Business Bank Account Fees and How to Avoid Them

What a business bank account really costs

A business checking account costs $0 to $75 a month in fees alone, before a single transaction. Three things set your total. Who you bank with, how many transactions you run, and whether you touch cash. The monthly fee is the smallest of the three.

At Wells Fargo, Initiate Business Checking charges $15 a month. That is $180 a year. You can avoid it with a $2,000 minimum daily balance or $5,000 in average combined business deposits. Navigate Business Checking charges $25, waived at a $10,000 daily balance. Optimize Business Checking charges $75 and covers up to five linked accounts.

Chase Business Complete Banking sits in the same place at $15 a month. A $2,000 minimum daily ending balance clears it. So does $2,000 in eligible card purchases. Miss the balance by a dollar and you pay.

Mercury, Bluevine, Found, Novo and Relay all charge nothing per month and hold no minimum. The gap is real money. A fee you forget to waive costs $180 a year, every year. Our business bank account comparison lines the providers up side by side.

Free accounts that are actually free

Five accounts on our roster charge $0 a month with no minimum balance and no overdraft fee. None of them is a stripped down account. Each has one real trade off.

• Mercury charges nothing monthly and nothing for ACH. USD international wires are free, or $15 if you want intermediary fees charged back to Mercury. Non-USD wires carry a 1% conversion fee. Treasury opens at a $250,000 balance. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Deposits sit at Choice Financial Group and Column N.A.
• Bluevine charges no monthly fee, no overdraft fee and no in-network ATM fee. Transactions are unlimited and standard ACH is free. Deposits are insured to $3 million through Coastal Community Bank and its program banks. The Standard plan pays 1.3% if you spend $500 on the debit card or take in $2,500 a month. Bluevine is a financial technology company, not a bank. There are no branches.
• Found is built for freelancers and it takes cash and check deposits, which most fintech accounts do not. Bookkeeping and tax tools are included free. Domestic wires cost $15. Paper checks cost $1 each. Banking is through Lead Bank and coverage is the standard $250,000.
• Novo charges no monthly service fee, sets no minimum balance and caps no transactions. Standard next-day ACH is free and unlimited, mailed checks are free, incoming wires are free, and Novo reimburses up to $7 a month of third-party ATM fees at home and abroad. Then comes the trade off. An outgoing domestic wire runs up to $45, which is dearer than most branch banks charge, and same-day ACH costs 1.5% of the transfer with a $0.50 floor and a $20 ceiling. Novo takes no cash deposits at all. It is a financial technology company, not a bank, deposits sit at Middlesex Federal Savings and coverage is the standard $250,000.
• Relay is the cheapest of the five for actually moving money. The free Starter plan sends a domestic wire for $8 and a same-day ACH for $5, sends standard ACH and mailed checks free, and receives ACH, domestic wires, international wires and mobile check deposits for nothing. You also get 20 checking accounts to split money across, which is why bookkeepers like it. Cash is easy too. It goes in free at an Allpoint ATM or costs up to $4.95 at a Green Dot retailer. Relay is a financial technology company, not a bank, banking runs through Thread Bank, and its sweep programme carries coverage to $3 million per business.

Notice the gap. A single domestic wire costs nothing at Mercury and up to $45 at Novo, and that $45 is bigger than most monthly fees on this page. If you send wires, the wire price decides the account, not the monthly fee.

The trade off all five share is branches. There are none. If you need a teller, you will keep a second account somewhere with a lobby. Our explainer on business versus personal accounts covers why the split matters.

What the paid tiers get you

A paid account buys three things. A branch, cash handling, and a lending relationship. Here is what each tier costs at Wells Fargo and Chase as of July 2026.

Entry tier, $15 a month

• Wells Fargo Initiate Business Checking. $15 a month, waived by a $2,000 minimum daily balance or $5,000 in average combined business deposits. You get 100 transactions a month, then $0.50 each. Cash deposits are free to $5,000, then $0.30 per $100.
• Chase Business Complete Banking. $15 a month, waived by a $2,000 minimum daily ending balance. It includes up to 20 checks and teller transactions and $5,000 of in-branch cash deposits each statement cycle. Card acceptance is built in.

Middle tier, $25 a month

• Wells Fargo Navigate Business Checking. $25 a month, waived by a $10,000 minimum daily balance or $15,000 in average combined deposits. Transactions rise to 250 and free cash deposits rise to $20,000 a month. It pays interest.

Top tier, $75 a month

• Wells Fargo Optimize Business Checking. $75 a month for up to five linked accounts, then $30 per extra account. There is no balance waiver. An earnings allowance on your balance offsets the fee instead.

The math is short. If you cannot hold the waiver balance every single month, a free account saves you $180 to $900 a year in monthly fees alone.

The fintech version of a paid tier

Relay sells the same upgrade idea without the branch, and it prices it against transactions rather than tellers. Grow costs $30 a month and Scale costs $90, cut from $120 on a discount that was running when we checked in July 2026. Both come with a 14 day trial. What the money buys is cheaper movement. A domestic wire falls from $8 to $5. A same-day ACH falls from $5 to $3, then to $1 on Scale with ten of them free every month. A SWIFT international wire falls from $25 to $22 and then $20, and a local network international payment falls from $5 to $1.50. Scale also lifts you from 20 checking accounts to 50.

Run the arithmetic before you upgrade, because it is unusually easy here. At four wires and a dozen same-day ACH payments a month, Grow saves about $36 against Starter and costs $30, so it pays for itself. Scale at the same volume saves about $70 and costs $90, so it does not. Count your wires first. The upgrade that works is the one your payment volume already justifies.

