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Ask HN: What credit card does your US startup use?

136 points by wenbin ↗ HN
More context:

- very small team (< 5 people)

- mostly used for online services (e.g., servers, SaaS, api ...)

- rarely travel

- in San Francisco

110 comments

[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 174 ms ] thread
greenwalls
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...).
wenbin
Good advice! Single source to keep track of expenses :)
techsupporter
The big problem with that is that debit cards have much slower fraud protections than credit cards (depending on issuer, of course).

If fraud hits your debit card, your cash account is empty and things like rent may be getting returned while you deal with it. With a credit card, that's the credit card company's money so they move faster.

ams6110
You probably don't keep all your cash in one account?
strictnein
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.

sedachv
Capital One Spark Business Visa currently has 2% unlimited cash back and a $59 annual fee. When I signed up it was 1.5% cash back, no annual fee, and no minimum cash back rewards redemption amount.
nommm-nommm
There's two (really 3) versions - the spark cash (2% CB, $59 AF) and the spark cash select (1.5% CB, no AF)

The third version is spark classic - 1% CB, no AF. I guess that's the version you get if your credit isn't good enough.

strictnein
Interesting. The Plum has a $199 fee after the first year. The one advantage for it would still be the ability to defer interest and payments for a month, but the Spark card may be a better option now, overall.
sedachv
American Express SimplyCash Business Platinum has the standard one statement month-long interest deferral, 3% cash back on telecom bills and 3% cash back in a category you choose (shipping expenses, advertising, travel, some other ones I forget), no annual fee, and no minimum redemption amount. If you get both the SimplyCash card and the Spark card you can use each accordingly to maximize the cash back percentage, and get all the cash back accrued as statement credits every month. It is a small improvement to cash flow that adds up.
nodesocket
+1 on Capital One Spark. 2% back on all transactions with no limit and $500 bonus when you spend $4,500 within first three months.
planteen
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!
arielm
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 :)
Androider
I would suggest to get the second business card (not for every employee, but for paying your critical service bills) from a different provider altogether, since the goal is to make sure the backup works when the primary one doesn't for whatever reason. So choose for example your bank's card as primary, with a corporate Amex as backup.
adrr
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.
8ytecoder
That was the case with my discover too
koolba
Not only that. If you have fraud alert, they'll ship you a new card overnight. From a customer perspective Amex is amazing.
parent5446
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.
caseysoftware
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.

yeukhon
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.

caseysoftware
But if you make them stick to the corp card that means everyone has the # and you lose control and insight. That's dangerous at any stage but even worse when you're early stage and every dollar feels like $20.

+1 to a vendors@ or similar email account.

eli
You can give everyone a separate card/number.
masukomi
so, you're arguing that it is acceptable to have the core services your company relies on be tied to a person who could quit or be fired at any time?!
some1else
I'm sure they will put in lots of overtime. Maybe fire them while they're asleep under the desk, and their card is out on the table.
pbreit
Give everyone a card and -1 to vendors@ (I can't stand that and don't see any benefit).
yeukhon
This is where you need to have an account payable setup. Your finance team/person should be responsible for the invoice. If this is a tiny small startup, the CEO should be the one signing up.
LeifCarrotson
Rather than a vendors@ email address for vendors, alias their old.employee@ address to someone else still with the company in a similar role (their replacement, if they have one).

That way you ​won't miss sales queries, service notifications, or other stuff they used their email for. Update the accounts as necessary and it slows to a trickle quickly.

ams6110
That's assuming they didn't use their personal email account, which is probably likely if they were using a personal credit card.
pbreit
No, it isn't. And OP indicated "work email" and was advising use of vendor@ email.
pbreit
How do you not have access to the departed employee's email account? I have never seen that as an actual issue.
ams6110
If they used a personal credit card, maybe they used personal email as well?

There are a lot of people at my work who use their personal gmail for everything.

[dead] kalmari
maybe but dont count on it. compartmentalization is a thing as well as temp and prepaid credit services.
pbreit
Well, that's not smart. Employees should use company email addresses for company work.

OP stated "work email" and advised use of vendor@ email which is what I was objecting to. Everywhere I've been, using vendor@ emails has been a pain and employee emails a non-issue.

8ytecoder
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.
pbreit
Why? I can't stand that and can't fathom the purpose.
toyg
Uh, for the same reasons parent mentioned: if the guy owning the account leaves (or steps under a bus), you're screwed.
pbreit
I have never seen that be an issue. Ever.

