The best business credit cards in 2023 compared—and what they're missing

For growing businesses, access to credit is a key component of unlocking growth. 

But with so many options and radically different terms from card to card, it can be hard to figure out which business credit card option might be right for you. Do you want cash back or perks? Intro offers or low interest rates? The list of considerations goes on.

And if you’re new to the business scene, you might have some fundamental questions around building business credit, qualifying for credit, and whether or not company cards affect personal credit scores. 

To help both seasoned business owners better understand their card options and first-time founders understand the lay of the land, we’ve put together this guide to business credit cards.

First up, we’ll dive into 5 popular business credit card options and lay out their perks, benefits, features, and more.  

If you're looking for a new credit card, keep this in mind: the most well-known business credit cards don’t always have your best interests at heart. They promise complex rewards programs, often in exchange for annual fees, and incentivize higher business spending because every dollar you carry on your balance means more profit for them. While the “free” rewards may seem great, many people end up spending more on fees than they receive in points or cashback.

Thankfully, more options—like Ramp—have emerged over the past few years. There are now three major types of corporate cards that businesses can choose from:

• Legacy credit cards, which operate like high-powered versions of consumer credit cards
• Startup charge cards, which can give founders and CEOs higher limits without a personal guarantee
• Spend management cards, which come with software to help you take control of your company’s spending

Moving away from the traditional credit card model means innovative approaches to credit that are a better fit for most companies. Before starting on any credit card applications, consider whether the legacy or startup card you’re looking at is made to help your business save time and money. It’s likely your company’s needs are better met by a spend management card.

Popular corporate cards for 2023: a head-to-head comparison

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Let's break down these cards in detail.

Legacy business cards expect big spend but offer few useful perks

With only each other for competition, big lenders like American Express, Capital One, and Chase have settled into a comfortable lack of innovation. While they might tout their cards’ individual reward structures, all of these cards have an identical goal: to entice you into spending more with the promise of perks you might never redeem. They offer little to help you plan and control your spending, despite this being a necessity for any successful business.

Chase Ink Business Cash®: Sometimes, the rewards just don’t add up

The Chase Ink Business Cash is the perfect example of how a business rewards credit card program can turn into spend more, get less. Though you can earn up to 5% cashback on some purchases, how much do you really need from Staples? Unless your business purchases are heavily weighted toward office supplies or restaurants, you’ll largely be in the 1% cashback tier. You’d be better off with a card that offers a higher base percentage of cashback with no special bonuses.

• Introductory APR: 0% for the first year (does not apply to balance transfers)
• APR: 17.74%-23.74% variable
• Sign-up bonus: Spend $6,000 in the first three months and get $900 bonus cash back
  

Rewards: 1% on all purchases, with additional bonuses for qualifying purchases in certain spending categories:

• 5% on eligible purchases made at office supply stores or internet, cable, and phone bills (capped at $25,000 each account anniversary year)
• 2% on eligible purchases made at gas stations and restaurants (capped at $25,000 each account anniversary year)

Rewards points can be transferred to other Chase cards, redeemed as cashback, or used for purchases through Chase Ultimate Rewards®.

Fees:

• Foreign transaction fees: 3%
• Cash advance: Greater of 5% or $15
• Balance transfer: Greater of 5% or $15
• Late payment: $40
• Returned payment: $40

Spend control capabilities: Chase only offers basic spend controls. The cardholder can track employee spend online or on monthly statements, set a limit for each employee, and receive account alerts.

Other features: Chase also offers very little to help your business function day-to-day. Its biggest standout here is the Chase Ink mobile app, through which you can collect and file receipts so your accountants don’t have to waste time tracking them down later.

American Express Blue Business® Plus: Perks for you...or for your card issuer?

American Express brags its Expanded Buying Power feature helps businesses by allowing flexible spending above their credit limit. However, exceeding your credit limit may mean carrying a significant balance on your card. The associated interest payments and decrease in credit score won’t be good for your company.

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• Introductory APR: 0% for 12 months ‍
• APR: 17.74%-25.74% variable‍
• Rewards: 1-2%
• Welcome offer: Spend $3,000 in the 3 months of card membership and get $250 statement credit
• Rewards: 2x points on the first $50,000 spent each calendar year, then 1x thereafter‍

Fees:

• Foreign transaction fees: 2.7%
• Balance transfer: Greater of 3% or $5
• Late payment: up to $39
• Returned payment: up to $39

Spend control capabilities: The American Express card helps share the burden by introducing minor automation and allowing non-owners to help.

