8 Best Banks for Small Business in 2021
Bank accounts aren’t just for individuals. Businesses need a way to store money, deposit checks, pay bills, and otherwise manage their finances, so many banks offer business bank accounts.
These accounts come with features specifically designed to meet business’ banking needs.
If you run a small business, it’s especially important that you have a business bank account. While using your personal accounts can be tempting, keeping your money separate from your business’s money helps with bookkeeping and is required to enjoy some of the legal protections that businesses have.
If you’re looking for a bank that offers good service for small businesses, these are some of the best options.
The 8 Best Banks for Small Businesses
Bank | Best For |
Novo | Simple, online banking |
Chase Business Complete Banking SM | One-stop-shop for all your business banking needs |
Azlo | A checking account with a dashboard that lets you handle invoicing and payments in one place |
BlueVine | Online business checking with interest and a cash deposit option |
Radius Bank | A physical bank with a variety of business banking and lending services |
Wells Fargo | Low-cost physical banking |
NorthOne | All the banking features a small business needs, plus integration with popular business tools |
Novo
Novo is an online bank that offers business checking accounts. Checking accounts are the only thing the company offers, so if you want a loan, credit card, or other banking services, you’ll have to look elsewhere.
What sets Novo apart is its sleek and easy to use website and app. You can apply for an account in just a few minutes and it’s easy to use the app or website to make transfers into or out of the account.
Novo also offers perks that business owners can use to save some money. These perks include discounts on services like Stripe, Quickbooks, Google Cloud, HubSpot, and Zendesk. Novo also integrates with apps like Xero, Slack, and Stripe to make it easier to manage and track your business.
- Minimum balance: None
- APY: N/A
- Transaction Limits: 20 check deposits per month
- Fees: None
- Credit cards: None
- Loans: None
Visit Novo or read our full Bank Novo Review
Chase Business Checking
Chase is one of the largest banks in the United States so it’s a great choice if you’re looking for a one-stop-shop for all of your business’s banking needs. You can get a checking account, credit card, and loans for your business through Chase.
The drawback of working with Chase is that it will be more expensive than many of the other options. You’ll have to pay a $15 monthly fee to keep a checking account open unless you can meet one of these requirements:
- Maintain a $2,000 minimum daily balance
- Make $2,000 in purchases on your Chase Ink® Business Card
- $2,000 in deposits from QuickAccept and/or other eligible Chase Merchant Services transactions
- Link a Chase Private Client Checking account
If you have hopes to expand your business to a medium or large one, Chase might be a solid choice because you can stick with the bank as the business grows. Some of the alternatives might not be able to grow their service as quickly as your business.
- Minimum balance: None ($2,000 to avoid monthly fee)
- APY: None
- Transaction Limits: Fee for cash deposits over $5,000 in a month and 21+ in-person/check transactions in a month
- Fees: $15 monthly fee, $0.40 per transaction fee for 21+ deposits/withdrawals made with a teller or paper check in a month, 2.6% + 10 cents for card transactions (keyed-in transactions cost 3.5% + 10 cents)
- Credit cards: Multiple options
- Loans: Loans and lines of credit
Azlo
Azlo is an online business checking account that’s aimed at helping business owners automate their finances. There’s no minimum balance or monthly fee and no other fees, even for overdrafts or high numbers of transactions.
Azlo lets you do invoicing and payments directly from your account, letting you track and manage your business’s finances all from one place.
Azlo does offer a paid service, called Azlo Pro. For $10 per month, you can set up an unlimited number of envelopes in your account, letting you separate your cash into different envelopes for tracking purposes. You can also automate your invoicing with Azlo Pro.
Another benefit of Azlo Pro is cheaper instant transfers. Typically, you pay $2 for instant transfers out of Azlo and 2% of any amount transferred in instantly. Azlo Pro halves those fees.
Azlo is a solid choice if all you need is a checking account and you’re looking to do everything from a central dashboard.
- Minimum balance: None
- APY: None
- Transaction Limits: None
- Fees: None ($10 / month for extra features with Azlo Pro, per-transaction fee for instant transfers)
- Credit cards: None
- Loans: None
Visit Azlo or read our full Azlo Bank Review
BlueVine
BlueVine is an online checking account and loan provider for small businesses. BlueVine’s value proposition is that it goes beyond the no-fee offerings that its competitors have by paying up to 1.00% APY on deposits to your business checking account up to $100,000 (with a minimum $1,000 deposit to earn interest).
