The Bento for Business Review

The Bento for Business Visa® Debit Card offers the conveniences of a business credit card, without the personal credit check or personal liability. Because you have to frontload the funds that you and your employees will spend on the Bento for Business, though, you won’t be able to build credit with this card.

The main perks that Bento for Business boasts are the comprehensive control it allows you to have over your business’s spending.

Most importantly, Bento for Business will allow you to control all employee spending on your account. You’ll be able to designate allowances for specific employees, days, and projects.

And you’ll also be able to access these card controls on-the-go through the Bento for Business mobile app. All updates on card controls take effect right away. Lost a card? Turn it off with one tap.

Plus, you’ll be able to keep an eye on the big picture—as well as the details—with Bento for Business’s accounting and bookkeeping dashboard.

Your Bento for Business account will range in price depending on a few moving parts.

But no matter what, Bento won’t charge you a setup fee for your Bento for Business account. Additionally, you’ll be able to access a 60-day free trial no matter how many cards you have attached to your Bento for Business account.

After those first 60 days, your Bento for Business account will cost according to how many attached cards you have:

• $29/month for up to 10 attached cards
• $69/month for up to 25 attached cards
• $149/month for up to 100 attached cards
• For more than 100 cards, contact their support team

Plus, if your team is spending over $40,000 a month on your Bento for Business account, you could potentially access unlimited attached cards for free. You’ll just have to contact Bento for this opportunity.

Bento will place a few notable limits on you and your team’s activity on your Bento for Business cards.

First and foremost, Bento for Business will limit your daily spend to $25,000 per card per day.

Plus you’ll only be able to withdraw up to $500 in cash per day through ATM and cash back.

Even more, none of the employee cards attached to your Bento for Business account will have access to ATMs.

• You’re working with less-than-stellar personal credit.
• You want to access all the controls of a business credit card.

• You’re working with average personal credit or above.
• You’re looking for a card that will build credit.
• You’re looking for a credit line.

The first and foremost major advantage of Bento for Business is that it won’t require business owners to undergo a personal credit inquiry—hard, soft, or otherwise—to qualify for it, making it a great card for business owners with no credit or new businesses.

You’ll not only be able to avoid the ding to your personal credit that hard inquiries would cause, you’ll also be able to access Bento for Business even if your personal credit is limited or challenged.

So, in order to access all of the conveniences that Bento for Business offers, all you’ll have to do is apply. After your business is verified by their team, you can start using Bento for Business right away.

Because of Bento for Business’s prepaid structure, you won’t be personally liable for the spending attached to your account. That’s simply because there will be no credit extended to you, so the question of liability becomes neither here nor there with Bento for Business.

Meanwhile, most unsecured business credit cards will hold both you and your business liable for all spending attached to your card account. As such, if something goes wrong, both your business and your own personal credit will be at risk.

Perhaps one of the most distinguishing features that Bento for Business boasts is its comprehensive employee controls.

With the Bento for Business card controls, dashboard, and mobile app features, you’ll be able to make sure each and every employee uses their Bento card exactly how you need them to.

Last but certainly not least, funds held within Bento are FDIC insured for up to $250,000.

This insurance will make your business’s preloaded capital as safe as it would be in a business bank account and can grant you the peace of mind that your business’s hard-earned capital is as secure as it would be in an account at an incumbent institution.

First and most notably, no matter how responsibly you spend with the Bento card, you won’t be able to build credit with this business card because it’s a secured business credit card.

The Bento for Business’s prepaid structure has positive ramifications—like no personal credit check or personal liability. That said, it will also mean that you won’t be improving any credit—personal, business, or otherwise.

Not being able to build credit with responsible spending will have long-term consequences—a robust and positive credit history, both personal and business, will be necessary for your business to access financing in the future.

And most other unsecured business credit cards will help you build both personal and business credit history with responsible spending.

The spending and withdrawal limits that Bento for Business will place on your business spending could hamper your business’s finances and, in turn, its growth.

If you’re going to need for your team to spend more than a total of $25,000 per card in any given day, then your business spending needs might surpass what Bento for Business can offer.

Same goes for having to withdraw more than $500 in cash in a day. If you foresee yourself needing to withdraw more than that in a day, then the Bento Mastercard might not be the best fit for your business.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Bento’s fees can pretty easily pile up to be some of the priciest on the market.

Because its fees for accounts with more than two attached cards will be on a monthly basis rather than an annual basis, they will pile up quickly.

Unless you only need up to two attached cards—or your team is spending greater than $40,000 a month—then Bento for Business might not be the most cost-effective spending solution for you.