PEX Card Review

Pros

• No annual or monthly fees for PEX Visa Commercial Cards
• Spend controls
• Employee cards
• Expense management tools
• Full API access

Cons

• Low 1% cash back rate
• Limits on free employee prepaid cards
• No ATM access
• Foreign transaction fees may apply

What Is A PEX Card?

PEX is a financial product that includes corporate spending cards along with spend management and expense control tools. This PEX review will look into PEX pricing, features, perks, and more to help you decide if the PEX card is what your business needs.

PEX once offered only prepaid spending cards, but it now offers a “non-revolving line of credit” card in the form of the PEX Credit Expense program. PEX includes virtual and physical cards and can be added to digital wallets.

Since we’re evaluating PEX primarily on the strength of its corporate cards, the fact that PEX only offers up to 1% cash back for your purchases puts it squarely behind the best corporate credit cards.

PEX may be easier to access than some corporate card competitors, but PEX positions Credit Expense for entities with $5 million to $50 million in annual revenue. Smaller businesses may be a better fit for PEX Prepaid Expense, which is positioned for entities with $1 million+ in annual revenue.

PEX Rewards & Perks

PEX Credit Expense offers up to 1% back on qualifying purchases, including eligible Visa Virtual Vendor Card spend.

While it’s nice that an entry-level corporate card program offers cash back at all, PEX’s rebate of up to 1% on qualifying purchases — and its lack of partner perks and rebates — places it behind competitors like Brex, BILL Spend & Expense (formerly Divvy), Ramp, and even Rho.

PEX may offer promotional bonuses from time to time, but current bonus availability should be confirmed directly with PEX.

You can link PEX to other software products, including integrations with Zapier and QuickBooks. Some PEX users will also have full API access for customization, depending on their subscription level.

Pricing & Fees

Here are the fees you’ll face with PEX Credit Expense, PEX’s primary corporate card product.

While PEX’s corporate card is nearly fee-free, PEX’s prepaid card program charges $0/month for BASE accounts, $75/month for CORE accounts, and $200/month for PRO accounts, with the latter two account types offering exclusive features.

Nonprofits can get discounted pricing for the latter two prepaid card accounts — $30/month and $80/month respectively.

Each prepaid plan tier includes a different combination of features in categories like live expense management, PEX Data Engine, team management tools, scalability, training, and support.

PEX Disburse starts at $399.95 and includes the first 50 cards free.

Eligibility Requirements

PEX products are available to US-based companies, though availability varies by product. Credit Expense is available to US-based companies except in Nevada and is positioned for entities with $5 million to $50 million in annual revenue.

PEX does not list a cash reserve or personal credit score requirement.

PEX says it does not perform credit checks on your company or business owner and does not report company activity to credit reporting bureaus.

The application process only takes about five minutes. PEX says complete applications are typically reviewed within 1-3 business days.

Once approved, you’ll be able to order PEX cards for yourself and employees (up to 200 of them with the commercial card program) right away. Physical cards arrive within 8-10 business days, with expedited service available for a fee. PEX for digital wallets and virtual card payment options can be used to access funds sooner.

PEX does not list a general cash reserve requirement for Credit Expense, but product limits and funding rules vary by program.

PEX Credit Expense Cards are intended for business purchases and may not be used to pay employment wages, labor wages, consultant/advisory fees, or commissions.

PEX Features

PEX delivers all the features you’d expect to see in a full-stack payment platform, resulting in a 4/5 rating for this category. As a corporate card, PEX performs well, too, with one glaring exception. As the company states, a PEX Visa Commercial Card (the card you get with the PEX Credit Expense program) is not a credit card. Rather, it is a card that lets you draw from a non-revolving line of credit.

PEX currently has three main programs: Credit Expense, Prepaid Expense, and Disburse. Credit Expense covers commercial card spending and vendor payments; Prepaid Expense covers workforce/field spending, petty cash, per diems, and stipends; Disburse covers grant disbursement, employee rewards, and customer incentives.

