▲ 136 points
Ask HN: What credit card does your US startup use?
More context:
- very small team (< 5 people)
- mostly used for online services (e.g., servers, SaaS, api ...)
- rarely travel
- in San Francisco
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107 comments
Not card advice but operational advice:
From being at startups where people tend to move fast and often move on, tell your staff that they can use the services they need BUT you will only reimburse them for 3 months. After that, it must be on the corp card.
I've seen too many times where AWS, Mailchimp, etc, etc are on someone's personal card and once they leave, everything blows up after a couple months. It's even worse if they left under bad terms.
Give them some flexibility but make sure it comes to a single point of control.
I would never use any service under an employee's personal card. If someone needs something, it takes 10 minutes get someone with a company card to save it as a payment method and add it to a google spreadsheet. This also ensures that we know exactly how much we are spending and on what.
In the past, I've worked at a company where each team managed their own expenses. This led to situations like one team using a certain transaction email provider, and another team using a different one, rather than saving thousands of dollars by going entirely with one or the other. Costs should be managed at a corporate level, not at the level of the individual employee who is tasked with setting up transactional emails.
I would say save the hassles and just stick to the corps credit card. I experienced the AWS under a personal credit card issue, but AWS was quick to resolve the issue with us anyway.
Though it is needless to say, also make sure you have a vendor email address to manage vendors. We have had vendor account signed up using work email but after the person left the company, we lose the account control and have to ping account manager. Sometimes, that process can take days to complete.
On that note: create an alias accountspayable@ or something equivalent and use that for all invoicing. Absolutely disallow signing up for services with individual user accounts.
Whoa, I think OP is talking about which corporate credit card to use.
Using a personal credit card of an employee sounds like an absolute nightmare. I know startups are strapped for cash, but damn.
I have some very important advice for startups that is tangentially related. Make sure that your AWS account is not on someone's retail account. They can never, ever be separated. Your order history is not deletable and AWS resources, data, etc. cannot be transferred between accounts. Additionally, the root account is required for many activities.
My advice would be to make sure you have more than 1 card. There will be a fraudulent purchase at some point leading to a card re-issue. You don't want to be dead in the water for a few days while that happens!
Thats why i like Amex, their fraud detections systems quite advanced. Even when my card had fraud on it and they issued a new card #. All vendors still worked with the old card number.
Very true, learned-from-experience type advice. Some banks my not really get the need and ask a bunch of questions, but in my experience they were more excited for the opportunity to charge more credit card fees :)
Or just get a credit card through your local bank (or anything with a nearby physical branch). I've had corporate cards replaced and reprinted for me same-day.
Get a 2% cash back card. I think capital one has them. If you're running an ecommerce business for example with low margins but high spend (on google adwords or whatever), getting that 2% cash back really can be a huge boost to your profitability.
We fall into a business category you describe and have a 1.5% cash back card...with a current balance of just over $1.3m, which we will pay off in full later this month, and then do it all over again :)
this 2%. nerdwallet for help. I have yet to see anyone beat the 2% back other than bonus signons - but those are 1 time and on a 2-3 year horizon go with 2%.
Fidelity has a 2% one as well that deposits cash into a fidelity investment account vs CapOne where you have to apply points to other transactions to utilize the full 2% back (and CapOne redemption only applies to certain Merchant Category Codes... FYI Timeshare/Rental in Orlando for a week is not redeemable by CapOne and is not the same MCC as a Hotel)
Just keep in mind when applying that you might have personal joint liability for your business card's balance. We have a Chase Ink Business Cash card that I applied for as a representative of our company and had to provide my SSN on the application. The card was approved no problem but looking at Chase's offerings enticed me to apply for the Sapphire card for myself. I got denied a Sapphire card despite a damn near perfect credit score and qualifying income. When I called in to dispute being denied arguing that my personal card shouldn't be impacted by a business card, this is how I learned that I was jointly liable for my business card payments as well. Chase auto-denied me due to "multiple consecutive applications" since they don't consider business and personal to be separate if the SSN used is the same.
Point is, make sure you read the fine print before you apply - joint liability may not be standard on all cards. Our bank issued us their business Visa with a very generous line and it is only connected to our business account with no joint personal liability.
Possibly the best card for startup business expenses is the Chase Ink. It gives 5x points on office supplies and telco, and quite a few ISPs count as utilities. Getting 5x points on your server bills is very nice.
Points can be transferred to airline partners for super cheap international first and business class tickets (10¢ per point of value, often), or can be redeem at 1.5¢ per point for any cash flights or hotel rooms on their travel portal. Worst case, 1¢ per point as cashback.
Amex also has quite a few great business card. The Business Rewards Gold, The Business Platinum, and the Business Starwood SPG cards are the best.
Don't worry about the card "benefits", worry about your procedures. Interest rate doesn't matter: you pay off the card every month, right? And time spent trying to optimize this is time you should be putting into your business.
