Mercury Bank Review Features, Pricing, Pros & Cons

Why Mercury?

I have tried literally every single business bank out there over the years. Not the boring big banks with an awful banking experience (I've tried those too), I mean the modern business banks when the advent of Neo banks started to exist (think tech layer atop a traditional bank).

I first started my journey with Seed.co bank in 2016—and it was amazing. No fees, modern banking experience, integrations. It was the closest thing to Simple Bank but for business (for anyone that remembers Simple). I'll cut to the chase though, 2 years later I was greeted with this email (and no—you don't lose your money when this happens) 😅

So then the search began again, unable to settle on a traditional business bank after what I experienced with Seed. A few days after Seed announced they were closing, I came across Azlo. The promise was everything that Seed was, and more. And to that they delivered. I loved them. Over the years even built a close relationship with their product and API team—and yes, modern banks especially have proper product teams—blew my mind 🤯

Got just over a couple years out of them before they were acquired by one of their largest investors (the traditional bank they were built atop—BBVA Compass). Not a huge deal right? Wrong. They trashed all of their tech (genuinely no idea why), before ultimately selling them off a second time to PNC. I somehow just went from having a modern business bank back to having an awful, tech-challenged business bank again.

While it was a lot to go through, these 2 faithful banks got me from 2016–2021, and all I knew for certain is that banks could do better. So alas my search began again. 👋 Hello Bank Novo. They were pretty good, I used them for 6 some odd months, but was constantly frustrated with their non-standard QuickBooks Online integration, which was different from what Azlo had to offer (it didn't use the QBO bank feed, just synced over directly to chart of accounts, so all the smart auto-matching features of QBO no longer worked).

I was fed up, I missed Azlo. And then I ended my journey with Bank Novo in the tail end of 2021 after finding Mercury. They were barebones: no mobile app, basic web app, and QBO integration coming soon 👀 (I was skeptical, but gave them a shot nonetheless). Lo and behold, they managed to do everything, well, better...

Their QBO integration is top-notch, their UI/UX is the best of any bank I've used, and their feature-set is incredible. Baked in treasury accounts where you can get high-interest on the funds sitting in your account, quick spinning up of additional checking accounts, virtual and physical credit cards (still way prefer Divvy for this), streamlined bill pay. It just does everything. Incredibly well.

They are lightyears ahead of what Seed and Azlo ever were, and a completely different category than Brex (please... Don't use Brex as your business bank—they aren't in any way a proper bank...)

That said, if you're on the edge, look no further. This is the best business bank available regardless of if you're a small business or large enterprise. Don't believe me? Go check it out for yourself with their interactive demo page (I mean... how cool is that?! And why don't more companies do this??)

Features

Aside from the normal great features like free ACH and Wire (domestic + international) functionality, they have been doing things to innovate in the traditional business banking space.

ACH Payment Authorizations

You know how in the US it's for some reason normal to give your ACH routing and account number out to other businesses? And yet all someone also needs is your account number to actually pull funds from your bank account?

That's where Mercury stops this and actually puts the control in your hands, somewhat like that of how Divvy and Ramp allow you to spin up virtual cards, set limits, and lock them. The same can now be done for ACH pulls.

This can best be shown in a couple screenshots:

And if you get an unusual request come in, it'll show under the "Flagged" area.

You have 3 business days to approve an authorization, and if you don't it'll get blocked and not transfer the funds over:

This is pretty amazing to have at the bank level—this is an area that we genuinely believe Mercury to be pulling the industry forward, giving back control to the businesses using them.

^{Disclaimer: Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC. Deposit insurance covers the failure of an insured bank.}