Here are some of the features PEX delivers:

• Employee Cards: With PEX Credit Expense, you’ll get up to 200 employee cards, free of charge. With PEX’s prepaid card program, how many cards you can get depends on your subscription tier. The base plan, BASE, includes up to 5 employee cards, each with its own customizable limits. The top-tier PRO plan includes up to 100 cards. Additional prepaid cards are available for a fee.
• Receipt Capture & Approval: Use the PEX app to capture and upload pictures of receipts. Employee cardholders can add notes with purchase details and codes to ease review and approvals.
• PEX Requests: Employees can use the PEX app to submit detailed requests for additional funding.
• Receipt Export: With Xero and QuickBooks integrations available, it’s easy to reconcile expenses. If you use other financial software, you can export CSV files.
• Spend Controls: Set expense policies to control where and how employees spend funds. You can choose automated spending rules or customize them for each employee, restricting merchant categories or setting daily spending limits. You can also set and fund per diem limits, with unspent funds reverting to the main account each day.
• Triggered Transfers: For PEX prepaid-style programs, employees cannot spend more than the available balance on their cards. You can fund their cards by scheduled automatic transfers or triggered automatic transfers when a card balance has been spent down to a specified amount.
• Nonprofit Plans: Nonprofits can save more than 50% off subscription pricing and access most of the same features, including strong team management tools.
• Grants & Rewards: As mentioned earlier, PEX supports employee incentive and rewards programs as well as grant programs, with tools that make it easier to disburse funds via reloadable cards. Additional setup and other fees apply. Balance limits for Disburse cards should be confirmed in the applicable program terms or directly with PEX.

For PEX prepaid-style programs, cards can be funded through a PEX account by ACH or wire transfer. Here’s how long it will take for the money you transfer to become available to you in your PEX account:

Transfers from your PEX account to employees’ cards take place in real-time and will be available immediately unless you set different funding parameters.

Customer Service

PEX offers customer support and self-help resources, including FAQs and a knowledgebase.

You’ll also find self-help resources, including FAQs and a knowledgebase. The chatbot engages automatically when you visit the PEX website, and I was able to use it to find the answers I was looking for in the course of this PEX review.

You’ll also find PEX on Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

PEX Reviews

PEX has been accredited with the Better Business Bureau since 2011 and maintains an A+ rating. Six complaints have been filed over the last three years.

PEX also has a 4.9/5 star rating on Capterra, based on 40+ user reviews, and 4.6/5 stars on G2, based on 190+ reviews.

The mobile apps for PEX are rated highly, too.

Is PEX Safe?

PEX Credit Expense terms limit customer liability for unauthorized use of a Credit Expense Card to $50 in some cases, but that limitation may be waived if the customer has requested ten or more Credit Expense Cards. Businesses should review the applicable cardholder terms for unauthorized-use protections.

All PEX cards can be deactivated and blocked instantly through the PEX admin site or the mobile app. That’s helpful in case of employee turnover or if a card is lost or stolen.

The PEX Visa® Prepaid Card, PEX Disburse Visa® Prepaid Card, and PEX Visa® Commercial Card are issued by Fifth Third Bank, N.A., Member FDIC, or The Bancorp Bank, N.A., Member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. They are not credit cards.

How Does The PEX Card Compare To Other Cards?

Before we compare PEX with some top alternatives, bear in mind two things:

• Unlike PEX, the following corporate card alternatives are credit cards
• These corporate cards have more stringent eligibility requirements than PEX

Final Verdict: Is PEX Worth It?

PEX offers a different kind of corporate card. It may be a good choice for companies that experience high turnover or want to put limits on employee spending, either by category, by dollar limits, or with per diem funding that resets each day.

PEX may appeal to organizations that need commercial or prepaid spending cards with spend controls but may not fit traditional corporate card requirements.

Of course, PEX has two obvious drawbacks: it does not offer a true credit card, and it only offers a maximum rewards rate of 1%. Do PEX’s other features, such as its nonprofit plans, easy eligibility requirements, and robust expense-management tools, make up for these drawbacks? That’s a decision only you can make, and you now have the information required to inform your decision.