If your business often needs a bit of extra cash to get by, BlueVine can also help with that. The company offers invoice factoring and lines of credit, which can help you get quick access to cash and regular lines of credit, both at reasonable interest rates.
BlueVine also lets customers deposit cash through a partnership with Green Dot. This is somewhat unusual among online business checking accounts, making BlueVine a solid choice for most business owners.
- Minimum balance: None
- APY: Up to 1%
- Transaction Limits: None
- Fees: $4.95 for cash deposits
- Credit Cards: None
- Loans: Paycheck protection loans, invoice factoring, and general lines of credit
Visit BlueVine or read our full BlueVine Review
Radius Bank
Radius Bank, like Chase, is a physical bank that offers a wide variety of business banking services. If you have aspirations of growing your business then Radius Bank may be a good choice as it can expand the services it offers as your banking needs grow.
Radius Bank also takes the unusual step of offering cash back for purchases made with your business debit card. If you don’t have a business rewards credit card, this can be a significant benefit.
Like most business accounts offered by physical banks, Radius does charge some fees. You’ll have to be ready for that unless you can maintain the $5,000 minimum balance, which may be a problem for smaller businesses and startups.
- Minimum balance: $100 to open
- APY: Up to 0.10% (plus 1% cash back on debit purchases)
- Transaction Limits: None
- Fees: $10 per month (waived with a $5,000 balance)
- Credit cards: Multiple options
- Loans: Loans and lines of credit
Visit Radius Bank or read our full Radius Bank Review
Wells Fargo
Of the physical banks that offer business checking accounts, Wells Fargo is one of the least expensive options. Its monthly fee is relatively easy to avoid and only businesses with high transaction volume or cash deposits will need to worry about transaction fees.
The bank also offers a variety of lending products, so businesses that need a line of credit or who want to borrow money to expand won’t have to go elsewhere to get the loan.
- Minimum balance: $25 to open
- APY: None
- Transaction Limits: $0.50 fee for transactions over 50 in a month, $0.30 fee per $100 deposited for cash deposits over $3,000 in a month
- Fees: $10 monthly fee (waived with $500 balance)
- Credit cards: Multiple options
- Loans: Loans and lines of credit
NorthOne
NorthOne offers an online business checking experience. Unlike many other online checking account providers, NorthOne opts to have a flat monthly fee of $10 instead of waiving monthly fees and charging for other services. The $10 fee cannot be avoided.
The bank also has a vast ATM network, offering fee-free withdrawals at more than 300,000 ATMs. You can also deposit cash, fee-free, at any NYCE or MoneyPass ATMs.
NorthOne integrates with many popular small business tools, such as QuickBooks, Xero, and Freshbooks, which can help you keep all of your business’s finance organized.
- Minimum balance: $50 to open
- APY: None
- Transaction Limits: None
- Fees: $10 per month
- Credit cards: None
- Loans: Small Business Administration Paycheck Protection Program loans
Novo | Chase Business Checking | Azlo | BlueVine | Radius Bank | Wells Fargo | NorthOne | |
Fees | None | $15 per month
2.6% + 10 cents – 3.5% + 10 cents for card transactions |
$10 for Azlo Pro (optional)
2% for instant inbound transfers (1% with Pro) 1% for instant outbound transfers ($1 with Pro) |
$4.95 for cash deposits | $10 per month | $10 | $10 |
APY | None | None | None | Up to 1% | Up to 0.10% | None | None |
Minimum Balance | None | None | None | None | $100 | $25 | $50 |
No-Fee Balance | N/A | $2,000 | N/A | N/A | $5,000 | $500 | N/A |
Free transactions per Month | 20 | 20 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | 50 transactions, $3,000 in cash deposits | Unlimited |
How Can You Choose the Best Business Bank?
Choosing the best business bank account can be difficult because which bank is the best relies heavily on your business.
If you run a small e-commerce website that never deals with cash, you can do just fine with a low-fee account from an online bank. If your business deals heavily in cash, you’ll want to find a bank that keeps fees for cash deposits low, even if some of its other fees are higher.
In general, one of the first things you should look at is how much the bank’s services will cost you. Even if some of the bank’s fees for certain services are high, if you won’t use those services, then those fees aren’t important. Similarly, low fees for services that you won’t use don’t matter much either.
