array of integrations to help slot Novo into your business’s current infrastructure.
That includes integration with Quickbooks and Xero for your accounting and bookkeeping needs; Zapier for your CRM, email, or marketing; Shopify if you have an ecommerce presence; Stripe for payment processing; and more.
You’ll also benefit from discounts on business tools like HubSpot, Salesforce, Zendesk, Google Cloud, and Stripe.
Novo even offers a great mobile app that lets you handle all of your business banking needs from your phone.
It takes less than ten minutes to apply for a Novo online business bank account. The minimum to open one is $50, though, but that’s pretty darn low when compared to other banking accounts.
Overall, Novo is a basic, online-only bank for business owners seeking simplicity. But it does lack other banking tools beyond a checking account.
#2 – Mercury — The Easiest Way for Startups to Manage Reserve Cash
- No overdraft or monthly fees
- No minimum balance for Standard plan
- Invest in bonds & securities
- Great for extending your runway
Having your money on hand make more money for you is a real plus in business checking. But not everyone is content with letting whatever interest rate on your account do its thing—especially if you’re a hot startup eyeing major growth.
There are more options for making your cash reserves work for you. Mercury is business banking has no barrier to entry but also additional services for when you’re getting serious about money management.
Mecury’s options come in two simple flavors, both of which are free to open an account on. The Standard plan has no minimum deposit or balance requirements, no monthly fees, and no overdraft fees.
With it, you get checking and savings, a debit card, and free sending and receipt of e-checks and ACH. Plus, you get useful tools like the ability to add team members and bookkeeper roles to your banking account. That way you can set provide access to people in your company or vendors without giving them full hold of the purse strings.
That’s fantastic for a wide array of use cases, especially when you’re just starting out.
But the real appeal of Mercury is its Mercury Treasury feature. You’ll need to take one step up from the Standard plan to Mercury Tea Room to take advantage of it. The only barrier for entry into the Tea Room is holding a $250,000 minimum balance.
If you have that, then Mercury Treasury opens up a new avenue to maximize your company’s war chest—high-yield, secure investments in government securities and money market funds. And, it’s all automated in way that will help you wring the most out of your money.
Mercury will select a bespoke portfolio of investments for your company, chosen with your current balance and cash flow in mind. You can let Mercury know if you’re looking for safer, long-term options or high-yield short-term ones.
The automation comes in when you set custom rules for redistribution and allocation of funds. Create triggers for deposits or balance thresholds that will in turn move money to or from your Mercury checking or savings, bonds, securities, and more.
With all this in place, all you have to do is sit back and let Mercury Treasury do the work and balancing for you, growing your runway with your idle cash.
Get started by opening a Mercury account today for free.
#3 – Radius Bank — The Best for Growing Businesses with Tons of Transactions
- Unlimited transactions
- No minimum balance
- 0.75% APY for $5,000+ balances
- Apply online in 10 minutes
Radius Bank offers four varieties of banking solutions, so they’re a fantastic solution for scaling and growing with your business.
They were recently acquired by Lending Club to help give you even more offerings for your business.
The four accounts they offer are their Tailored Checking, Relationship Checking, Account Analysis Checking, and Interest Checking.
The last three are built for large to massive organizations, so we’ll be focusing more on their Tailored Checking account as it’s the best for the vast majority of high-volume, yet still-small businesses.
It’s good to keep in mind that their big league offerings are there in case your company begins to really grow.
Tailored Checking accounts come with:
- Unlimited transactions
- 0.75% APY for balances above $5,000
- $10 monthly fee (waived with balances over $5,000)
- No minimum balance requirements ($100 to open)
- Free ATM network worldwide
What we love about this bank most of all is their allowance of unlimited transactions. Most banks require you to pay some fee after a certain amount of transactions each month.
For example, Axos bank only allows you to have 200 transactions each month before you need to start paying a fee of $0.30 per transaction. Some banks even charge as high as $25 per transaction! That can really start to add up for many businesses.
Not Radius. They’ll let you run as many as you need without penalizing you for it. That’s great for businesses that handle a high volume of transactions each month or ones that have high-octane growth as a top priority.
Tailored Checking also comes with 1%+ cash back on online and signature-based credit transactions made with your debit card.
It’s also worth noting that they’ll give you 0.75% APY on balances more than $5,000. Though it’s easy to point at BlueVine and say that their 1% is better, this is actually more lucrative for big businesses since Radius doesn’t cap their balance requirements for interest. That means you can have $5,000 or $1,000,000 in their checking account and you’ll still be earning 0.75% APY.
One potential downside is that they require a $10 monthly fee along with $100 to open. However, the monthly maintenance fee is waived if you have a balance of more than $5,000.
You can apply online in less than ten minutes without uploading any documents. If this sounds like the right solution for your business, apply with Radius Bank today.
