Relay Business Review
Relay
Summary
Relay Financial is a digital banking platform designed with small businesses in mind based out of Toronto, Canada. Customers can easily collaborate with team members on banking, bills and expenses. The following is our opinion on Relay.
Advantages
- No service charges or minimum balance requirements.
- Overdraft protection, unrestricted activity, and free international wire transfers.
- 1 to 20 bank accounts
- Set debit card limits
Disadvantages
- 0% interest
Summary
Relay Financial is a digital banking platform designed with small businesses in mind based out of Toronto, Canada. The following is our opinion on Relay.
Advantages
- No service charges or minimum balance requirements.
- Overdraft protection, unrestricted activity, and free international wire transfers.
- 1 to 20 bank accounts to organize income and expenses
- Ability to set transaction and withdrawal limits on employee debit cards
Disadvantages
- 0% interest
Summary of our opinion
Don’t have time to read it all? Here is a summary of our opinion on Relay, to help you understand whether Relay is a good choice for you or not!
Small business owners may take advantage of Relay Financial’s plethora of features, including limitless transactions, granular access controls, and numerous bank accounts. It helps expedite banking processes and is compatible with popular payroll and accounting programs like Quickbooks.
While Relay Standard is free, the more powerful Relay Pro plan costs $30 per month and includes automated payment processing.
Relay makes it simple and economical to set up a business bank account using their dashboard. It’s excellent for SMBs that require many accounts and don’t deposit cash. Here’s our entire Relay review.
Relay fees
Fees and features
Here is a summary table of Relays’s main pricing plans for self-employed workers, freelancers and others:
Relay Standard | Relay Pro | |
---|---|---|
Monthly fees | $0 | $30/month |
Opening deposit | $0 | $0 |
Transactions | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Minimum balance | $0 | $0 |
Overdraft fee | $0 | $0 |
ACH fees | $0 | $0 |
Domestic Wire fees | $5 for outgoing; $0 for incoming | $0 |
International Wire Transfer Fees | $10 for outgoing; $0 for incoming | $0 |
ATM fees | $0 | $0 |
Annual Percentage Yield (APY) | n/a | n/a |
Cash Deposits | Unavailable | Unavailable |
ATM Fee | $0 | $0 |
Support | Mon – Fri: 9am to 5pm | Mon – Fri: 9am to 5pm |
Relay is a no-cost online business bank service that offers fee-free business checking accounts. Users are not charged any fees for overdrafts, transactions, or monthly maintenance costs. Additionally, there are zero fees associated with inbound wire transactions.
While Relay Pro, which costs $30 per month, offers businesses extra accounting tools, the majority of companies will find that the free version of Relay is sufficient for their financial requirements.
Our opinion on the monthly cost
As business bank accounts for LLCs, freelancers and startups go, Relay offers a really competitive price point. We like the fact that there are zero monthly, transaction fees or minimum balance requirements, a huge help for small business owners starting out.
If you do need an overdraft, again there’s no fees for this and the Relay Business Checking Account can be rightfully classified as one of the best banking offers on the market for the self-employed.
Any location that accepts credit cards will accept the debit card by Relay. Additionally, more than 32,000 cash machines from Allpoint accept Relay debit cards for fee-free cash withdrawals.
If your LLC only needs a checking account or indeed multiple with little costs, Relay may be the perfect fit. Given the range of features offered, the price seems very affordable.
Our opinion of the other fees
Relay also offers a paid option, called Relay Pro, that costs $30 per month. In addition to the features found with the basic option, Relay Pro will allow you to enjoy:
- Free same-day ACH transfers
- Pay bills in batches
- Enjoy free domestic and international wires
- Set up a multi-stage approval workflow for bills to automate
- Approve and pay bills in one place
- Import your expenses from Xero and QuickBooks Online
Who can use Relay?
You have to be the owner of a small company, a minimum of 18 years of age, and you need to have a U.S. address that can be verified in order to establish a Business Checking account.
Customers need to be citizens or permanent residents of the United States and have an address in the United States that can be verified. It’s possible that the IRS may ask for a confirmation letter about your EIN in certain circumstances.
Means of payment
Regarding payment methods, Relay mainly offers the following:
Payment | Features offered? |
---|---|
Debit card | Mastercard |
Check | Yes |
Wire transfers | Yes |
ACH transfers | Yes |
International wires | Yes |
The question of means of payment remains the same as for other financial institutions: Will your business be satisfied with these means of payment. This is a decision each individual business owner will have to make. If the answer is no, you can always consider an alternative business bank.
Users have the ability to give debit cards to staff members, set up automatic recurring payments, monitor team spending, and more. Additionally, it interacts with the payroll and bookkeeping software Quickbooks as well as other programs.
Means of collection
The means of collection are the basics of any financial institution. Relay customers can conduct wire transfers, generally the fastest method to transfer funds electronically.
Payment | Features offered? |
---|---|
Check | Yes |
Wire transfers | Yes |
ACH transfers | Yes |
International wires | Yes |
Transfers
Customers can quickly transfer funds in and out of your checking account from accounts at other financial institutions.
Payment terminal
Relay does not offer a payment terminal, but is compatible with the vast majority of classic and modern payment terminals.
Services and features offered by Relay
Relay offers a bank account focused around features dedicated to small businesses and professionals. These offers are exactly what have made Relay stand out from the competition.
A quality business bank account
The traditional features of an online bank are available via Relay, which has a user-friendly interface. You won’t have any trouble figuring out how to utilize the account, and you’ll be able to do all of your responsibilities with only a few mouse clicks.
