Chase Secured Business Credit Card: Finding Your Top Alternative

There are many reasons for business owners to look into credit cards to use specifically for business purposes. They can help you establish credit, cushion your cash flow, and give you the opportunity to take advantage of rewards and perks. Additionally, business credit cards are a great way to allow you to separate your personal and business expenses. With all of the credit card providers in the industry, you might want to turn to a well-known bank that has a variety of personal and business banking products, like Chase. If, however, you can’t qualify for a typical business credit card, you might be interested in a Chase secured business credit card.

With a secured business credit card, unlike most credit cards, you need to put down a refundable cash deposit for collateral. Because of this personal guarantee, secured business cards are easier to qualify for and can help you improve your credit. If you already bank with Chase, you have even more of a reason to look into their secured credit card options.

So, what are the options for a Chase secured business credit card? Unfortunately, there are none. Although Chase offers business banking services like checking accounts, savings accounts, and unsecured business credit cards, they do not have a secured business credit card offering. Don’t worry though—although there is no Chase bank secured business credit card, there are still several credit card options available to you that are worth considering—including other offerings from Chase.

Before we dive into discussing your alternative options to a Chase secured business credit card, let’s clarify the difference between a secured credit card vs. an unsecured credit card. A secured business credit card, as we mentioned, is a credit card that requires a security deposit upfront (often 90 to 100% of your credit limit), to serve as collateral in the case that you can’t pay your bill. An unsecured card, on the other hand, is what we typically think of when we think about business credit cards. With an unsecured business credit card, you’re approved for a line of credit based on your credit score, and therefore, you don’t have to put down any kind of collateral—the bank is confident that you’ll pay it back.

If you don’t have good credit, it can be much easier to qualify for a secured business credit card—which means using this card is the perfect opportunity to build or rebuild your credit history. However, one important point to remember is that even when you apply for a business credit card, the main qualification that card issuers take into consideration is still your personal credit score. As such, we recommend that any business owner—even if they want to improve their business credit card options—build credit using a personal secured credit card.

Just because there is no Chase secured business credit card, however, doesn’t mean there aren’t other options available to you—even if you don’t have the best credit. Whether you’re hoping to build credit, looking to improve your future unsecured business credit card options, or simply want to work with Chase specifically—whatever the reasoning behind your search for a Chase secured business credit card—there are comparable credit card offerings for you. Here are our top picks:

• Spark Classic: an unsecured business credit card available to business owners with a personal credit score of 550 or above
• Capital One Secured MasterCard: a secured personal credit card that will help you build credit so that you can access an unsecured business credit card in the future
• Chase Ink Business Cash®: an unsecured Chase business credit card that will reward your spending with cash back
• Chase Ink Business Preferred®: an unsecured Chase business credit card that will reward your spending with reward points for travel
• Bento for Business: a prepaid business debit card that allows you to add your own funds onto the card, in lieu of a line of credit from a lender

If you started your search for a Chase secured business credit card with the intention of building credit and thereby having access to better business credit card offers in the future, you’ll want to consider the Spark Classic business credit card or the Capital One Secured MasterCard. Here are the details:

The Capital One Spark Classic is the very best unsecured business credit card that’s available to business owners with average credit.

If you have a personal credit score of at least 550, you’ll be able to access the Spark Classic. With this business credit card, you’ll not only gain an opportunity to improve your personal credit—Capital One will report your activity on the Spark Classic to personal credit bureaus—but you’ll also gain access to an unsecured credit limit to free up your business’s cash flow. Additionally, you’ll earn an unlimited 1% cash back for every dollar you spend with the Spark Classic, so you’ll be earning as you improve your credit by spending responsibly with this card. An added bonus—you can access everything the Spark Classic offers for no annual fee.

Don’t quite have the personal credit score to qualify for the Spark Classic or any other unsecured business credit card? Not to worry—you can improve your credit score by spending responsibly with a personal secured credit card, like the Capital One Secured MasterCard. This secured card offers some of the most flexible and transparent terms available.

With the Capital One Secured MasterCard, you’ll be able to enjoy the following freedoms:

• A security deposit of as little as 25% of your credit limit, depending on your creditworthiness
• The opportunity to pay your security deposit in installments, as long you pay it in full within 80 days
• No annual or hidden fees to hinder your building credit

If you were interested in a Chase secured business credit card because you wanted to do your business spending specifically with Chase, you have two options worth considering as well: the Chase Ink Business Cash card and the Chase Ink Business Preferred card. If you can’t yet access either of these cards because of low credit—both require a personal credit score above 660—you’ll want to build or rebuild your score with the first two options we discussed, before applying for one of Chase’s business credit cards. These two cards, however, are certainly worth any credit building you’ll have to do to access them. Let’s take a look at what the Ink Cash and the Ink Preferred can offer your business:

The Chase Ink Business Cash card is one of the best business credit card options for cash rewards. With this card, your spending will be rewarded with the following cashback rates:

• 5% cash back on the first $25,000 spent on combined purchases at office supply stores and on cell phone, landline, internet, and cable TV services annually
• 2% cash back on the first $25,000 spent on combined purchases at gas stations and restaurants annually
• 1% cash back on all other card purchases with no limit to the amount you can earn

You’ll also gain access to one of the longest 0% intro APR periods on the market—for your first 12 months after opening your Ink Cash account, you’ll be able to carry interest-free balances for purchases as long as you make your minimum monthly payments on time. After these 12 months, your APR will set in at a rate that will vary with the market prime rate, so be sure to see the issuer’s terms and conditions for the latest APR information. Not to mention, this card gives you a generous welcome bonus if you meet certain spending thresholds and has no annual fee.

Finally, if you want a Chase business credit card that will reward your spending with rewards points rather than cash back, you’ll want to look to the Chase Ink Business Preferred. This business credit card offers one of the most generous signing bonuses on the market. Furthermore, when you spend using this business credit card, you’ll earn rewards at the following rates:

• 3x points for every dollar—for up to $150,000—you spend on:
  • Travel
  • Shipping purchases
  • Advertising purchases made with search engines and social media sites
  • Internet/cable/phone services
• 1x points for every other dollar spent

However, unlike the Ink Cash card, the Ink Preferred will come with an annual fee. You’ll have to pay $95 a year to access this business credit card. That said, when measured against the potential earnings that spending with the Ink Preferred card could bring your business, this annual fee might be less of a pain point.

No matter which card you choose, you’re going to want to keep your monthly balance in check as you look to grow your credit history and improve your credit score. A great way to manage your spending is to pair your credit card of choice with a pre-loaded debit card for daily purchases:

Bento for Business is a prepaid business debit card designed to help business owners manage their spending. With Bento for Business, you’ll load your own funds onto the card, in lieu of a line of credit from a lender. There are several benefits for using Bento in addition to a secured credit card: you can set hard limits on how much money you can charge against your card (without the risk of overages), keep tabs on employee spending, and upload your purchase history into your bookkeeping platform of choice. Bento gives you all of the benefits of a business credit card without any of the risk—freeing you up to put selected purchases on your secured business credit card—to keep your balance manageable and your credit score in sound shape.

Although you won’t be able to find a Chase secured business credit card, you will be able to find a variety of great alternatives to meet your specific business needs. Whether you want to build credit or spend with Chase specifically, you can explore the five options we’ve discussed above—as well as look into other cards on the market. Unfortunately, if you want to both build credit and spend with a Chase business credit card, you don’t have many options as both Chase business credit cards require good personal credit for you to qualify. However, if you spend responsibly with either the Spark Classic or the Secured MasterCard, you’ll soon have built the credit you need to become a Chase business credit card member.