#4 – Axos Bank — The Best Way to Treat Your Employees
- Excellent business checking accounts
- Minimum $1000 to open
- Great merchant services
- No monthly maintenance fee
Axos Bank offers a suite of great banking solutions for your needs, including business checking, interest checking, business savings, CDs, and CDARs.
At first blush, their accounts don’t stand out all that much—that is, until you look at the offerings after you get an account.
Their Workplace Banking product is one of the standout offerings.
This service allows you to provide banking solutions to all of your employees. You’ll be able to provide them Axos no-fee checking accounts with ATM fee reimbursement and low interest rates for home, auto, and personal loans.
They’ll also provide your business with a financial literacy portal that includes nearly 200 tutorials and videos to guide your employees to financial success.
It’s a versatile benefit to offer your employees that can work for a lot of different companies. Be it access to no-stress checking accounts, better-than-average access to loan options, or just tools to get better at managing their own money, a benefit like this goes a long way to helping recruit and retain better talent in your organization.
When it comes to their account specifics, here are a few key offerings of their Basic Business Checking account:
- No monthly maintenance fee
- No minimum balance requirement
- Unlimited domestic ATM fee reimbursement
- 50 checks free
- 200 free transactions each month
- $1,000 minimum deposit to open
It’s a good bank to go with if you want a solid suite of business banking options and a way to help your employees with their banking needs as well.
You can apply online today at Axos Bank’s website.
#5 – Chase Business Complete BankingSM — The Best Online Checking for Businesses of All Sizes
- 16,000 ATMs and 4,700+ branches
- Earn $300 by opening business checking account
- Unlimited deposits
- Very scalable
A Chase Business Complete Banking account is a great choice for those who need both an online and in-person bank.
For example, if your business frequently deals in cash or international currency, Chase can be good for you because you can go to an actual teller to help you out.
Yes, other banks have online and physical locations—but no one holds a candle to Chase’s accounts offerings.
They offer some of the best benefits and features in the banking industry.
Here’s a quick overview of the Chase Business Complete Banking, which can be opened and managed online:
- Earn $300 when you open a new Chase Business Complete Checking account. For new Chase business checking customers with qualifying activities.
- More ways to waive fees. Multiple options to waive the Monthly Service Fee, including maintaining a minimum daily balance or purchases on your Chase Ink Business credit card
- Convenient access to payment processing. Accept card payments anytime, anywhere in the U.S., and get transparent pricing with Chase QuickAccept.
- Same-day deposits with QuickAccept. Free up the cash you need to keep your business moving forward with same-day deposits at no additional cost.
- Alerts to help you stay on top of your account activity
- Easy account management through Chase Business online and the Chase Mobile app.
- Unlimited electronic deposits, ACH and Chase Quick Deposit
- Convenient access to 16,000 ATMs and more than 4,700 branches
While there are fees involved, they give you several ways to waive your monthly service fee including maintaining a minimum daily balance or making purchases on your Chase Ink Business credit card.
In addition to checking accounts, Chase also has some of the best business credit cards on the market today. You’ll also benefit from merchant services and online business lending solutions if you need them.
Overall, if you’re looking for a good online banking experience that’s complemented with in-person physical locations, it’s hard to find a better service than Chase.
#6 – BlueVine — The Best for New Businesses to Keep (and Grow) Cash
- 1% APY
- No monthly fees or minimum deposits
- Unlimited transactions for checking
- Live support
BlueVine is an online banking service that’s tailor-made for new, small business owners.
They’re also pretty spartan when it comes to their product offerings. As of 2021, they only offer a business checking service as well as a business loan service.
But, their business checking is one of the best ones we’ve seen on the market. In fact, it earned them a spot on our best business checking accounts list.
With no monthly fees, no minimum deposits, and no “non-sufficient funds” fees, it’s a solution friendly to small business owners looking to save money and avoid being nickel-and-dimed by their banks.
They also offer a full 1% APY for account owners on your balance up to $100,000. That’s more than 20x the national average! If you’re a business owner looking to keep your money from being diminished by fees—and have it grow as it sits in your account—this is a great option for you.
They also have an ATM network of 38,000 strong you can draw on. The downside is if there isn’t an ATM within the network near you, you’re going to get hit with the ATM fee.
Their business loans are also very nice. They offer three types:
- Line of credit
- Term loan
- Invoice factoring
You can get approved for a loan within minutes with interest rates as low as 4.8%. Applications don’t impact your credit score, either. They’ll only check your score after you’ve accepted a loan offer.
Overall, I highly recommend BlueVine to any small business owner looking to get a loan or open a business checking account. With the 1% APY on balances of $100,000 or less, it makes it perfect for newer owners looking for a solid checking account.
How to Find the Best Online Business Bank Account for You
Not all of the online banks on our list will be a viable solution for your business. You’ll need to narrow down your options based on certain factors—but which ones?
Below are the factors we believe are the most important ones to take into consideration when choosing an online bank for your business. This is the methodology that we used here at Quick Sprout to determine this list—and now you can use it for your banking needs.