Another thing to consider is how you interact with the bank. This is a matter of personal preference. If you like going to a bank and working with people in person, you’ll want to choose a physical bank. If you don’t need in-person interaction and prefer to do everything online, online business banks are a good choice.
It’s all about finding the bank that offers an account that meets your company’s unique needs at a low cost.
Learn More: Best Business Checking Accounts For Freelancers and Entrepreneurs
Factors to Consider When Looking for the Best Bank Account
The factors that we called out when reviewing these bank accounts are some of the most important ones to look at when comparing bank accounts, and they’re the following:
- Fees
- Minimum balance requirements
- Transaction limits
- Interest
If you’re looking for a new business bank account and want to compare multiple options, these factors are a good place to start.
It’s also worth thinking about some other things which can be hard for a reviewer to cover. For example, if one bank has a branch near your business while the other option only has a branch in the next town over, that’s a point in favor of the first.
Another thing that’s worth considering is the reputation of the bank that you choose. You want to work with a bank that’s trustworthy and known for good customer service. Finding a bank that wants to work with you, rather than one that doesn’t seem to care about its customers, can make your banking experience much smoother.
Read More: Azlo vs. Novo vs. BlueVine
How Did We Pick the Best Banks for Small Businesses?
To pick the best banks for small businesses we focused on finding banks with reasonable fee structures and features that appeal to smaller companies.
Small businesses don’t need all the bells and whistles that large companies need from their banks. They also can’t meet huge minimum deposit requirements. All small businesses usually need is an easy to use account that doesn’t cost much and that can help them keep business money separate from the owner’s personal funds.
Related: Best Small Business Credit Cards
FAQs
These are some of the most frequently asked questions about banking for small businesses.
Does my small business need a checking or savings account?
It is possible to successfully run a small business without giving the business a dedicated bank account, but that doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea.
A business checking or savings account accomplishes many tasks.
One is that it helps keep your business’s finances separate from your personal money. That can make it much easier to keep track of your business’s money and performance. If you mix your personal and business’s money, it can be very difficult to do accurate recordkeeping or pay your taxes properly.
Business bank accounts are also essential for maintaining some of the protections that businesses receive. For example, if you form a Limited Liability Company, you can lose that protection if you mingle your personal and business funds.
What’s the difference between a personal and a business bank account?
Both personal and business bank accounts do the same basic thing. They give you a place to safely store your extra money.
The difference comes in the additional features offered by the account. Where a personal account might offer automatic transfers to a savings account and online bill payments, business accounts might offer invoicing tools and help with managing large cash deposits.
What do you need to open a business bank account?
When you open a personal bank account, you have to provide some information about yourself. Opening a business bank account is similar, except you have to provide both your and your business’s information.
This includes:
- Your name
- Your contact information
- A form of identification
- Your business’s Employer Identification Number
- Your Social Security Number is sufficient for sole proprietorships
- Your business formation documents
- Any ownership agreements
- A business license
Do I need a business account if I’m self-employed?
While you don’t need a business bank account if you’re self-employed or a freelancer, it’s still a good idea.
Business bank accounts make it much easier to separate your business’s money and your personal money, as well as business transactions and personal transactions.
This makes it much easier to keep accurate records, which can be a huge help when you have to file taxes or want to apply for a loan to expand your self-employment into a larger business.
Related: Best Small Business Loans
Can I open a business checking account with no money?
Most banks have a minimum deposit requirement that you must meet before you’re able to open a business checking account. However, there are some that don’t have any minimum balance, so you can open an account without having money to deposit.
Just make sure that you check the account’s fee structure before you open it. Some banks will charge a monthly fee if your account’s balance falls below (or never reaches) a certain threshold. Additionally, some banks will close your account automatically if it remains at a $0 balance for too long.
Can I have two business bank accounts?
Yes, just like you can have multiple personal bank accounts you can have more than one business bank account. Before you open a second account, make sure that you have good reasons for doing so and that you can meet any fee waiver requirements.
Bottom Line
Every business should have a dedicated bank account. It helps to keep the business’s finances separate from the owner’s and many business accounts offer valuable tools that can make managing your business’s money easier.
When looking for a business bank account, look for accounts with low fees and features that help your business meet its unique needs.