For procedures: - everyone should have a company card in their own name. This means you don't wonder who placed that order for 55 gal of lube on Amazon; it will clearly be John Doe or Jane Smith. Since it's a company card, you'll get the bill and will be able to manage recurring purchases (e.g AWS) after the employee leaves. On the other hand if they accidentally order a bridesmaid's dress on the company card (happened at one of my companies) you can make sure the employee is on the hook for it. - no expenses reimbursed -- only company card to be used.
SVB does this very well -- the employees get individual bills a day or two before the company consolidated bill arrives (all sent to the company -- again so the employee has a chance to catch that bridesmaid dress before the boss sees it).
American Express Plum card used to have one of the best bonuses for quick repayment. It originally was 2% with no cap, if you paid it within 10 days. Or you could pay your minimum and defer the payment a month with no penalty. I think it is 1.5% now, which is still pretty good considering there's no cap.
I got it when I was doing a lot of affiliate marketing (no rebills, I swear), which is sort of like being a founder, and spending $xx,xxx a month on traffic. Getting 2% of that back was actually pretty sweet, considering my margins were 15-20% in general.
If you pay your AWS bill with the Amazon Rewards Visa, the transaction is categorized under Amazon and you'll get 5% rewards (only redeemable on Amazon though)
If you use a VISA check card from your bank you can easily monitor all expenses through your company bank account. I found this helpful for my startup, but as you get bigger and spend more money you'll probably want to look at cards that give you extras (cash back, etc...).
I'm going to assume you're trying to maximize for cash back and ignore other potential perqs like price protection, extended warranties, etc.
I'd say your two best bets would be either the Chase Ink Preferred or Amex Business Rewards Gold. Both offer 3 points per dollar spent in some categories. The Amex card explicitly lists cloud computing, the Chase card includes internet and online advertising. I'd recommend doing a bit of research to make sure your spending fits into the bonus categories.
If you're redeeming the points for statement credit you'll get 1 cent per point from Chase and .6 cents per point from Amex. There are other ways to redeem points that may be more valuable to you but this should be the minimum value you get.
Both cards have annual fees so you should definitely do the math to see if you'll at least break even on the fee. If you won't break even or you don't use the spending categories that have bonuses you might prefer something simpler. Citi offers cash back cards for businesses that give 1.5% or 2% cash back on all purchases. The 2% comes with an annual fee so once again you'd need to do the math to figure out which one is right for you.
Capital One Spark Business (Visa) has worked great for us.
Very friendly service, good online system (not as great as Amex though), $15K limit from day one for a new business with zero revenue at the time. Best of all, 2% cash back on every single purchase (no categories), which adds up to real money when you put all of your expenses like AWS on it.
Here are some features you might want for any business:
1. Reporting on who spent how much on what?
2. Access control and roll over in case someone leaves, joins, quits angrily and so on
3. Backup and contingency plans in case your bank decides to revoke their relationship.
4. Points back.
I think Amex has the most finely grained reporting and control and this, alone, is worth more than the others.
I'm not convinced it's worth our time to figure out which credit card we should be using. Granted, our expenses are low, but the math just doesn't make sense.
I've seen a few people mention using check or debit cards and that is almost always a bad idea. You lose the fraud protection and you are giving vendors and employees direct access to your checking account.
For your particular situation I would probably just open a credit card account with whoever your startup banks with. Beyond that I would probably explore do the following (in rough order depending on your company size):
1. Using Personal Guarantee: If you are an early startup you probably cant get easily get a business card without a personal guarantee. In this case its really up to the founding team's credit worthiness and I would recommend Amex/OPEN, Capital One Spark, and Chase Ink. All of these will probably require a personal guarantee to start but these particular ones won't go on your personal credit report (Some other cards may).
2. Establishing Credit: Create a Dunn and Bradstreet account, update it, and make sure you have a good web presence. The easiest business credit accounts to establish are UPS, Fedex, Amazon, Staples/OfficeMax/Depot, Frys, Uline. Open them and pay your bills on time (and in full). This will all boost your D&B Paydex score even if you are only making small purchases from each.
3. Utilize your Bank: In SF Wells Fargo is actually quite good for a small startup, SVB is good once you have funding, and US Bank/First Republic are good alternatives. This is your best bet for first major business line of credit (LOC). A business LOC is almost like a credit card and could even have better terms for repayment. If and how you should actually use it depends on your company and your finances, however if you get one without a personal guarantee they will probably limit your expenses to business expenses.
4. Get Credit without PGs(personal guarantees): Once you are seasoned for around 3-9 months you can start looking to getting credit without a personal guarantee. Beyond your bank I would look at US Bank, Amazon, Amex Business, Cap One Spark. If by that time you have funding and more substantial bank deposits approval will be much easier.
If you have high expenses and want to leverage a good rebate, I would recommend getting the Alliant Cashback Visa Signature Credit Card.
It offers a 3% cash back off all purchases during your first year and the annual fee ($59) is waived during the first year. 2.5% cash back after the first year.
Source: http://www.doctorofcredit.com/alliant-cashback-visa-signatur...
