Plastiq: New Business Signups Get $10,000 in Free Credit Card Processing after Spending $10,000

Update 2/20/19: Plastiq has now sent out this offer more broadly for people to refer friends who are business users and the referrer and referree each get $10k FFD after the referree spends $10,000. (Previously, only select people like bloggers and the like were able to send out this offer.) Even now, the offer is targeted for select users to be able to refer friends, and is not available to everyone. Anyone can signup with the special $10k signup offer, but only targeted people can refer others. 

We won’t make a referral thread for this one since it’s impossible to know who really got targeted and who did not. You can leave your ordinary Plastiq referral in this designated thread, just don’t add any mention of this offer or any other commentary to your link.

For those who want to signup for this offer: reach out to friends and family to find out if they have the referral offer and signup with their link. Or you can use our referral link below.

The Offer

Signup for Plastiq (our referral link)

Plastiq has a special offer for new business users:

  • Businesses who signup using this signup link and spend $10,000 on Plastiq will subsequently get $10,000 in free processing toward future payments (called ‘FFDs’).

The free-processing bonus will post to your Plastiq account after your $10,000 in payments has processed completely.

The Fine Print

  • Bonus FFDs will post automatically within 1 business day
  • Must use a business card to make the payments
  • Offer valid through May 31, 2019.
  • $10,000 threshold must be met by May 31, 2019

Plastiq for Business

Plastiq has been pushing hard for businesses to adopt them in paying vendors and providers, something becoming increasingly realistic with the added wire and ACH options, and even international wire. The unique value proposition for businesses is multiple:

  • Cash-flow. One of the biggest issue most retail small businesses face is keeping steady cash flow. Credit cards can give an extra month or two of float.
  • Tax write-off. When paying a business bill with Plastiq which incurs a 2.5% fee, you can write off that fee. In effect, the actual cost to your pocket may be something like 1.5%, depending on your tax rates.
  • Points. Like with personal bills, you’ll get credit card point. This is the biggest motivation for most of our readers. Technically, in the case of business payments, the credit card rewards may belong to the business, though in reality it’s sort of a gray area and I doubt many people report it that way. I wrote more thoughts on this in a dedicated post.

In the end, business owners will have to do the math to see if it makes sense for them. For example, a business owner who doesn’t have cash-flow issues won’t find it as enticing as one who does.

Our Verdict

The standard fee on Plastiq is 2.5% making this bonus a whopping $250 value; not bad for signing up with a bill payment service. Of course, not everyone will be eligible due to the business requirement and not everyone will have $10,000 in bills to pay. There was a similar offer in November, though this one is significantly better with a higher bonus and lower spend requirement.

This deal works well with any large spend requirement you have. For example, the Capital One Spark business card offers a substantial $2,000/2,000 bonus when meeting $50,000 in spend. Since that card always earns 2%/2x back, your net cost is just ~.5% on the initial $10,000 in spend. And then you’ll get another free $10,000 Plastiq spend afterward, bringing you 40% of the way toward meeting the total $50,000 spend requirement. Same idea for any large spend needs you have.

From what I’m told by Plastiq, the main qualification here is to use a business card for the bill payments; that will qualify you for the $10,000 FFD bonus. This signup offer is meant for businesses, so you might have to also input during signup that you’re a business. (On the signup page, they’ll ask “who will you be making payments for?” and if you’re a business signup the answer would be “my company” or “both”.)

Please do not share referral links in the comments here, you can leave them in this dedicated page. Check out our full review of Plastiq here.

If you have any issues with the bonus or want to confirm that it’s attached to your account after signing up, you can reach out to Plastiq directly at marketing@plastiq.com. at service@plastiq.com or via chat. You can tell them you signed up with referral code 264014.
    Chuck
  • On February 20, 2019, 15:21

View Comments (60)

  • thx for all.

    any data points on whether it is limited to specific currency, USD or also CAD or even a mix.

    I received the offer and have issued payments in both currencies for a total of 10,000 in charges (4,000 CAD and 6000 USD)

    thx

  • @chucksithe @will Hi. I signed up using your referral link and my bonus posted today. Just wanted to let you know in case you needed to follow up to receive your referrer bonus. Thanks.

  • I signed up using DoC’s referral link in the post and Plastiq marketing confirmed that the promo was attached to my account via email. Completed the $10k in payments but the FFD still have not posted. Reached out to the marketing team multiple times but have not received a response. Any advice?

    • @guest_755553 Can you try the ordinary customer service channel (chat or service@plastiq.com) and see what happens? It appears the person who was monitoring that marketing email address is no longer with Plastiq. I'm working with our contact to find out the best path for readers going forward.

  • I signed up using the referral code in this post. Confirmed by email that I should get 10K in FFD. Meet the requirements and never got the bonus. Even contacted the person who in charge of my account, but got no response at all.Looks like total scam to me.

