Chase Ink Business Preferred Review

What Is Chase Ink Business Preferred?

Chase Ink Business Preferred is Chase’s flagship business credit card and one of the best business credit cards around, offering 3 points per dollar spent on several common business purchase categories, a lucrative welcome offer, and a 25% point value bonus when you redeem your points for travel.

With an overall score of 4.1/5, Ink Business Preferred isn’t our highest-rated business credit card, but it’s a great fit for businesses that spend up to $150K annually on travel, shipping, cable/internet/phone services, and/or online advertising (the card’s 3x points categories). However, the card sports a $95 annual fee, so you’ll want to ensure you’ll be earning enough rewards to offset the annual cost.

Chase Ink Business Preferred: Quick Facts

Rewards & Perks

The Ink Business Preferred card has a rewards scheme designed for small business use. While Chase’s Ink Business Cash card offers a higher maximum rewards tier (5% cash back) than Ink Business Preferred, this card’s rewards setup will suit a wide array of businesses. Accordingly, Ink Business Preferred gets a 4.5/5 score in this category.

Though the top rewards tier has a spending cap you’ll need to keep in mind, it’s a relatively high $150K/year cap — much higher than the Ink Business Cash’s spending cap on its top rewards tier ($25K/year).

Purchases outside the top earning categories pick up points at a fairly pedestrian rate, however.

A Welcome Offer Worth $1,000 ($1,250 When Redeemed For Travel)

The Ink Preferred’s welcome bonus provides outstanding value to businesses that meet the spending threshold. You’ll collect 100,000 bonus points should you spend $8,000 on purchases within three months of opening your account. These points will be deposited into your account within six to eight weeks.

This bonus is equivalent to $1,000 if redeemed for cash back. Since points redeemed through Chase’s travel portal get a 25% value boost, your bonus will be worth $1,250 if redeemed for travel.

3x Points For Select Categories

You’ll receive triple points for several select purchase categories whenever you whip out your Ink Business Preferred card. Chase has designated these categories as:

• Travel
• Shipping purchases
• Internet, phone, and cable services
• Advertising purchases with social media and search engines

However, there is a catch to these bonus categories: You’ll only net the 3x point rate on the first $150,000 spent in combined purchases each account anniversary year. After you hit the $150,000 threshold, purchases made in these categories will score the standard 1 point per dollar.

1 Point Per $1 On Everything Else

Everything outside of the bonus categories snags 1 point per dollar spent. As mentioned above, the bonus categories are dropped down to the same 1-point rate once you spend $150,000 combined in those categories each account anniversary year.

Redeeming Rewards

When you redeem points through the Chase Ultimate Rewards online portal for travel, they’ll be worth 25% more than other redemption methods. For example, 25,000 points will be worth $312.50 instead of $250, and 50,000 points will stretch to $625 instead of $500.

Additionally, you can redeem your points for cash back in the form of a statement credit or deposited into an eligible US bank account. You can also redeem points for Apple purchases through Chase Ultimate Rewards, gift cards from over 150 brands, and/or transfer your points on a 1:1 basis to 13 different airline and hotel travel partner programs.

Rates & Fees

Ink Business Preferred includes a few fees worth keeping an eye on. While the annual fee is certainly a downer, this card could be effective when wielded by a frequent international traveler — there is no foreign transaction fee.

However, considering the card’s annual fee and its lack of an introductory 0% APR, Ink Business Preferred earns just a 3.4/5 rating in this category.

An Average APR

At the time of writing, Chase Ink Business Preferred’s APR sits at 21.24% – 26.24% (variable). Considering the precipitous rise in average credit card APRs over the last few years, the lower-end number is competitive, while the upper-end is on the higher end of average when compared to other business credit cards.

Of course, if you pay off your balance in full each month, the APR won’t be relevant to you.

Unfortunately, there is no intro 0% APR period.

A $95 Annual Fee

The Ink Business Preferred’s biggest drawback is its annual fee. Chase charges card members $95 per year to use the card. While $95 isn’t a massively high number for a card offering lucrative spending rewards, it’s still something you have to hand over annually.

You’ll also want to factor the annual fee into calculating how much you might earn with the card. Assuming a) you only spend in the bonus points categories and b) you redeem all those points earned for travel, you’ll need to spend at least $2,533 to offset the annual fee ($95 annual fee / 3 points per dollar × 1.25 travel redemption = $2,533).