Users are able to control all of their expenses from a single dashboard while using Relay Pro. In addition to being able to pay many invoices in a single batch, you can also build up automatic bill approval processes that include several steps.
In addition, you won’t have to manually approve each bill, which will save you some time.
A wide range of services for all entrepreneurs
In addition to being an excellent professional bank account, we appreciate the various services offered by Relay including:
- Fees: You won’t be charged for overdrafts, rejected checks, or ATM rates, and the bank’s outbound money transfer charges are lower than those charged by other business accounts, despite the fact that they are not free.
- You are permitted up to twenty different bank accounts: To facilitate organization of your company’s income, expenses, and tax obligations, you can have between 1 and 20 separate accounts for different financial transactions.
- Distribute fifty debit cards so that up to fifty employees of your team may access corporate money whenever they are required to do so.
- Relay Pro instantly imports transactions from accounting software, helps you set up rules to authorize payments, and enables you pay numerous bills or suppliers with one transfer for $30 a month.
- Limits on spending should be placed on the amount of money that each member of the team is permitted to withdraw from the business account.
Transactions
Relay provides information on merchants, including category, location, and website information, as well as free, limitless transactions that are not restricted in any way and have larger limits than those offered by other banks. Your banking dashboard will become much simpler to use as a result of this ease of transaction management.
In addition, there are no fees assessed for transactions made in a foreign currency, and if you have a Pro account, your financial dealings will be instantly imported into the accounting software you use.
You will also be given access to the service that allows you to pay your bills online. You are able to import all of your company’s expenses into the platform and pay them straight from the Relay platform.
In addition, you are able to pay all of your bills in bulk and make payments that include many stages.
Online banking tools and integrations
Relay accounts integrate seamlessly with QuickBooks Online, Xero, Hubdoc, and Dext. Instead of manually inputting financial information, businesses can use Relay to import transaction data directly into their chosen accounting software.
As such, small businesses can update their bank feeds with ease, painting a clearer picture of business cash flow.
Numerous Bank Accounts
Users of Relay have the ability to establish up to twenty separate corporate bank accounts underneath a single name. Each account is individually insured by the FDIC and with a unique account number.
Since Relay allows users to rapidly move money among checking accounts, small company owners may utilize Relay’s multi-account system to establish specialized checking accounts for each significant business expenditure.
These can include taxation, payroll, and operational expenses, by taking advantage of the fact that Relay allows users to instantly move funds between checking accounts.
Quickly distribute Debit Cards
You have the ability to instantly issue up to 50 debit cards from Mastercard to members of your team using your Relay checking account. Depending on your preferences, the cards may either be digital or physical versions of themselves.
You’ll have an easy time keeping tabs on how much each individual member of the team spends, as well as the opportunity to place daily transaction restrictions or limitations on how much money may be withdrawn from ATMs on every debit card.
Withdrawing cash from any of the more than 32,000 AllPoint ATMs across the world is completely free of charge when you use the debit card issued to you by Relay Financial. In addition to that, there are zero fees assessed for using these debit cards in international transactions.
A useful mobile application
Checking customers have access to Relay’s mobile app, rated 4.5 on the iOS App Store, which allows them to make mobile check deposits and perform other daily transactions as needed. Small enterprise owners can manage their finances and cash flow from anywhere by using the app.
Automation of Bill Payments
Customers that switch to Relay Pro have access to extra tools that may assist in streamlining the job of supplier payments. These features can save time and reduce errors.
These capabilities also include ability to import invoices automatically from Xero and QuickBooks Online, make payments in batches, and establish processes for bill approval that include many stages.
Open a Relay account
Opening a bank account with Relay is very simple. Apply online to open a Relay business bank account in minutes. From anywhere on Relay‘s website. The steps you’ll need to take include:
- Select Sign up from the navigation menu
- Enter your name, email address and whether you’re a bookkeeper
- Create your account’s username and password, then agree to the Terms of Service
- When you’re ready, select Create account
- Enter information about the business and the business owner to set up a profile
- Upload documents required to verify your business.
- Review all information, finish the application and fund your new business account.
Generally, applications are reviewed within 24 hours; however, the process may take anywhere from 3 – 5 business days. After you receive approval from Relay, you’ll need to accept the account agreement and then you’ll be able to fund and access your account.
Customer Service and Support
Relay is available from Mon – Fri between 9am and 5pm. Customers can call 1-888-205-9304 or send an email to support@relayfi.com
They also have multiple resources and support articles on their website and business blog. Relay does offer email support if you have a problem after hours or on the weekend.
Relay customer reviews
Per this review update, Relay Financial had more than 580 reviews on Trustpilot, for an average rating of 4.5/5 and a review of ‘Excellent’
When looking through the negative reviews, clients complain about accounts being frozen or account setup. This is difficult for us to judge the basis of these customer reviews and if customers respected the Relay general conditions.
When reading the positive reviews, two elements also stand out very often. The customer service was highly regarded by the majority of customers and the length of time taken by customer support to walk through the different account setup.
Overall verdict
Relay asserts itself as one of the best professional banking offerings at the moment for small businesses that need multiple bank accounts and want to integrate QuickBooks Online or Xero accounting software into their banking and cash management services.
Relay offers a professional bank account underpinned by their:
- No minimum balance
- No monthly fees
- Detailed transaction data
On the downside, Relay cannot deposit cash or order checks, however if your business can survive without these items, you’re in great hands and Relay banking will likely work very well for any kind of SMB.