May 15, 2025

How to choose a business credit card for your therapy practice

Running a therapy practice means balancing client care with daily finances. Business credit cards separate personal and professional expenses while earning rewards on everything from EHR subscriptions to office rent.

A typical solo practice could pay $2,000–$3,000 a month in rent, $199 a month for their electronic health record (EHR) software subscription, and $600 a year for malpractice insurance. A rewards card can help reduce those costs.

Why your therapy practice needs a dedicated business credit card

Therapy clinics juggle a unique mix of expenses, including HIPAA-compliant software, fees for professional licenses, and rent payments to maintain a calm, client-friendly space. A business credit card handles these expenses while offering specific advantages for healthcare practices:

  • Expense separation and credit building: You make purchases in your practice's name rather than your own, building business credit with each on-time payment. This separation simplifies tax preparation and helps secure better rates on future business loans or lines of credit.
  • Cash flow management: 0% intro APR offers can help bridge the gap between insurance reimbursements and immediate expenses like rent or software subscriptions. You can cover necessary costs without dipping into savings or paying interest for several months.
  • Clean bookkeeping: If your card integrates with your accounting software, you can automatically sync every transaction, allowing you to pull exports that map to EHR fees, client-care supplies, or professional dues. Clear categorization reduces manual work and shortens tax-prep time.
  • Rewards that match practice spending: Many business cards offer bonus points or cashback on office supplies, telecom, and SaaS subscriptions—categories therapists use each month. Accumulated rewards offset conference travel, new therapy furniture, or malpractice premiums, turning routine expenses into growth capital.
  • Operational efficiency: Features like employee spend limits, virtual cards for different budgets, and direct integrations with accounting platforms make month-end bookkeeping faster than sorting through personal statements.
tip

Set up automatic transaction categorization in your accounting software to map credit card purchases to specific expense categories like "EHR Software" or "Continuing Education." This saves hours during tax season and provides clearer insight into where your practice's money goes.

Common expenses therapy practices put on business credit cards

Knowing your typical expense breakdown helps you choose cards with the best rewards categories and estimate your monthly cashback potential. You can review your last bank statements to identify which categories represent your biggest spending, then match those to cards with bonus rewards in those areas.

Expense Category

Examples

Typical Monthly Cost

Technology & Software

EHR systems (SimplePractice, TherapyNotes), telehealth platforms (Doxy.me), billing software, website hosting

$200–$500

Office & Rent

Office rent, utilities, phone and internet es, cleaning services, security systems

$2,000–$4,000

Professional Development

Continuing education courses, conference fees, professional memberships (APA, state licensing boards), supervision costs

$100–$300

Insurance & Legal

Malpractice insurance, general liability, legal consultations, compliance services

$150–$200

Supplies & Equipment

Therapy materials, office supplies, furniture, noise machines, air purifiers, sanitization supplies

$100–$300

Marketing & Client Services

Website maintenance, online advertising, client intake forms, waiting room amenities

$50–$200

These cost ranges serve as a reference point, but actual expenses will vary significantly based on your geographic region, practice size, specialization, and local market conditions. You can use these estimates as a starting point for evaluating which credit card rewards categories align with your practice's spending patterns.

Best business credit cards for therapy practices

The best business credit cards for therapy practices offer rewards on common expenses like software subscriptions, office rent, and professional development, while providing expense management tools to streamline your finances.

Card

Annual fee

Key benefits

Credit score needed

Ramp Business Credit Card

$0

Cashback on purchases, built-in expense management

No personal credit check

Chase Ink Business Cash

$0

Cashback, 5% rotating bonus categories

Good credit (670+)

Amex Blue Business Cash Card

$0

Higher cashback rate on up to $50k annually

Good credit (670+)

Capital One Spark Cash Plus

$150

Flat cashback rate on all purchases

Excellent (720+)

BILL Divvy Corporate Card

$0

Built-in budgeting, spending controls

Soft pull (no impact); based on business cash flow

Ramp Business Credit Card

The Ramp Business Credit Card offers cashback on purchases with no annual fee or foreign transaction fees. The card includes built-in expense management software that automatically categorizes transactions and syncs with popular accounting platforms like QuickBooks Online. You can create unlimited virtual cards with customizable spending limits based on employee, department, expense category, or vendor.

Ramp cardholders get access to more than $350,000 in partner rewards, perks, and discounts on common business expenses like software and shipping. Real-time notifications and spending controls help track expenses as they occur, giving you real-time visibility into every transaction.

Chase Ink Business Cash Credit Card

Offers a $750 signup bonus after spending $6,000 in the first 3 months and earns 1% cashback on all purchases with no annual fee. You get 5% cashback on the first $25,000 spent annually in rotating bonus categories like office supplies or internet services, though these categories change quarterly and may not always line up with therapy practice expenses.

Additional employee credit cards are free, making it simple to give staff members spending access without extra costs.

American Express Blue Business Cash Card

Earns 2% cashback on the first $50,000 in annual purchases, then drops to 1% thereafter. The card has no annual fee and provides automatic statement credit redemption, eliminating the need to manually redeem rewards.

