This makes it a perfect tool for business owners who need control of their employees’ business spending. Also, you can use these cards to manage your money without using a bank. Far more than just a card, prepaid business debit cards can double as a full-fledged expense management solution.
If you want to start using a prepaid debit card, though, you should conduct research on the best cards out there. To give you a head start on that research, we’ve outlined six of the best prepaid debit cards for business owners in this post.
6 Prepaid Debit Cards to Consider:
1. Bento for Business
With Bento, the cost depends on the number of cards you’ll need, as it often does with other card companies. You can order up to two cards for free, and if you decide you need more than that you’ll pay a fee. In addition, this card comes with a mobile app and informative dashboard, so you can analyze and manage employee expenses.
Plus, you can try it for free for 60 days to determine if it works for your business before buying it. Other features include the ability to set budget controls for each card, bookkeeping tools, and FDIC-insured funds.
2. Netspend
Netspend will charge you $9.95 per month for your first card and $1.95 for your next nine cards. While there is a maximum of ten cards, Netspend gives you the convenience of direct deposits, checks, and ACH transfers to load your card. Like Bento for Business, you can send, receive, and manage money within Netspend’s mobile app.
Netspend offers cash back with Payback Rewards, budget control, transaction alerts, and more. They even offer to cover up to $10 if you fall short on a transaction, although you are responsible for paying the amount back.
3. PEX
Using
PEX prepaid cards is on the more expensive side, with a monthly fee of $7.50 per card. However, if you run a large business that spends at least $50,000 per month, that fee is waived. Plus, it has unlimited daily spending.
PEX gives you the flexibility to provide cards for distributed workers or volunteers and the control to decide when, where, and how they use those cards. As the business owner, you can set rules, budgets, and track spending in real-time.
4. Dash Prepaid Mastercard
Dash is a convenient card for businesses with numerous, spread out employees or contractors. You keep your account funded and your workers request funds through the mobile app. This makes controlling expenses easy and convenient. Dash is a prepaid debit card, but it doubles as a full expense management software solution and the use of that software is free.
5. Emburse Pre Funded Debit Mastercard
Emburse's pricing varies based on the number of employees who will need cards. With Emburse, you can have virtual or physical cards, control expense policies, order branded cards, and integrate your cards with
QuickBooks,
Xero,
Netsuite, and
Intacct.
Like other cards mentioned in this list, you can create role-based permissions for your cards to better control your budget. In addition, with Emburse, you’re eligible for cash back based on your monthly transaction volume and you don’t pay any foreign transaction fees.
6. U.S. Bank Rewards Card
As mentioned, the cards we’ve covered so far double as expense management solutions. This is not so with the
U.S. Bank Rewards Card, but if you’re looking for a simple, prepaid debit card for your business, it may be the one for you. With these cards, you can load any amount from $25 to $1000, choose a card design, and customize it with a message or logo.
Ultimately, these cards are great if you want a simple prepaid card to use as a token of appreciation for customers or employees.
Conclusion: Consider Your Prepaid Card Options
Sifting through the long lists of features that these
prepaid cards offer will probably make your head spin. Although pricing isn’t the only factor, a good way to compare these cards is to consider how many you’ll need, what you’ll use them for, and how you’ll reload them.
Many of the fees you pay (or don’t pay) depend on how you reload the card. For example, some allow card-to-card or ACH transfers for free, while others don’t. Moreover, pricing also depends on the number of users and how much you spend, so determine your needs and estimate how much you’ll pay that way. Once you do this, you’ll have a shorter list of options to consider and you can select one that seems the best-suited to your business.