Ink Business Cash® Credit Card review: The perfect business card to start small

The Ink Business Preferred card* is ideal as it’ll fast track your Ultimate Rewards points by awarding you 3X points on the first $150,000 spent in combined purchases on travel, shipping, internet, cable and phone services and advertising purchases made with social media sites and search engines. You’ll have to spend enough to justify the $95 annual fee, but that shouldn’t be too hard considering it would only take $132 in spending per month in your 3X category to break even, based on a redemption value of 2 cents per point from Bankrate’s latest points valuation for Chase Ultimate Rewards.

If you’re looking for a versatile travel card that won’t cut into your budget, the Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card can be a great option. It earns 5 miles when you book hotels, vacation rentals and rental cars through Capital One Travel and 1.25 miles on all other purchases. This card can be great for someone who doesn’t have a preference for specific airlines or hotel chains. It can also be a useful backup in case you hit the Ink Business Cash card’s spending caps. The Capital One VentureOne will earn 25 percent more on all purchases than the Ink Business Cash for any purchase you make after exceeding the spending cap.

The Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card makes more sense if you want to earn travel rewards instead of cash back. You can earn 3X points on the first $150,000 spent on travel and 3X points in the same business categories as the Ink Business Cash – with a much higher spending cap of $150,000 – along with 1X points on all other purchases.

It carries a hefty welcome offer of 100,000 bonus points after spending $8,000 on purchases in the first three months from account opening. However, this may be out of reach for most small businesses or startups, so calculate what you’ll realistically spend before applying. A welcome bonus is a great indicator of a card’s affordability and caliber. If you won’t normally spend anywhere close to the amount asked for with the welcome offer in the designated time frame, the card might encourage overspending.

You must be aware of the card’s $95 annual fee and higher ongoing APR. That said, if your business has high monthly expenses and involves frequent travel, the Ink Business Preferred can be worth it.

To qualify for the Ink Business Cash card, you need a good to excellent business credit score (670-850 FICO) and to adhere to the Chase 5/24 rule.

For the 5/24 rule, you will not be eligible for a new Chase card if you’ve opened five credit cards in the past 24 months. While the Ink Business or any other Chase business cards don’t count in this number, you still must be under the 5/24 rule when you apply.

When you first apply for a business credit card, your personal credit score will be considered. From there, you will have a business credit score that you can use to apply for different business credit cards and loans. Your business credit score will reflect company details such as number of employees, historical data of business, past payment history and more.

If your business score is too low for the Ink Business Cash, you can take a few steps to improve it like paying credit card bills on time, using it responsibly regularly and not maxing the card out.

Yes. It may even be beneficial to combine two to three of these cards when considering Chase Unlimited Rewards and the Chase Trifecta program. Having multiple Ink Business cards can allow for flexible spending and reward redemption options. That said, it can also become overwhelming juggling all the cards. It may be too much hassle and not enough points earned to justify having all three, depending on your business.

The best business cards offer rewards in key business spending categories, so a primary factor in a business card’s rating is its rewards value. This includes the card’s average rewards rate, estimated annual rewards earnings, sign-up bonus value and reward redemption value.

To estimate a business card’s average annual rewards earnings, we first calculate its average rewards rate based on how much it earns in different bonus categories and how closely its categories align with the average small-business owner’s spending habits. In other words, we assess whether the card earns rewards at a high rate in the most popular business spending categories. 

We researched 10 key business spending categories including dining, gas, office supplies, travel, telecommunications, insurance and more to get a sense of the average small-business owner’s spending habits. We assumed an average annual spend of around $40,000 per year based on Bankrate survey data. 

Using this data, we are able to assign a weighting to each of a card’s bonus categories. We also estimate the redemption value of points or miles from various issuer, airline and hotel rewards programs.

This weighting and rewards valuation allows us to estimate a card’s average annual rewards earnings — how many points or miles you’d earn with a given card if your spending was about average and you used the card for all of your business purchases — as well as what those points are worth. We also use point valuations to determine a card’s sign-up bonus value

With these calculations complete, we assign each card a score based on how its average rewards earnings, sign-up bonus value, rewards rate and redemption value stack up against other business cards, factoring in the card’s annual fee.

The better these values, the higher its score will be, making it more worthy of inclusion in our list and increasing its potential ranking.

We also score business cards based on how much it costs to keep them in your wallet or carry a balance. 

To start, each business card is scored based on whether it offers an intro APR and how its ongoing APR compares to the rates available on other business cards. This is because an intro APR on new purchases or balance transfers can be a lifesaver if you need to pay down debt, finance a large business purchase or free up cash flow. 

While intro APRs are not uncommon on business cards, they aren’t a given, so cards that offer this sort of payment flexibility will score higher in our card rating system.

Even more important to both a card’s score and its inclusion in our list, however, is how its annual fee influences its overall value. We consider a card’s annual fee in two ways — how it ranks relative to the fees you’ll find on other cards in the category and how it impacts a card’s overall rewards value. 

Cards with an annual fee will always be at a slight disadvantage in our scoring system since annual fees inherently cut into your rewards value. However, if a card offers terrific value via its ongoing rewards and perks, it can earn a high score and a spot in our list even if it carries a high annual fee. 

With this in mind, we rate a card based primarily on how its ongoing rewards value and ongoing perk value (such as annual credits or bonuses) stack up against those of other cards in the category when you subtract annual fees.

We rate each business card’s flexibility based on the restrictions it imposes on earning and redeeming rewards. 

Flexibility factors include whether a card only allows you to earn a high rewards rate on only a small amount of spending or requires you to meet a certain earning threshold before you can redeem rewards. We also examine whether your points are worth less when you opt for some redemption options over others and whether a card gives you the flexibility to transfer rewards to travel partners. 

We also score each card’s set of features – its perks and benefits — against five tiers of features to provide a rating. Top-tier perks include benefits like airport lounge access, travel credits, elite status with an airline or hotel and credits for expedited security screening membership programs.

We give extra weight to perks especially useful or valuable for small-business owners, like being able to qualify with no personal guarantee, digital advertising credits, free employee cards and accounting perks.