Tide Business Account Review: all you need to know about features, fees and an alternative

Tide Bank is an electronic money institution which offers business banking services to small businesses, freelancers, sole traders and registered limited companies in the UK. Unlike high street banks, Tide doesn’t have branches - instead, you’ll be able to manage your Tide business account online¹.

You can open an account for free, and get a Tide card for yourself as a business owner, as well as expense cards for your employees². Tide bank offers a wide range of banking services for businesses in the UK, and in this article we'll review features and costs for the Tide Business account, alongside some pros and cons for this provider.

We will also present Wise Business account, an alternative for UK businesses that need to send or receive money from overseas, a feature currently missing for Tide's customers, but more on that later.

If you're a business sending more than 100,000 GBP (or equivalent) monthly across different currencies, get in touch with the Wise Business sales team to discuss the best solutions for your needs.

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Tide business account review

Let's start with a quick overview of Tide Business Account features and pricing.

Tide Bank is currently rated 4.3 stars on Trustpilot. From customer reviews, we’ve summarised a few pros and cons.³

Tide business account is ideal for businesses who operate mostly online as they don’t support over the counter payments by cash or cheque. It's a good alternative to traditional banks for quick to open business accounts with features that help streamline your business growth.

Tide Bank is a good alternative for businesses who struggle to open traditional business accounts due to credit checks. It's mostly app based which makes it convenient for a lot of users but they also offer a desktop version for easier view and navigation.

They provide an open banking API that can be integrated into your systems to have access to automated payments and other features Tide Bank offers.

💡 Read more: Tide vs Revolut Business: Comparison for UK Businesses

Tide Business Account Features⁴

• Create and track invoices
• Integration with accounting apps such as Xero and Sage
• Spending control with employee expense cards
• Apply for business loans
• Cashflow insights and forecasts
• 0.5% cashback with Tide Card in the Tide Cashback Account

Although Tide Bank has a good selection of features to help UK businesses, there are some limitations, for example the multi user access doesn't allow team members to make actions to the account, it is possible only to read information.

Another serious disadvantage of Tide Business Account is the lack of international transactions, specially to UK businesses trading overseas. Tide account doesn't allow businesses to receive or send payments in a currency other than GBP.⁵

If you do business abroad and need to pay or get paid in other currencies such as Euros (EUR) or American Dollars (USD) a multi-currency account made for the world such as Wise Business may be a better option.

Wise is a great alternative to international business banking. Wise Business account has all the features your company needs to grow overseas, you can even earn a return on the money you hold in multiple currencies. With Wise Interest, you can get a 4.82% variable rate on your GBP balance held in your Wise Business multi-currency account.

Capital at risk. Current rates do not guarantee future growth.

Variable rate is based on 7 day performance as of 10 Aug 2023. This fund has returned an 0.93% annual average over the last 5 years, excluding Wise and fund manager fees. See full 5 year past performance of funds

Tide pricing

If you’re thinking of opening a Tide business account, you’ll need to know what fees are involved. It’s worth thinking about how you might use your account, and what services are important to you, before you select a business account as the fees will vary according to the services you’ll use.

Tide offers a free current account but they have subscription based fees suitable for services that you use more frequently which are as follows:⁶

Tide pricing - free account plan

Tide pricing - Plus account plan

Tide pricing - Pro account plan

Tide pricing - Cashback account plan

If you’re wondering how much alternatives cost compared to Tide, you can check our head to head comparison between Starling Bank and Tide.

Tide Card

When signing up for Tide free account or subscribing for one of the paid plans you’ll be able to order a free Tide Card for your use. Your business card will be linked to your Tide business account and offers free payments at home and abroad - although ATM withdrawals cost £1.

You’ll be able to order up to 50 employee expense cards, which can be given to your team, and are managed by the account holder. That means your team members can have a card to cover business expenses, but account owners can still keep track of their employees’ spending, and issue, limit, or cancel cards as needed from their Tide app.

Tide customer services

If you’re a Tide customer already, the easiest way to get in touch with the customer support team is through the in-app support. You’ll just need to click the help tab and start a new request, to talk to a member of the team. You can also send inquiries to Tide Bank by email on the address: hello@tide.co.⁷

Tide contact number

You can seek support from Tide Bank by phone in case of fraud and lost or stolen card.

• For fraud support contact 159 from the UK or +44 20 4587 0366 from outside of the UK
• For card support contact the number: +44 (0)333 121 0266

If you need help closing your Tide Business Account you can check our step-by-step guide.

Alternative to Tide Bank: Wise Business account

If your company does or plans to do business overseas, whether it’s customers, workers or suppliers, Tide Bank won't be the best option, since you won't be able to pay or get paid internationally.

In that case, Wise Business account is the perfect alternative. It’s quick and easy to open online, and gives you a powerful platform for sending, receiving and managing your business finances in over 40 currencies.

You can easily pay suppliers and workers all over the world, for low fees and the mid-market exchange rate. And best of all, you can get paid for your products or services quickly and easily, accepting payments in 9 major currencies.

Need a solution for expenses? You can get Wise Business expense cards for each team member who needs one. It works in 174 countries, and charges no foreign currency transaction fees. There’s even 0.5% cashback on spending.

You can also link your Wise Business account with your favourite accounting tools, such as Xero or Quickbooks. This makes keeping track of your company’s finances a breeze.

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Choosing the right banking services for your business is a big deal. Get the right account for your needs, and you can protect your profitability, and get on with running your business without worrying about the costs of banking. By doing some research before choosing a business account, you’ll be able to find the right service for your needs - so you can focus on what really matters.

Sources used for this article:

Sources last checked on June 26, 2023