Startup banking and spend, costed by stage

Fees and yield per year, by stage

Each cell: fees / yield per year in USD. Activity is our assumption: $150K / $500K / $2M kept for operations; 2 / 6 / 15 domestic wires and 1 / 4 / 12 non-USD payments a month; card spend $4K / $20K / $80K a month, 10-15% of it non-USD. * = a fee this activity needs is not published (FX on international payments at Brex and Ramp, card FX at Rho) and is left out. Yields carry each vendor's own as-of date, from September 17 (Relay) to October 13, 2026 (Ramp); Brex and Bluevine print none. Deposit interest (Relay, Bluevine, Ramp Checking) is FDIC-insured through the partner bank; Mercury, Rho and Brex treasury products are money market funds, not FDIC-insured.

The pattern: fees are small and yield is large. At seed, the accounts that publish every fee charge about $3,600 to $6,600 a year, most of it currency conversion on international payments; cash earns from nothing (Novo, Chase) to about $93,000 depending on where it sits and which product holds it. Run your own numbers in the banking cost calculator.

Recent changes most comparison pages still miss: Capital One completed its acquisition of Brex on April 7, 2026; the OCC gave Mercury preliminary conditional approval for its own bank on April 24, 2026; Ramp has charged for Bill Pay from an outside bank since June 1, 2026; Valley National Bancorp agreed to buy Bluevine on September 28, 2026; svb.com now redirects to First Citizens.

Who holds the money

Mercury, Relay, Rho, Brex, Ramp, Novo and Bluevine are not banks: your deposits sit at partner banks, and the FDIC says "nonbank companies themselves are never FDIC-insured". Coverage of "up to $3M" or "$5M" comes from sweep networks that spread your balance across many banks, and it depends on the fintech's ownership records. When the middleware company Synapse went bankrupt in April 2024, its trustee estimated a $65 to $96 million shortfall between what users were owed and what the banks held; no bank failed, so deposit insurance did not pay. Details per vendor are in the calculator notes and each comparison.

Verified entry prices

Startup bank accounts

Corporate cards and spend management

Each price read on the vendor's pricing page, fee schedule or help center; latest check October 13, 2026. Weekly monitoring flags changes; see price changes.

Calculators

• Banking cost calculator: wire, FX and card fees, cashback and yield at your balance and activity.
• Runway calculator: cash, burn and the month you run out.
• Payroll cost calculator: the biggest line in your burn.

How we compare these tools

Every price comes from the vendor's own pricing page and help center and is dated; quote-only plans are marked, never estimated, and third-party figures are labelled as reported. Stage costs use the three company sizes we apply across all comparisons, with the activity assumptions stated under each table. None of these tools has been hands-on tested by us yet, and each page says so. Full rules on the methodology page.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best bank for a startup?

It depends on what you do with the account. If you pay people or suppliers abroad, currency conversion is the largest fee: 1% at Mercury and Rho, as little as 1% at Relay, 0.5% for major currencies at Airwallex. If you hold more than you need for a few months of spend, the yield on idle cash matters more than any fee. And check eligibility first: most of these accounts need a US company, and several need a US address or Social Security number for every owner.

Is Mercury a real bank?

Not yet. Mercury is a financial technology company; deposits sit at partner banks (Choice Financial Group and Column N.A.). The OCC gave Mercury preliminary conditional approval for its own national bank on April 24, 2026; it is not open yet.

Is my money FDIC-insured at a fintech?

Deposits at the partner bank are insured up to $250,000 per depositor per bank, and sweep networks spread larger balances across many banks. The insurance depends on accurate ownership records and does not cover the failure of the fintech itself; that gap is what hurt Synapse customers in 2024. Money market funds used for treasury products are not FDIC-insured.

Ramp or Brex for a startup?

Both offer a free plan with no fee on domestic wires from their own accounts, and both charge up to 3% on non-USD card spend. Ramp publishes no cashback rate; Brex pays points worth 0.6 cent each as cash. Brex has been part of Capital One since April 2026. See our Ramp vs Brex comparison for the eligibility and yield differences.

Related: burn rate and cash runway, payroll and EOR costs, cap table, incorporation and data rooms.