• Account manager role allows someone from your finance team to oversee cards
• Set a spending limit for each employee (minimum $200) and pre-approve spending in 9 categories
• Receive account alerts

However, your team still has to manually track spending and deal with unapproved purchases.

Other features: The free basic bill.com account (for one user) is a hint of what a good card partner program could offer, but your company may not need this perk. Likewise, your American Express card integrates with QuickBooks to save your team the hassle of categorizing purchases—unless you don’t use QuickBooks.

Capital One Spark 1.5% Cash Select: Could offer smart banking…in a few years

Capital One offers the Eno smart assistant, which automates basic tasks to help with spend control. There’s potential here, but Eno is a shadow of what newer cards offer. Accordingly, it’s more of a fun perk than a useful core feature.‍‍

• APR: 17.49%-23.49% variable (for the “Excellent Credit” card; there’s an almost identical “Good Credit” card with a higher variable APR range.)‍‍
• Welcome bonus offer: Spend $4,500 in the first 3 months after account opening and get $500 bonus cash back
  

Rewards: 1.5% cash back rewards on everything. You can set your points to auto-redeem as cash back, apply them to previous purchases, or use them for gift cards, business travel credit card rewards such as airline miles, and other purchases.

Fees:

• Cash advance: Greater of 3% or $10
• Late payment: up to $39

Spend control capabilities: The Capital One Spark card has the best spend control policies of any legacy card thanks to Eno. Its alert-based system can tell you about:

• Upcoming recurring expenses, the end of free trials, and more
• Identical charges or overly large tips
• Higher than normal in-app purchases
• Increases in recurring charges

However, alerts mean you’ll still be doing a lot of the work to fix problems on your own. To help with that, Capital One also offers an Account Manager Role, a personalized spend tracker for each card, and the ability to modify spend limits at any point in the billing cycle.

Other features: Capital One also seems to understand business needs better than its competitors: It offers year-end spending summaries for multiple popular accounting programs, including Quickbooks, Excel, and Quicken. The Capital One Spring program offers discounts on other common business services—though any small business can register for these perks, no card necessary.

Startup charge cards offer higher limits but lack modern controls

The credit card landscape changed with the introduction of the startup charge cards. So far, it’s a small market segment, but one that’s poised to grow. These make ideal small business credit cards for new businesses and startups for two big reasons. First, they come with higher limits than a legacy credit card offers; second, you don’t need a personal guarantee or credit check to back them up.

However, most startup cards are still trying to compete on the terms set by legacy credit cards, comparing rewards and credit limits instead of offering useful features. You may get a higher limit, but you won’t receive tools to help you spend that money wisely.

Spend management cards incentivize savings with automation and in-depth data

A spend management card marries the charge card model popularized by startup cards with tools that help you see where your money is going. These cards, like startup cards, aren’t made to finance your debt. The difference is that spend and expense management cards proactively give you tools to help you avoid debt by reducing unnecessary spending. Their data-driven approach gives you the information you need to make good spending decisions rather than leaving you to be driven by how credit card rewards work.

Ramp: Simplify spending and spend management at the same time

Ramp is a Visa® charge card with fully integrated finance automation software that leverages AI to analyze where your money is going and how you can cut down on unnecessary spending. Legacy cards can’t compare to its capabilities, and it outperforms many newer startup corporate card options.

• Introductory APR: N/A‍
• APR: N/A‍
• Welcome offer: $250 upon approval, no minimum spend required‍
• Rewards: 1.5% cashback on everything
• Fees: None, ever.

Spend control capabilities: Our main value proposition is the spend control features that you can implement once you distribute employee cards, so covering them all would be an article of its own. Some of its most useful capabilities include:

• A real-time expense dashboard that allows advanced sorting and filtering, so you can make sense of your company’s spend
• Digitized expense policies that are enforced by the software, not by your team
• Custom spend workflows that allow you to automate a multi-level approvals process
• Card limits based on dollar amount, business category, or vendor/merchant
• Card templates for common business expenses (monthly team lunch, wellness benefit)
• Savings insights to help you find and cut unnecessary spend

Other features: Because our software does so much financial heavy lifting, it can help your team automate expense reporting, reimbursements, and budget reconciliation. Its AI-powered invoice processing makes it easy to pay vendors via card, check, or ACH. Ramp also integrates with over 100 common applications, ranging from accounting software like QuickBooks, Xero, and Sage to HRIS platforms like Justworks and Rippling.

See how Ramp can help you scale your business.