The fees nobody advertises

The expensive fees are never on the product page. They sit in the fee schedule PDF. These five cost real businesses the most.

Transaction overages. Wells Fargo Initiate includes 100 transactions a fee period, then charges $0.50 for each one. Run 300 a month and the 200 extra cost $100. That is $1,200 a year, on a $15 account. Bluevine does not cap transactions at all.

Cash deposit processing. Wells Fargo takes the first $5,000 free on Initiate, then $0.30 per $100. A shop banking $20,000 a month in cash pays $45 a month on the extra $15,000. Call it $540 a year to hand over your own money.

Overdraft fees. Wells Fargo charges $35 per item, up to four a day. Nothing is charged on items of $10 or less. Mercury and Bluevine charge no overdraft fee at all.

Currency markups. A free international wire is not a free transfer. Mercury adds a flat 1% on non-USD wires and says so plainly. Wells Fargo adds 3% to debit card purchases made in another currency, and sets its own exchange rate on top.

Small paper charges. They add up quietly. A stop payment costs $30 at Wells Fargo. A non-network ATM withdrawal costs $3 in the US and $5 abroad, before the machine's own surcharge. Found charges $1 per mailed check.

How to pay less

Most founders can cut their banking cost to zero. These seven moves do it, in the order that pays best.

• Move your main account to a free provider. Mercury, Bluevine, Found, Novo and Relay Starter charge $0 a month with no minimum. That alone saves $180 to $900 a year. That is the big one. Add the ACH and overage fees you stop paying.
• Match the account to your wire habit. This is the fee nobody budgets for. A domestic wire costs $0 at Mercury, $8 at Relay Starter, $15 at Found and up to $45 at Novo. Four wires a month is the difference between $0 and $2,160 a year, on accounts that all advertise the same $0 monthly fee.
• Keep the bank account for cash only. If you take cash, hold one traditional account for deposits. Chase includes $5,000 of in-branch cash a cycle. Sweep the rest to your free account.
• Use ACH instead of wires. Standard ACH is free at all five free providers. Same-day ACH is not, it runs $5 at Relay Starter and 1.5% capped at $20 at Novo. If the money can wait a day or two, send standard.
• Set a balance alert above the waiver line. Wells Fargo waives its $15 fee at a $2,000 daily balance. Alert yourself at $2,500. Missing the line by a dollar costs the full fee.
• Count your transactions before you pick a tier. Wells Fargo Navigate costs $10 more a month than Initiate and includes 150 more transactions. At $0.50 each, the upgrade pays for itself past 120 transactions. Count first.
• Ask your current bank for a review. Fee waivers and transaction limits are set per relationship. A year of steady deposits is a reason to call and ask. The worst answer is no.

Ready to switch? Our guide on how to open a business bank account lists the documents to have ready first.

When a free account stops working

Free accounts work until one of five things happens. Each has a number attached.

• Your cash volume passes the free limit. Wells Fargo Initiate covers $5,000 a month. Navigate covers $20,000 for $10 more a month. Above that, the $0.30 per $100 charge beats the upgrade every time.
• Your balance passes $250,000. Standard FDIC insurance covers $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank, per ownership category. Bluevine extends coverage to $3 million through its program banks, and Relay reaches the same $3 million through Thread Bank's sweep to program banks. Confirm your own number with your provider before you rely on it.
• You need to borrow. Banks lend to customers they can see. If you plan to apply for an SBA loan within a year, $180 a year of deposit history is cheap groundwork.
• You pass 250 transactions a month. That is the ceiling on Wells Fargo Navigate. Either move to a provider with no cap, or budget $0.50 per transaction over it.
• Your idle cash starts earning nothing. Mercury opens Treasury at $250,000. Bluevine pays 1.3% on its free plan when you meet the monthly activity goal, and up to 3.0% on paid plans.

Read our checklist on how to open a business bank account before you move anything.

What to prioritize by business type

The right account depends on how money actually moves through your business. Six common shapes.

Freelancers and solo consultants

You run few transactions and rarely touch cash. Your account should cost $0. Found is built for this, with bookkeeping and tax tools included. Mercury suits you if you keep banking and books apart. Expect to pay nothing.

Ecommerce businesses

Payouts from processors arrive constantly. Transaction caps are your enemy. Bluevine does not cap transactions and Mercury does not either. Watch the 1% Mercury conversion fee if you settle in another currency.

Brick and mortar retail

Cash is your biggest fee risk. Chase includes $5,000 of in-branch cash a cycle. Wells Fargo Navigate includes $20,000 for $25 a month. Pair one of them with a free account for everything that is not cash.

Restaurants and food service

You have the retail cash problem plus daily card settlements. Wells Fargo Navigate fits both, with 250 transactions and $20,000 in free cash deposits. Both problems, one account. The $25 fee disappears at a $10,000 balance.

Professional services

Wires are your cost driver, not transactions. Ten domestic wires a month costs nothing at Mercury, $80 at Relay Starter, $150 at Found and up to $450 at Novo. Same monthly fee, wildly different bill. Check your state bar rules first, some require client trust accounts at a chartered bank.

Multiple entities or Profit First budgeting

If you split income across buckets, the cost that bites is per account, not per month. That changes the shortlist. Relay gives you 20 checking accounts on its free plan and 50 on Scale, and Found includes 10 sub-accounts it calls Pockets. Wells Fargo Optimize covers five linked accounts for $75 a month and charges $30 for each one after that, so matching Relay's twenty accounts would mean fifteen extra at $30 each, about $6,300 a year against $0.

For the wider setup picture, see our business setup guide.