Mesh Payments Review: How Does The Mesh Card Stack Up?

Pros

• Available to all business types
• No monthly fees
• 1% cash back on card purchases
• Virtual and physical cards for employees

Cons

• Minimum $50K/month spending required
• Debit cards only — no credit option
• Foreign transaction fees

What Is Mesh Payments?

Mesh Payments is an all-in-one spend management platform featuring physical and virtual debit corporate cards for employees.

In addition to customizable spend controls and a consistent cashback rate, Mesh includes automations designed to save time and money. You’ll also find global travel management tools, including AI-enabled spend management, multicurrency options, and expense reporting.

Will a Mesh card give your business the spending flexibility it needs? When you put it all together, Mesh offers a solid lineup of spend management features, but with its 1% cash back rate, you can earn more spending rewards with a number of competitors in this space. Accordingly, Mesh Payments gets an average 3.5/5 overall score.

What Are Corporate Credit Cards?

Mesh offers a corporate card to help small businesses tie together all their financials.

Not sure what a corporate card really is — or whether you need one for your small business? Merchant Maverick’s CEO covers the basics in this video.

Mesh Card Rewards & Perks

Mesh faces stiff competition in both the corporate card and expense-management fields. Both areas are increasingly competitive, with fintech newcomers like Brex and Ramp offering eye-popping cash back rewards of up to 8x on all business spending.

Mesh Payments can’t match those top cash back rates, but gives its cardholders 1% cash back on all purchases made using the Mesh Visa debit card. Though this rate means we have to give Mesh a low 2/5 rating in the Rewards category, it’s unusual to see a debit card with cashback rewards at all.

Mesh claims that its users typically see a 3% annual payment savings when they switch to Mesh. Users also reportedly save the equivalent of seven days each month on monthly accounting tasks, thanks to Mesh’s expense controls, automations, and integrations.

Here is an overview of the rewards Mesh delivers:

• Cash Back: You’ll earn 1% cash back rewards on all purchases made with your company’s Mesh debit cards. Redeeming Mesh rewards is simple: They post automatically to your account.
• Partner Rewards: Access to $100K in special discounts and offers from Mesh partners. These include 20% off airport lounge access through Priority Pass, 30% off a 6-month subscription to QuickBooks, and a $5,000 credit with Amazon Web Services.
• Real-Time Insights: When you pay with your Mesh card, you’ll be alerted to savings opportunities that can reduce expenses.

Mesh Card Pricing & Fees

Mesh cards are prepaid or debit cards, allowing you to access funds loaded or deposited to your balance. Funds are FDIC-insured by Metropolitan Commercial Bank and do not accrue any interest.

When I located the Mesh card’s fee schedule, I saw almost nothing but zeros. Mesh charges no fees for obtaining and activating cards, no monthly usage fees, no fees for adding money via ACH or wire transfer, and no fees added to purchases. Accordingly, Mesh earns an excellent 4.5/5 rating in this category.

In addition, Mesh Payment’s built-in suite of tools for expense management and spend control is available for free.

If your business involves significant foreign travel, be aware that Mesh charges foreign transaction fees but does not disclose the fees upfront. You’ll be charged a foreign transaction fee in addition to a currency conversion rate. That could make Mesh an expensive payment option overseas.

While a standard Mesh subscription entails no monthly fees, the company now offers a Premium subscription ($10/user/month) and an Enterprise subscription (quote-based pricing) for those seeking an even higher level of spend management features and benefits. Sadly, Mesh doesn’t detail what these extra features are.

Eligibility Requirements

Mesh Payments lists one simple eligibility requirement: Only US-based businesses and merchants are eligible to apply. Other than that, I was not able to find any restrictions. Although Mesh may ask for your Social Security number as part of the application, it’s used only for identification purposes.

When I requested a Mesh demo by entering my contact information on the website, I received a call from a friendly and knowledgeable Mesh rep early the next business day.

She asked me several general screening questions about my company’s structure and spending habits and then informed me that because Mesh wants to remain completely free to standard users, it’s available only to companies that plan to spend a minimum of $50,000-$100,000/month on the Mesh card.

That’s because Mesh makes its money off interchange fees, charging merchants a small percentage of every sale made using a Mesh card.

Although the Mesh rep let me know that my company would not be eligible for a Mesh account, she offered suggestions for rival cards that would be a good fit — an unexpected, classy, and helpful move.

Considering that many competing corporate card programs have steep revenue and/or cash-on-hand requirements that Mesh lacks, we’re giving the company a strong 4.2/5 rating here.

Mesh Card Features

Mesh holds its own against its competitors in the features category, earning an outstanding 4.7/5 category score. Take a look at this overview:

For starters, a Mesh payment account comes with unlimited physical and virtual Visa debit cards for you and your employees. You can also assign a single Mesh card to each vendor you work with.

Admins can set custom limits on each card and see continuous payment insights that eliminate redundancies and highlight savings opportunities. You can approve, track, and manage corporate payments in real-time, via email, text, or Slack alerts. Mesh helps simplify expense reporting and eliminates the need for reimbursements.