Add: It seems to me an extremely remote possibility and trivially resolved.

parent5446
Clearly others have. I guess you can consider yourself lucky. It's a matter of mitigating risk.
scrollaway
"I have never had a car accident, therefore it's fine for me to drive like a maniac."
primitivesuave
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.

caseysoftware
In an ideal world, I fully agree with this.

In the short-term, get shit done world, sometimes things are messier and the edges are rougher and you need to allow for some of that.

My 3 month rule is good enough to evaluate, try it out, play with some ideas, get some feedback, and then scale or kill. If you kill it, expense it and you're done. If you scale it (aka operationalize it), move it to the corp account.

At Twilio, I saw this from both sides.. both as a purchaser and as an evangelist getting people to use our API.

primitivesuave
I think you have a valid point and in the grand scheme of things, SaaS accounting is hardly consequential to a company's success.

But even in reality I would be worried about a management team that doesn't pay attention to control of a company's technical infrastructure. Having business expenses fall neatly under one bank account is not a complicated responsibility and doesn't get in the way of a "get shit done" attitude.

dbg31415
> 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.

Totally agree. No reason to ever put something on an employee's personal card... way too many things could go wrong in that situation. Some examples I've seen over the years...

* Employee doesn't document the service... so like all of a sudden your Zapier / IFTTT / Unito / etc. account that was responsible for forwarding various emails to the right people just stops working because an employee left the company. You had no idea how they set it up, and without them you're stuck trying to re-build what they had done. You're boned if you don't make time to document how services work, and audit how they are paid for.

* Employee changes CC (less of an issue now since many recurring charges get updates to CC numbers) and doesn't realize they forgot to update the service... then a mission critical service fails. This happened to one of my clients back when Costco changed from Amex to Visa... the auto-update didn't work across card carriers, and the employee had all the emails from that service provider going into his spam folder... and presto our project management software stopped working for a day. A stitch in time saves nine... Make time to use the company card.

* Employee with the payment card can often call customer support and gain owner-level privileges, even assuming they didn't start with them. If others on the team don't realize this... it can cause drama. Saw this happen a few times with Slack accounts at various companies. One employee started a company Slack... to try it out... ended up getting the free credits they used to (maybe still do) offer, upgrading to paid account... and then being a super admin. We had to go to the employee and get them to transfer account ownership to a company official so they couldn't just change the CEO's email to their own, reset the password, and get access to conversations they shouldn't have access to. Again... this all takes A LOT more time than just using the company card.

* Employee leaves the company, loses access to email address, can't cancel the account that has the CC... gets stuck with a huge bill they can't cancel without canceling their CC. Was an easy fix, but just an awkward situation -- nobody had been using the service since the employee left, and since his card was on auto-pay he didn't notice the $150 / month charge for over a year. At that point his email address was long gone, we had to re-create it, reset the password, get customer support to cancel the account... total waste of a day for someone. We reimbursed the employee, but we had no way of getting a refund from the service provider.

* Employee maxes out credit. Put AWS on your personal CC... have a swing month... boom you max out the credit card the employee had... who knows what other debt he was carrying, or what his limit was... or what the fraud triggers are on some no-name credit union card... it's a huge risk to leave this sort of thing up to your employee... some services will give you notice (again, that requires you having the emails go to the right people), but some will just cut you off. Huge risk to your company introducing this many unknowns.

Final reason... because of perks an employee gets for using their personal card. This simply isn't fair to other employees... these rewards are a form of compensation... you don't want to have a policy that allows people benefits for not using the company card as that's a conflict of interest. Having a policy that requires people to get the service approved, documented, and on the company card will always save you time. "Slow is smooth and smooth is fast..." etc. Even for startups, letting people u...

imjustsaying
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.

caseysoftware
It's not about being broke. It's about:

"I need this tool to solve this problem right now. I can either go bug someone for the credit card and get off track or pull out my own card, get onto putting out the next fire, and settle the cash later."