The 2% rate works well for smaller practices, but larger operations may hit the $50,000 threshold and see reduced earning potential. No foreign transaction fees apply if you attend international conferences or purchase software from overseas vendors.

Capital One Spark Cash Plus

Features unlimited 2% cashback on all purchases with a $150 annual fee and offers a $2,000 welcome bonus after spending $30,000 in 3 months. The annual fee gets waived if you spend $150,000 or more in a year, making it cost-effective for high-volume practices.

The Spark Cash Plus operates as a charge card, requiring full balance payments each month with no option to carry debt. This structure eliminates interest charges but requires consistent cash flow to meet monthly payment deadlines.

BILL Divvy Corporate Card

Features built-in budgeting and spending controls with 1% base cashback. You can set specific budgets for different expense categories and get real-time notifications when limits are reached.

Higher cashback rates (up to 7%) are available but require paying off the balance weekly rather than monthly, which may complicate cash flow management for practices waiting on insurance reimbursements.

How to choose the right card for your therapy practice

Your therapy practice's spending patterns, cash flow timing, and operational needs will determine which business credit card delivers the most value.

Match rewards to your spending patterns

Track your expenses for 2–3 months to identify your largest spending categories. If you spend heavily on software subscriptions and office supplies, prioritize cards with bonus rewards in those categories. For consistent spend across all categories, flat-rate cards often provide better value.

Instead of choosing a card with rotating 5% categories that might include gas stations (irrelevant for most therapy practices), select one with fixed bonuses on software subscriptions—a category you use monthly.

Evaluate total cost vs. benefits

Calculate your expected annual rewards, subtract any annual fees, and factor in features like expense management tools or partner discounts. A $150 annual fee card might save you $300 in bookkeeping time and software costs, making it worthwhile despite the fee.

For example, if you spend $3,000 monthly on a 2% cashback card, you earn $720 annually. If that card has a $150 fee, your net benefit is $570, plus any time saved on expense tracking.

Consider your cash flow

Insurance reimbursement delays make payment flexibility crucial. Look for cards with 0% intro APR periods or charge cards with extended payment terms. Align your billing cycle with when reimbursements arrive to avoid cash flow crunches.

Set your card's statement closing date for the week after you receive most insurance payments. This gives you the full grace period to pay your bill without interest.

Assess integration and expense management capabilities

Integrations with SimplePractice, QuickBooks, or Xero ensure transactions post with the right general ledger codes. Look for real-time spend limits, merchant blocks, and receipt capture so your team can pay for supplies without exceeding budgets.

Consider security and compliance

HIPAA regulations don't cover credit cards, but you should still prioritize cards with robust security features. Virtual card numbers reduce fraud risk when paying vendors online, while instant card freezing helps if a physical card gets lost or stolen. Look for cards with PCI compliance and tokenization technology, especially if you store payment information for recurring client charges.

Why healthcare businesses choose Ramp

Complex expense management shouldn't steal time from patient care. Ramp helps therapy practices and other healthcare businesses automate spending, eliminate paperwork, and get back to what matters most.

Take Surgical Affiliates Management Group, where employees actively avoided corporate cards because the manual system was too cumbersome. "Many employees avoided the corporate cards because it was easier to use personal credit cards and submit expense reports," explains Corporate Controller Kathleen Cole.

After implementing Ramp's virtual cards with built-in budgets, even the COO—who previously refused to use corporate cards—became one of their highest-volume users. The result? An average savings of 25–35 hours per on expense processes.

Or consider Align ENTA, which juggled five different QuickBooks instances and countless cards across their growing practice network. "There was no solution before Ramp," says Director of FP&A Greg Finn. "Each division had its own accounting—it was all over the place."

Ramp consolidated everything onto one platform, where practice managers control function-specific virtual cards for different expense categories. Now they save 5–15 hours monthly and have real-time visibility into every dollar spent.

Both organizations came to the same conclusion: Automated expense management transforms more than just bookkeeping—it transforms how teams work. Practice managers love instant receipt attachment, employees appreciate simplified reimbursements, and leadership gains fraud protection through real-time spending alerts.

For your therapy practice, this means less time sorting receipts for software subscriptions and continuing education and more time supporting clients through their healing journey.

Discover Ramp's corporate card for modern finance

Ramp corporate card

Start earning rewards on your practice expenses

Your therapy practice deserves financial tools that work as hard as you do. Business credit cards provide cashback on every purchase, help separate business and personal expenses, and offer expense management features that sync with your accounting software.

Choose a card that matches your spending patterns, offers the integrations you need, and provides enough flexibility for your cash flow timing. With the right business credit card, you turn routine practice expenses into rewards that support your practice's growth.

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Ken BoydAccounting and finance expert
Ken Boyd is a former CPA, accounting professor, writer, and editor. He has written four books on accounting topics, including The CPA Exam for Dummies. Ken has filmed video content on accounting topics for LinkedIn Learning, O’Reilly Media, Dummies.com, and creativeLIVE. He has written for Investopedia, QuickBooks, and a number of other publications. Boyd has written test questions for the Auditing test of the CPA exam, and spent three years on the Audit staff of KPMG.
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