Mercury IO Business Credit Card Review

Pros

• Simple, flat-rate rewards scheme
• Partner discounts & offers
• Fee-free corporate card
• All-in-one platform for banking, accounting, and expense management

Cons

• High cash reserve requirements

What Is The Mercury IO Business Credit Card?

Mercury IO is a corporate credit card offered by the financial technology company, Mercury. (The IO Card is issued by Patriot Bank, Member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Mastercard.) Startups and businesses with a Mercury account may be eligible to receive this card.

Mercury IO is a fee-free corporate card. Unlimited physical and virtual cards can be issued to employees, allowing you to easily track expenses, set spend controls, and earn unlimited cashback rewards.

Mercury IO is ideal for startup businesses looking for an all-in-one platform that combines banking, spend management, lending, and accounting. There are no credit checks or personal guarantees required. Mercury uses your account balances to determine your spending limit, which could provide you with higher limits than you’d receive from traditional lenders.

To top it off, Mercury IO is completely free!

Mercury Corporate Card Rewards & Perks

With your Mercury IO card, you’ll receive unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase. Cash is automatically deposited into your account at the end of the month, so there’s no complex points system or complicated redemption process to worry about — just easy money right into your account.

In addition to these rewards, you can also cash in on discounts and offers through Mercury’s partners. These offers include:

• QuickBooks Online: 30% off for 6 months
• Gusto: 3 months free
• Slack: 25% off plan upgrades
• Rippling: 6 months free
• AWS: Up to $5,000 in Activate credits
• Google Cloud: Up to $200K off

Mercury Credit Card Pricing & Fees

Similar to other top corporate credit cards, Mercury IO has few fees. Because it is a charge card that is paid off daily or monthly, there is no interest. You also don’t have to worry about other common fees including annual fees, monthly fees, late fees, or fees for employee cards.

There is, however, a foreign transaction fee. This fee is 3% on all IO transactions made in currencies other than USD.

Mercury offers a free plan, so you can avoid a monthly fee. However, if you want to access features like recurring invoicing or ACH debits, you must sign up for one of Mercury’s two paid plans that start at $35/month.

Eligibility Requirements

To qualify for Mercury IO, you must have a Mercury account. Mercury accounts are open to US-based businesses with an EIN. Startups, venture capital companies, and eCommerce businesses formed and registered in the following jurisdictions are also eligible:

• US Virgin Islands
• The British Virgin Islands
• The Cayman Islands
• The United Arab Emirates (not including Dubai Free Zone or other free zone areas)
• Bahamas
• Bermuda
• Singapore
• Jersey

Sole proprietors and certain high-risk businesses are ineligible.

Once you’ve opened an account, you will need to deposit a minimum of $25,000 to qualify for IO. Your average cash balance must stay around $25,000 to maintain eligibility.

There is no credit check, so your personal credit will not be affected if you apply and is not used for underwriting. There is no personal guarantee required.

You can navigate to the Credit Card section of your Mercury dashboard to find out if you’re eligible.

Once approved, payments are required monthly or daily. Payment schedules are based on your average cash balance.

Mercury IO Features

Mercury IO is part of Mercury’s financial stack, which allows you to track expenses, set spend controls, issue employee cards, and even use basic accounting tools all within one intuitive, user-friendly platform.

These tools all combine to form a great package for businesses — specifically startups — that need banking, business tools, and corporate cards in one spot. Best of all, you don’t have to subscribe to a paid plan to take advantage of many of these great features (although you will have to upgrade for ACH debits, branded invoices, and extra employee reimbursements).

This covers the basics, but Mercury has several other great features worth talking about:

• Spend Policies: Create company-wide spend policies that require employees to upload receipts or add notes for any transaction that exceeds a specified amount.
• Business Credit Building: Mercury reports to Experian, Equifax, and Dun & Bradstreet, so you can easily establish and build your business credit.
• Accounting Tools: Mercury accounting features include automatic categorization, invoicing, and integrations with QuickBooks, Xero, and NetSuite.
• Slack Integration: Approve payments and view balances directly within Slack.
• Checking & Savings: When you sign up for Mercury, you’ll get fee-free checking and savings accounts. You can even sign up for up to 15 checking accounts for budgeting purposes.
• Funding: From venture debt capital to working capital loans, Mercury offers the funding you need to grow your business.

Customer Service

Mercury’s customer support is primarily handled through email. You can access a form directly from your account, as well as a phone number to use for urgent issues.

Mercury has plenty of support resources on its website, including FAQs and a company blog. Mercury also has social media profiles on X/Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram, and videos are available on its YouTube channel.

A dedicated relationship manager is available to Pro plan subscribers or account holders with a minimum balance of $10 million.

Overall, Mercury’s customer support has positive reviews. However, some customers have complained about slow responses, which is something to keep in mind.

Mercury Credit Card Reviews

Mercury gets mostly positive reviews online. While it isn’t accredited by the BBB, it receives an A+ rating on the platform. It also has a rating of 4 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot based on over 1,500 reviews.

Is Mercury Safe?

Mercury is a financial technology (fintech) company, not a bank.

The IO Card is issued by Patriot Bank, Member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Mastercard.

Checking and savings accounts are offered by Mercury’s bank partners Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC.

Some of the measures used to protect user data include encrypted passwords, two-factor authentication, fully encrypted database, and third-party penetration testing.

How Does Mercury IO Compare To Other Cards?

Mercury IO has a lot going for it: no fees, unlimited employee cards, and flat-rate cash-back rewards. But how does it stack up against the competition?

Final Verdict: Is The Mercury IO Business Credit Card Worth It?

The Mercury IO business credit card has a lot of great things going for it. No credit checks and a cash reserve requirement of $25K make IO corporate cards more accessible to startup business owners.

Mercury makes it easy to do everything from creating virtual cards for employees to setting custom spend controls. While the 1.5% unlimited cash back rate is pretty good, the fact that it isn’t limited to certain categories and redemptions are automatic each month make it even better.

Throw in partner discounts, no fees, fee-free checking and savings accounts, and a host of other features, and IO is a great choice for businesses that meet Mercury’s requirements.

Corporate Card Review Methodology

Merchant Maverick has been researching and reviewing business credit cards and corporate cards since 2018. Our writers have evaluated over sixty different business card products. In each corporate card review, we evaluate rewards and perks, rates and fees, features, eligibility requirements, customer service, and user reviews. Read more about how we rate corporate cards.

Note: We use a different credit card rating methodology to evaluate traditional business credit cards, as they often differ from corporate cards in benefits, qualifications, and use cases.

When comparing corporate cards, we consider many data points, including the specifics of cash back and spending rewards, the presence of annual fees, the breadth and flexibility of reward redemption options, revenue and time in business qualifications, credit score requirements, and extra perks. Our lists of the best corporate cards include only those we’ve deemed worthwhile from multiple vantage points and often share qualities such as widespread availability, low fees, competitive rewards, and reasonable revenue, cash-on-hand, and time in business requirements.

We spend an average of 10-15 hours researching and updating each one of our lists, making sure the corporate cards included meet our internal standards for quality and reputation.

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