Of course, if you spend outside the bonus categories or redeem your points for something other than travel, your actual target spending point will be higher.

No Foreign Transaction Fee

While you will have the $95 annual fee, there’s no foreign transaction fee to factor in when traveling. Coupled with the other reward perks for travelers, the lack of a foreign transaction fee makes Ink Business Preferred an appealing option for frequent fliers.

Other Fees

As with most other credit cards, there are a few additional fees to consider. Balance transfers charge either $5 or 5% of each transfer (whichever is higher), while cash advances will cost an extra $15 or 5% of each transaction (whichever is higher). Besides those fees, late or returned payments will cost the industry standard $40.

Chase Ink Business Preferred Features

With Chase being one of the bigger players in the credit card scene, it’s only natural that the Ink Business Preferred card comes with a strong arsenal of benefits. Accordingly, the card earns a perfect 5/5 Features score.

Eligibility Requirements

We generally recommend that business applicants have good to excellent credit before applying for Ink Business Preferred. That means you’ll want to have a credit score of at least 640 before filling out the application.

This is just a recommendation, however — Chase doesn’t market a minimum credit score for this card.

Chase Ink Business Preferred Customer Service

Chase offers a full range of support options for all its business credit card customers.

With 24/7 direct customer support and numerous FAQs, Chase’s business credit card customer service is quite robust, earning it a strong 4.5/5 category rating.

Chase Ink Business Preferred Reviews

Chase’s line of Ink Business credit cards are all well-reviewed and highly regarded in the industry. Card users at WalletHub give Ink Business Preferred an average score of 3.7/5 (based on 99 reviews) while users at Credit Karma give the card an average score of 3.5/5 (out of 12 reviews).

These scores don’t sound spectacular, but in reality, they’re quite good relative to the scores of competing business credit cards.

With a high top points-earning rate, a 25% value bonus when you redeem your points for travel, and a laundry list of premium features and benefits, the card offers great value, despite the annual fee.

How Does Chase Ink Business Preferred Compare To The Alternatives?

Chase Ink Business Preferred is a strong business credit card option, but let’s consider when it might make sense to choose (or mix and match with) another business credit card, starting with two other Ink Business cards.

Final Verdict: Is Chase Ink Business Preferred Right For You?

There are plenty of reasons to like Chase’s Ink Business Preferred Card: Its bonus categories should suit a wide range of small businesses. However, there is a $95 annual fee to keep in mind — if you don’t plan to spend enough on the card to offset the fee, look for a different card, like one of the alternatives discussed above.

The biggest spenders may want to look elsewhere, too. Because the card caps the 3x points categories at $150,000 spent per year, if you plan to put hundreds of thousands of dollars on your card, a flat-rate credit card with no spending cap may be the way to go.

Furthermore, large corporations and investor-powered tech startups may want to select from the best corporate credit cards instead.

You might want to apply if…

• You frequently spend in the card’s bonus categories (travel, shipping, internet/phone/cable, and online advertising)
• You don’t mind the $95 annual fee or plan to spend enough to offset it with rewards
• You travel a lot and can take advantage of Chase’s 25% travel redemption bonus and 1:1 point transfer perks

You might want to look for a different card if…

• You don’t spend enough in the card’s bonus categories to offset the annual fee
• You would rather not pay the $95 annual fee
• You plan to spend well over $150,000 annually on the card and would benefit from a flat-rate card with no spending cap

The editorial content on this page is not provided by the companies mentioned and has not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone.

Credit Card Review Methodology

We spend hours researching and evaluating each credit card that we review at Merchant Maverick, placing special emphasis on key characteristics to generate our ratings.

When rating credit cards and credit card issuers, we use an 18-point rubric that looks at rewards and perks, rates and fees, features, eligibility requirements, customer service, and user reviews. We weigh each section differently to calculate the total star rating.

• Rewards & Perks: 40% of the total star rating
• Rates & Fees: 30% of the total star rating
• Features: 15% of the total star rating
• Eligibility Requirements: 5% of the total star rating
• Customer Service: 5% of the total star rating
• User Reviews: 5% of the total star rating

Each section is further broken down into granular, weighted subsections, in which we examine specific attributes like APR, introductory offers, cash back and travel rewards, credit score requirements and disclosures, foreign transaction fees, and the availability of employee cards.

Read more about how we rate business credit cards.