And as I noted, it's not a long term thing.. it's to allow experimentation in the moment.

spullara
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.
albertut
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.
dguo
Ditto on this one. https://creditcards.chase.com/a1/olainkcash/th

We have the no annual fee version (Business Cash rather than Business Preferred).

jenamety
interestingly they list "Earn 2% cash back on the first $25,000 spent in combined purchases each account anniversary year*"

do you only get points once a year? 25k doesnt seem that high for 2% back limit especially for a business?

joshfraser
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.
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SeoxyS
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.

austenallred
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.
brentm
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.
nommm-nommm
You forgot to mention that $550 annual fee.
inputcoffee
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.

modoc
Amex Business Platinum. Great benefits make it worth the cost 10x over.
Finbarr
Chase Ink Preferred. Has a nice signup bonus and you get 3% back on some great categories for the first $150k spend.
fru2013
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)
ASinclair
> only redeemable on Amazon though

The Chase card? You can redeem the points as statement credit.

fru2013
I was unaware of that- thanks for the info. I should also add that 5% is only for Prime members. Without a Prime subscription, you will only recieve 3%
Androider
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.

imroot
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).
tommynicholas
SVB
BallinBige
for banking or credit?
tommynicholas
Excellent for both. C1 may have better rewards though I'm not sure, love them for both banking and credit at the moment.
kassovic
SVB is the worst! Go Capital One or AMEX
gumby
Why? I've used them for over 25 years for company accounts. They bank most of the VCs as well. They understand startups, while all the other banks around here are used to big businesses and retail.
tommynicholas
Curious: were you a direct SVB client? I can recommend them enough, I basically can't imagine a better banking experience unless someone made the tech side of it better. I have heard recently of a lot of folks on HN who are somewhat unhappy with SVB because they're clients through Atlas and those accounts are apparently a bit clunkier and less worked through. Is that the case?
jliptzin
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.
jenamety
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)

pickettd
The CapOne 2% business card is called Spark Cash and doesn't have the redemption restrictions that you're describing (I think you may be thinking of their Venture card or another personal travel card). The only two downsides to the Spark card (in comparison to the Fidelity cashback card or Citi double cash) are that applying for it likely dings you in all 3 major credit reports (as opposed to just one like most cards) and also that it carries a $59 annual fee after the 1st year.
ruok0101
My startup has a spark card and being able to get the amazon gift cards as the 2% bonus was great, but unfortunately for some reason amazon gift cards are no longer available as one of the gift card options. Had to start getting home depot and target cards instead :/.
larrysalibra
If you're considering personal cards, USAA has 2.5% cash back on everything if you have a bank account + $1000/month direct deposit with them. http://usaa.com/limitless (limited to certain states)
mrep
You can only do that if you qualify for USAA though which means you need to be:

Active, retired and honorably separated officers and enlisted personnel of the U.S. military.

Officer candidates in commissioning programs (Academy, ROTC, OCS/OTS).

Adult children of USAA members who have or had a USAA auto or property insurance policy.1

Widows and widowers of USAA members who have or had a USAA auto or property insurance policy.

nommm-nommm
>I have yet to see anyone beat the 2% back other than bonus signons

USAA is currently market testing a 2.5% CB card in some states - http://www.doctorofcredit.com/usaa-limitless-credit-card-rev...

Personal, non-business card, military and family only.

jenamety
thanks for the link! great site i'll have to chekc it out further.

http://www.doctorofcredit.com/usaa-limitless-credit-card-rev...

from that doctorofcredit.com URL:

"This card would be your best option for non-category spend (apart from the Discover it Miles, that offers 3% cash back for the first year). Obviously this is a loss leader for USAA, but they would be trying to make that money back on the checking account that requires the $1,000 direct deposit. Most other financial institutions have used bank account bonuses instead, but Fidelity also loses money on their 2% card but still come out ahead as cardholders have larger Fidelity deposits than non-cardholders. I suspect USAA will need to add some limits to this card to make it sustainable, but the limited membership might make this unnecessary."

nommm-nommm
Doctor of Credit is the only worthwhile credit card/bank account/money saving blog to follow. The rest of them collect commission from referrals and it shows from their content, for example advertising a small sign up bonus for the AMEX Platinum when there was a much larger bonus available and pimping Chase cards hard. The doctor has a strict no referral policy to stay neutral and provide the best content.

The Limitless card is pretty much a market test at this point and not an established product.

chromaton
The other easily accessible 2% cash card is the Citi Double Cash.
throwway123312
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 :)
cmalpeli
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"

chromaton
Chase Ink Business Cash gives 5% back on: - office supply stores - cellular phone, landline, internet, and cable TV services
petercooper
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.
kabuay
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
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