I've been running my affiliate business for a long time on several cards, but have so far found amex gold / platinum to be the best if you have any measure of marketing expenses.
The gold business card gives 3X points on Facebook/google ads, while the business platinum gives 1.5x points on purchases over $5k (useful for equipment purchases). You also get 50% points back on preferred airline travel bought with points directly through amex.com
I do realize that not everyone has credit sufficient to get these two, but if accessible they are great.
Definitely make sure you get one where they're willing to scale up the credit limit. Our cardable expenses are now more than our limit so we have to pay it off multiple times a month.
I have: SPG Business Amex (most recurring purchases); Amex Platinum (certain travel purchases). I use my personal Chase Sapphire Reserve and SPG Amex for some reimbursed expenses as well. I have a Chase IHG MC and an Amazon Prime (5%!) Visa that I use for IHG and Amazon, respectively (and the IHG for the rare cases I need a MasterCard).
Aside from the 2-5% return by using these cards, (and warranty, travel, etc. benefits), I find amex billing statements the easiest to reconcile across multiple purchasers.
I know a lot of companies where the executive puts the expenses on their own card and then files an expense report at the end of each week.
In fact, even as a non-executive I'd have no problem putting SaaS on my points earning personal card if I trusted that my expenses would be reimbursed in a timely manner.
I've gotten multiple free flights and hotel rooms this way.
I might get down voted a bit because people could argue that the company should reap the rewards from any points but I don't personally see an issue with it.
In the past, I used a USBank based service for small businesses. Low rates, API to get purchases, and fairly easy to get/qualify for. Assign credit limits per-employee and per category (so, for example, Maintenance Guy A can't purchase any food/beverages, but, can buy stuff at Grainger/home improvement stores, and has a limit of $500 per transaction, but a total credit limit of $5,000).
Amex Business Platinum. Great benefits make it worth the cost 10x over.
Chase Ink Preferred. Has a nice signup bonus and you get 3% back on some great categories for the first $150k spend.
Another vote for the Capital One Spark card. We are getting $500/mo + back via the 2% cash back, which has been a much better value for us than the miles we were getting previously with an Citi AAdvantage American Airlines card.
I have a reminder setup to request a statement credit at the end of each month and it hits our P&L as income.
Something else to be aware of is that some business cards will hit your personal credit score. The Capital One Spark card I have does, but the Citi AAdvantage card I had previously doesn't.
I pay in full every month so it actually improved my credit score a few points as it added $30K in available credit with 0% utilization, but if you are going to carry a balance you could take a hit on your personal credit score - especially if your available credit utilization is high.
Agree with others are (sort of) saying. If you're a 5 person team and the CEO please keep the card on your name. Then, create a accountspayable email address so you're the only member in it. Then, whenever you get a CFO on board, include him on the account -- this should be possible on the card provided -- however, the main point is that you're aware of things that go on with your account. Have some kind of process in place so there's dual approval on critical operations (txns above a certain amount, voiding transactions etc).
Am also in San Francisco. In 2011, exactly one year after my bankruptcy, I got a Capital One card w/ a $750 credit limit and a $75 annual fee. Three months later I got a another Capital One card w/ a $2000 limit and no annual fee. I'm guessing Capital One is a great company to go with, especially when it's "live off credit cards" time and your credit rating is in the crapper :)
A less snarky answer is to join Credit Karma and see what they recommend. It's a great service for $0.
Amex Gold and Chase Business Preferred are great for anyone spending a lot on online marketing as you can pick advertising as your category and get 3X points on all of that spend.
Chase Ink Business Cash gives 5% back on:
- office supply stores
- cellular phone, landline, internet, and cable TV services
If you need a high limit but don't have strong credit I'd recommend the Amex gold charge card. I was getting $3-5k limits on other cards but got a 50k limit straight away with this card. It had the 3x rewards on certain categories like online advertising mentioned above, but the balance must be paid in full monthly.
Does anyone use the new age business cards for example from Bento[1] or Dash[2] (I have no affiliation)?
Not for the US: http://holvi.com is great for Finnish, German and Austrian startups. You can get multiple cards, comes with bookkeeping built in and reimbursement functionality.
Chase Ink Business preferred is awesome - and it gives you 3x points on Internet Marketing spend (i.e. Adwords/FB):
"on advertising purchases made with social media sites and search engines each account anniversary year"
If you're spending much on advertising I would give Amex Platinum a look. They offer 3x points on one category per year and advertising is one of the options. The points add up fast and come in handy for flights.
Amex platinum but costs $500 a year. Solopreneur used to pay for hosting, software, travel, etc. Being able to use the points on Amazon is awesome
We have a Chase Ink card, it was fairly easy to get and we have a limit over $10,000 so we can use it for all of our expenses.
Amex because it's automatic net 30 and for subscriptions you won't decline immediately if the card is stolen
I was a manager at magicJack when it was starting up. We used the owners personal black AMEX card :)
When are we going to stop the insanity around credit card points and get to a system where credit card usage is no-frills and cheaper across the board?