    • I signed-up, and submitted a payment of 10k using a business card. Confirmed via chat that I am eligible and the bonus is attached and I should receive FFDs 2 days after meeting the requirements.

      No bonus was issued and so I contacted again. This time I was told that the payment needs to be deposited by the receiver for the bonus to be issued. Waited for check to be deposited and still no bonus. So I opened a case and couple of days later received the FFDs.

      I don't know if my referrer has already received their 10k FFDs or if they would also need to contact Plastiq support to receive them.

      Overall, this promo wasn't as smooth as their previous ones from last year.

      • As a referrer I can say that previously the big business bonuses needed manual updating. Over the past couple of months, I've gotten a few business referrals bonuses without manual request, though I'm not entirely sure if it always works or just sometimes. Perhaps it works when the rep is manually adjusting for the new member, they sometimes remember to manually adjust for the referrer as well.

      • here is the chat transcript confirming the bonus after account opening:
        Chat started on 17 Jan 2019, 09:01 PM (GMT+0)
        (09:01:55) *** ALEX joined the chat ***
        (09:01:55) ALEX : i just signed up with promo code and want to make sure that I get $10,000 FFDs after spending $10,000
        (09:01:57) Service Bot: Thanks for reaching out to live chat. An agent will join this chat shortly and assist you. (AUTO RESPONSE)
        (09:02:11) *** Paul joined the chat ***
        (09:02:31) Paul: please confirm your email address and I'll be happy to look for you
        (09:03:14) ALEX : *************

        (09:03:16) Paul: thanks. one moment please
        (09:05:19) Paul: Thanks for your patience. I can confirm that you added a referral code for that promotion. once the required payment threshold is met, the FFD credits will be awarded. thanks for joining !
        (09:05:53) ALEX : it is $10,000 in FFDs, correct?
        (09:05:54) Paul: Our business team is happy to provide more information about the perks of business payments with Plastiq
        (09:06:02) Paul: correct
        (09:06:08) ALEX : thank you
        (09:06:15) Paul: You're welcome
        (09:06:43) *** ALEX has rated the chat Good ***
        (09:06:43) *** ALEX left the chat ***

        • What date did you open the account? If you opened it after the promo stated, contact the marketing team using the instructions at the end of the post.

          • i opened using the link from this web site on 01/17/2019 with the promotion to hit $10K in spending before 03/31/2019.

          • @guest_741502 Try using the email address noted at the end of the post to follow up on this. If you're still having issues, send me an email (chuck@doctorofcredit) and try getting this resolved.

      • I contacted couple days ago. Sent the chat transcript confirming bonus. Here is the reply from plastiq:

        Hello Alex,

        As per my last email, we can confirm that you opened this account prior to the start date of this promotion. In this case, we cannot credit your account for this promotion bonus as you do not meet the requirements for this promotion. My apologies for any confusion caused by my associate's miscommunication in your attached chat.

        Thanks for reaching out! Please feel free to contact us again if you're ever experiencing difficulty with a payment or want further insight. I'm more than happy to be of service.
        —
        Kevin
        Plastiq Inc.

  • Is using a business card a prerequisite for this new offer or is it simply required that it be a business payment (I e made from a business account)? It does not state in the terms and I know plenty of people who use personal cards for business. How does plastiq know that a card is a business card?

  • Many people saying they've reached out to verify if they can refer someone who had an existing account - report back your findings already!

  • So here goes my analysis of this offer utilizing two player mode. Feel free to punch holes. I am very tempted:

    I refer from my account to my wifes new business account (she has a personal so I am emailing to confirm her eligibility).

    Spend $10,000 by May 31st pay fees of 2.5% or $250. It looks from comments this should be only with business cards? To pay our larger payments like a car payment or mortgage this needs to be a MasterCard business card, of which I cannot find many, so say on a citi Aadvantage business mastercard? That gets 10,000 aa miles for $250 or $0.025 a point. Thats not something anyone would normally do I think, but its not horrible.

    Then you get $10,000 spending in the refer from account and it looks like this is in addition to the normal referral offer of $1000 fee-free dollars for a normal referral and $500 spend. The referred to account gets $500 fee-free dollars plus $10,000 fee-free dollars in business account.

    So pay $250 fees, then you get to spend 10,000 (on business mastercard so less valuable to me) + 10,000 + 1,000 + 500 + 10,000 = 31,500 in spending on Plastiq

    250/31,500 = 0.00794 or 0.794%..

    MS or paying bills I normally can not use a credit card on for 0.794% seems pretty good, even if the first $10,000 spend has to effectively be on a business mastercard.

    Any better business mastercards to get a better value on Plastiq spending I am not thinking about my wife could apply for?

  • I signed up using the referral code in this post. As others have mentioned, the website was displaying only a FFD offer of $500 after $500 spent. I contacted the email to double check that the full 10k promotion was attached to the account, and they confirmed. Just in case anyone else was unsure based on what the website was displaying.

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