Offer at a glance
- Maximum bonus amount: $500
- Availability: Nationwide
- Direct deposit required: No
- Additional requirements: No
- Hard/soft pull: Unknown
- ChexSystems: Unknown
- Credit card funding: Unknown
- Monthly fees: None
- Early account termination fee: Unknown
- Household limit: None listed
- Expiration date: None listed
Contents
The Offer
- Mercury is a ‘banking stack for startups and small businesses’ and is offering a bonus of $500 when you deposit $5,000 within the first 90 days
The Fine Print
- All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them
Avoiding Fees
Monthly Fees
This account has no monthly fees to worry about
Early Account Termination Fee
I’m unsure if there is any early account termination fee or not
Our Verdict
Previously offered a $500 bonus but that required spending $10,000. I’d recommend reading that thread for more information on the referral process.
Useful posts regarding bank bonuses:
- A Beginners Guide To Bank Account Bonuses
- Bank Account Quick Reference Table (Spreadsheet) (very useful for sorting bonuses by different parameters)
- PSA: Don’t Call The Bank
- Introduction To ChexSystems
- Banks & Credit Unions That Are ChexSystems Inquiry Sensitive
- What Banks & Credit Unions Do/Don’t Pull ChexSystems?
- How To Use Our Direct Deposit Page For Bank Bonuses Page
- Common Bank Bonus Misconceptions + Why You Should Give Them A Go
- How Many Bank Accounts Can I Safely Open Within A Year For Bank Bonus Purposes?
- Affiliate Links & Bank Bonuses – We Won’t Be Using Them
- Complete List Of Ways To Close Bank Accounts At Each Bank
- Banks That Allow/Don’t Allow Out Of State Checking Applications
- Bank Bonus Posting Times
Both p2 and I approved. Applied in morning. LLC entities.
Uploaded EIN and Cert of Org issued from state. Also, uploaded current bank statements for those LLCs
My experience similar. LLC, uploaded state certificate and IRS EIN letter, answered their stupid “business plan” questions, gave them my state professional license number, linked existing bank account to fund. Got approved within 2 hr, no additional questions. Now we’ll see if they come through w/ bonus.
Current account holders excluded from this offer? I don’t see any terms stating that..
after two rounds of ‘prove to us you actually do business’ I was approved with my LLC, only took about ~2 hours
What did they want? I can see the need for business licenses or registration documents — but if they wanted tax returns or detailed P&L, that would seem way too intrusive for a bank account.
Would be awesome if they took sole props
I posted this offer yesterday. It was sent to me by someone at that S&P company shown on the offer page, and I believe they earn a commission for every new account. You just need to deposit $5K, there’s no hold period. I was told that the system will automatically pay out for any account that hits the $5K threshold within 90 days. They also said that Sole props may be accepted but it would have to be a very well established business.
This is what Mercury said about applying as Sole prop: “If they’re seeing the option “LLC taxed as a Sole Proprietorship” that’s what they should choose!”
Just to clarify, is this a statement you found somewhere on Mercury’s website, or is this guidance coming from your source?
That’s the Mercury rep reply (by email) to my question about Sole prop.
Are you going to give it a try?
After like 3 updates and a lot of info I got this:
“Thank you for taking the time to follow-up with additional details about your business. Unfortunately, upon re-review, we were still unable to verify your company with the information provided. As a result, we cannot open a Mercury account for you at this time.”
Don’t waste your time unless your business is registered.
Account approved within 2 hours, have a real LLC that is 6months old.
I’ve been using them as my main bank since the first promotion they ran. I love them. In a sea of horrible fintechs, they’re an actual good one.
I bank with them. You need articles of organization and LLC docs for them to open the account. The support is only via email and takes them 24-48 hours to respond. It’s good product but i needed to open a secondary account with a local bank just in case…
No, it does. Last one. But it needs to be registered
I do not qualify. But for the sake of others who might. Does the account actually pay 4.46% as mentioned in the details? Or is that a different product you have to open to get that? If this really pays that much this bonus is much better than many.
Jon
So this has an interest loss of about $50. Still a good bonus.
Ah right. All the better.
does not allow sole prop in dropdown 🙁
Yea, application has no option for sole proprietors in the company type selection.
Looks like a pass for me.
dang
What’s very weird is that, at some point the last couple of years, they revised their FAQs to delete the statement that they don’t take sole props:
Here’s the version from August 2022: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/mercury-banking-for-startups-spend-10000-on-debit-card-get-500-bonus/#comment-1419897
““What companies will you accept as customers?
We can accept most U.S. companies that aren’t money services businesses or involved with adult entertainment, marijuana or internet gambling. Our product is geared towards tech companies, so it might not be the best fit for some other businesses, especially ones that frequently deal with physical cash. 𝐖𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐨 𝐜𝐚𝐧❜𝐭 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐬.”
Here’s the current version: https://mercury.com/faq
“What companies will you accept as customers?
We can accept most U.S. companies that aren’t money services businesses or involved with adult entertainment, cannabis or internet gambling. Our product is geared towards tech companies, so it might not be the best fit for some other businesses, especially ones that frequently deal with physical cash. We cannot open accounts for trusts.“
Why revise the FAQs to suggest that they now accept SPs, and then not have that option in the application? Strange.