Note that while Mesh Payments gives users a prepaid debit card, Mesh is not a bank. Funds deposited with Mesh are FDIC-insured by Metropolitan Commercial Bank. You can access the funds in your Mesh balance by using your card or virtual card, by ACH debit using an account number assigned to you, or by writing a pre-funded check obtained from Mesh itself.

Funds in your account do not expire, although the cards you are issued will have an expiration date just like any other credit or debit card.

The maximum total deposit for Mesh accounts is $10 million, with a daily purchase maximum of $10 million. You can load up to $20,000 each day to a Mesh card. ACH and wire transfers are limited to $10 million per day. Mesh accounts are capped at $10 million total at any given time.

Customer Service

Mesh Payments offers a satisfying range of support options, including 24/7 phone support and a guaranteed response to ticket submissions within 24 hours. Our search of reviews from Mesh users did not uncover any widespread dissatisfaction with Mesh customer support.

Mesh users active on Capterra’s review site give Mesh an average of 4.9/5 stars in the customer service category. On the Software Advice website, Mesh customer service earned 5/5 stars.

Mesh Payments Reviews

I searched for Mesh card user reviews and found mostly positive comments online. Of course, not all user feedback was positive, but in the negative reviews I saw, I spotted no patterns of complaints that raised serious red flags for me.

We decided to take a look at what Mesh Payments reviews can tell us, including both the good and the bad. We visited Capterra (5/5 average score from 17 reviews), Software Advice (4.9/5 average score from 17 reviews), the Apple App Store (4.3/5 out of 19 reviews), and the Google Play Store (just 1.7/5 out of 18 reviews, but little user feedback) to look for real Mesh users’ thoughts.

Is Mesh Payments Safe?

Mesh uses 256-bit Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption to protect users’ data. Information is stored in secured data centers that use state-of-the-art electronic surveillance, tokenization, and multi-factor access control systems.

Additionally, Mesh products comply with global data protection and privacy laws, including the GDPR. Mesh has received a SOC 2 Type II report indicating that it has the appropriate controls to mitigate security and confidentiality risks. These include external auditing, PCI compliance as a Level 1 Service Provider, and WAF and DDoS protections.

How Does The Mesh Card Compare To The Alternatives?

As we’ve said, the Mesh card is a debit card, not a corporate/business credit card. However, since the corporate card issuers in this space offer a similar suite of spend and expense management services, it’s helpful to illustrate the differences here.

The corporate credit cards offered by Brex and BILL Spend & Expense (formerly Divvy) offer strong money management while offering up to 7x-8x rewards in select purchase categories. That, combined with the fact that you get an actual credit line, means that these cards will likely appeal to a wider range of businesses than does the Mesh card.

Likewise, as we note in our Ramp review, this corporate credit card offers 1.5% cash back on all purchases while offering a great set of spend management tools and savings insights. If your business meets Ramp’s cash-on-hand requirement (you must have at least $75K in the bank), you may get more out of Ramp than you will with Mesh.

Final Verdict: Is Mesh Payments Worth It?

Overall, Mesh is a solid expense management platform that deserves a closer look if you’re in the market for spend-management tools combined with a corporate debit card that lets you monitor and manage employee spending.

While it’s true that Mesh offers a lower cashback rate than some other corporate cards, the fact that you see any cashback rewards on a debit card is impressive. Mesh’s 1% reward rate isn’t bad, especially because Mesh encourages you to use the card to pay for regular recurring expenses like software subscriptions.

If you’re a US-based business with spending that comes in at or higher than Mesh’s target of $50K/month, you’ll find a lot to like here. The expense and spend management tools are impressive, the platform is easy to use, and some innovative solutions like the Plug & Pay card could ease your management headaches significantly.

The caveat to this is that many competing companies in this space give you the flexibility of an actual credit line and a higher rate of spending rewards while providing comparable expense management features.

Of course, we never recommend a corporate card without also suggesting you take steps to set strong policies for card usage. Check out our suggestions for creating a corporate card policy before you hand out your new corporate cards.

Corporate Card Review Methodology

Merchant Maverick has been researching and reviewing business credit cards and corporate cards since 2018. Our writers have evaluated over sixty different business card products. In each corporate card review, we evaluate rewards and perks, rates and fees, features, eligibility requirements, customer service, and user reviews. Read more about how we rate corporate cards.

Note: We use a different credit card rating methodology to evaluate traditional business credit cards, as they often differ from corporate cards in benefits, qualifications, and use cases.

When comparing corporate cards, we consider many data points, including the specifics of cash back and spending rewards, the presence of annual fees, the breadth and flexibility of reward redemption options, revenue and time in business qualifications, credit score requirements, and extra perks. Our lists of the best corporate cards include only those we’ve deemed worthwhile from multiple vantage points and often share qualities such as widespread availability, low fees, competitive rewards, and reasonable revenue, cash-on-hand, and time in business requirements.

We spend an average of 10-15 hours researching and updating each one of our lists, making sure the corporate cards included meet our internal standards for quality and reputation.

Featured Free Corporate Card

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Ramp offers a free corporate card for virtually any business. Start earning rewards with your corporate spending today. Get your free card.

Featured Free Corporate Card

Ramp	Apply Now Read our Review

Ramp offers a free corporate card for virtually any business. Start earning rewards with your corporate spending today. Get your free card.