Fees and Balance Requirements
Monthly fees and minimum balance requirements are common when it comes to business banking accounts.
Some banks offer accounts devoid of fees, while others let you waive the monthly fee by maintaining a minimum daily balance.
Unlike personal checking accounts, business accounts typically come with monthly transaction limits (more on those later). You might have to pay a fee if you exceed those limits. And the fees can add up if you’re not careful—especially once you get past promotional pricing some banks offer.
Our suggestion: Find a good online bank that imposes no monthly fees or “non-sufficient funds” fees, if you can.
For example, BlueVine is a great bank to choose if you want to save as much money as possible with your business banking. They don’t charge any fees or require minimum deposits.
Novo and Axos are a few other great banks that don’t require a monthly service fee.
Some banks require minimum balances to be maintained in your account, else they’ll hit you with a fee. Chase is a good example of this. Though they do charge a monthly fee, they’ll waive it with a minimum daily balance.
Minimum balances aren’t typically a huge issue since most of them are pretty low. But still, it’s a consideration when looking at banks—especially if you’re a newer business.
Interest Rates
Your annual percentage yield (APY) is another factor you should consider when choosing an online business bank. This is how much interest your account will accrue from the money you have sitting in there.
Some banks offer higher APY than others. BlueVine, for one, offers 1% interest on your balance up to $100,000. That might not seem like much but it’s actually more than 20x higher than the national average (per FDIC).
That can mean you’re passively earning a few hundred more dollars each year.
While interest rates should play a factor in your online business banking search, there is one thing we recommend: Don’t rate chase. That means don’t make interest rates the BIGGEST factor that plays into your bank choice.
It’s very easy to do that when banks float impressive sounding interest rates. But, you have to remember that interest rates are only one ingredient in the bigger recipe of a good business bank.
Transaction Limits
Many business banks impose transactional limits for their business checking accounts. If you exceed that limit, you might have to pay up to $0.50 per transaction. Banks do this because they need to have money in reserve to fulfill all of their customers’ needs.
For example, Axos Financial gives you 200 free transactions per month. If you exceed that, they’ll charge you up to $0.30 per transaction.
It’s not terrible by any means, but you obviously want to save as much money as possible.
And it could potentially add up over the year, especially if you’re a business that requires frequent transactions.
If you’re a larger company, you’ll need higher transaction limits as you’ll be conducting more transfers, withdrawals, and deposits. You’ll want to be aware of fees incurred by heavy usage, and should keep an eye on the limits each banking provider gives you along with their APYs.
Luckily, banks like BlueVine and Radius Bank let you do unlimited transactions per month at no extra cost to you.
Custom Solutions and Support
The structure of your organization and the industry it inhabits are both going to have a lot of say in the banking partner that’s right for you.
Some online banking accounts are geared towards startups, sole proprietors, and freelancers. A few, such as Radius Bank, have offerings specifically for industries such as nonprofits.
Novo is targeted towards entrepreneurs and freelancers of all stripes with their handy software integrations with Quickbooks and Stripe along with their personalized banking services. Radios offers escrow services in case your business requires more intensive money distributive needs.
Square is a great service to turn to if you’re looking for hands-on merchant services like a POS system.
If you’re interested in small business loans or real estate loans, you’ll want to see what these different banks offer along those lines too.
In-Person Banking Availability
This isn’t the biggest deal breaker—which is why it’s last on the methodology list. However, we understand it can be very important to some readers to have a bank that they can actually go to.
While online banking offers a wide variety of benefits, physical banks have their upsides too. With physical stores, you’ll have a much easier time depositing and withdrawing cash. You’ll also be able to talk to an actual human about your needs and issues.
If you’re a business that deals a lot with international currency, you’ll definitely want an in-person bank you can go to in order to exchange currencies at a fair rate.
Businesses that offer tax guidance are another one that may need to lean on brick-and-mortar branches, because of all the receipts, invoices, and documentation involved.
Chase is an obvious standout for this consideration, with over 5,000 physical locations in the United States. Just verify that there is a branch in your area if this is important to you.
It might also be important to you that there are plenty of ATMs available for you to choose from with no extra fees required. See if the bank you’re researching offers a wide ATM network in your area or if they reimburse you for ATM fees.
Conclusion
Here’s a recap of the six best online business banking solutions on the market today:
- Novo — Simple online-only business checking account with no hidden fees.
- Mercury — Easiest way for startups to manage reserve cash
- Radius Bank (Lending Club) — Best online banking solution for growing businesses.
- Axos Bank — Online-exclusive bank with interest-bearing checking solutions.
- Chase Business Complete BankingSM — Best online business checking accounts for businesses of all sizes.
- BlueVine — Best online banking for small businesses and loans
I purposely included banks for all types of businesses on here. From freelancers to enterprises, and everything in between, I know you can find what you’re looking for on this list.
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