Rho Credit Card Review

Pros

• Corporate card program with up to 1.25% cash back
• FDIC-insured commercial banking with checking and treasury accounts
• Automated no-fee accounts payable
• No personal guarantee required

Cons

• Competing corporate cards offer more spending rewards
• Low APY of 0.01% for checking and treasury accounts
• No ATM access
• Revenue/investment requirements won’t suit smaller businesses

What Is The Rho Corporate Card?

The Rho corporate card is part of Rho’s suite of banking services. While Rho is not a bank itself (its services are backed by partner banks), its banking services are aimed to compete against more traditional banks. Rho’s pitch is that it offers “intuitive” and “faster” banking.

Rho offers three main services:

• Corporate cards
• Commercial banking (with checking and treasury accounts)
• Accounts payable

This review will focus primarily on Rho’s corporate card program. While Rho’s platform provides several handy cash management and bill payment services, its relatively low cash back rate places it behind most of the top corporate credit cards. Accordingly, Rho earns a decent — but not spectacular — 3.8/5 overall score for its corporate card.

Rho Corporate Card Rewards & Perks

Rho’s previous policy had been to tie your cash back rate to the frequency with which you pay off your card. However, under Rho’s new policy, all new cardholders get daily repayment terms and 1.25% cash back on all purchases. Rho users can then apply for monthly credit terms, though Rho no longer states whether or not this affects your cash back rate.

Additionally, when you get a Rho corporate card, you’ll be enrolled in Mastercard’s World Elite Business program, which offers 4% cash back at select hotels and restaurants along with discounts and rebates with multiple partner services, including:

• 5% cash back on car rentals with Budget and Avis
• 5% rebate on Microsoft Advertising
• 20% off on Dropbox
• 10% rebate on all McAfee purchases
• 25% rebate on AT&T Business Fiber

All told, Rho’s base cash back rate of 1.25% puts it behind most other cards in the corporate card space, which is why we’re only giving Rho’s credit card a 2.9/5 category rating here.

Rho Pricing & Fees

Rho is mostly fee-free and has no pricing tiers. This lack of fees contributed to our score of 4.5/5 in this category.

You won’t pay any of these fees:

• ACH
• Same-day ACH
• Domestic wire
• International USD wire
• Bill pay
• Additional card/user
• Card transactions (including foreign transactions)

However, be on the look-out for a couple of fees, including:

• 1% FX fees for non-US currencies
• Wire recall fee of $30

Eligibility Requirements

Rho doesn’t post stringent credit requirements for prospective companies. You also won’t need to worry about a personal guarantee or collateral requirements when applying for a Rho account. These factors could make Rho a great option for some companies.

However, with Rho’s steep revenue/investment requirements, Rho is geared toward a certain type of high-powered business or startup. Smaller businesses may need to look elsewhere for a bundled business banking account and corporate card solution.

Additionally, some companies may be declined for a Rho account because it operates in a high-risk industry. Rho defines high-risk industries as:

• Betting, casino gaming chips, etc.
• Adult dating and/or escort services
• Drug stores, pharmacies, and cannabis
• Drugs, proprietaries, and sundries
• Stamp and coin stores
• Quasi-cash, currency, money orders, traveler’s checks
• Pawnshops
• Bail and bond payments

These limitations lowered our score for eligibility requirements to 3.4/5.

Rho Business Banking Features

Rho’s feature set is built around making banking easier and faster for businesses. It’s part of the company’s stated mission to modernize the banking industry.

What modern features can Rho offer startups and small businesses? Let’s first break down how Rho stacks up against standard corporate card and banking features:

Beyond those standard features, Rho offers several other features through its services, including:

• Global Payments: You can take advantage of unlimited and fee-free USD wires to 161 countries as well as foreign transactions (with a 1% fee) via 38 global currencies.
• Digital Wallets: The Rho card can be added to both Google Wallet and Apple Wallet for making contactless payments.
• Auto-Synced Accounting: Rho features a native QuickBooks integration and supports Sage and Wave via Plaid. Auto-syncing allows you to easily reconcile purchases the moment an employee swipes a Rho card. On top of that, employees can digitally upload receipts, and Rho will categorize purchases automatically.
• Spending Categories: Besides smart limits, admins can set limits on spending amounts and spending categories for each employee.
• Higher, Stable Credit Limits: Rho claims that customers can receive higher credit limits that won’t fluctuate. According to Rho, the company’s underwriting process — which looks at annual revenue, cash on hand, growth metrics, predictive analytics, and “non-traditional” data points — may offer some customers higher credit limits than elsewhere. Additionally, your credit limit won’t be determined via a percentage of your current cash, allowing for a more stable and consistent credit limit.
• Custom Logos: Your company’s Rho card can be tailored with a custom logo.

Lastly, Rho offers multiple ways to add money to your account, although each method has different processing times:

Customer Service

Rho’s customer service options are available from 8 AM to 9 PM EST.

Rho assigns specialists to every client to provide customers with “high-touch, one-on-one support.” A solid number of support options paired with high-quality support contributed to our customer service rating of 4/5.

Rho Corporate Card Reviews

Because Rho is fairly new on the scene, there aren’t many customer reviews around. With the limited scope of customer opinions, we reached out to a couple of Rho customers to get their thoughts. Here’s what one user told us:

Rho’s customer service is nothing short of incredible. Anytime I’ve had a question they get immediately back to me with insightful answers. Every interaction I’ve had with them, they’ve come across as very professional and a huge help to grow my business. I love their cash back on every purchase card the most. — Kenny Rose, founder and CEO of FranShares

Another user said this:

Rho Business Banking is excellent. Their customer service is responsive, easy to understand, and everything works in line with my requirements. I have been pleased with their attention to detail including finding solutions for my logistical issues within minutes. The only con would be the limits on international wire transfers. This can become challenging to navigate around when dealing in larger amounts. — Sara Bernier, founder of Born for Pets

Is Rho Safe?

While Rho is a fairly new company, its services are backed by reputable and longstanding banks.

Rho’s banking accounts are offered through Sterling National Bank and Evolve Bank & Trust, both FDIC members. The checking and treasury accounts are FDIC insured (up to $250,000 for the checking account and $75 million for the treasury account).

Sterling National Bank issues the Rho corporate card. The card operates on the Mastercard network, which provides fraud protection and standard credit card protection.

Final Verdict: Is The Rho Credit Card Worth It?

Whether Rho is worth it will depend on your business. Businesses that meet the revenue/equity investment requirements and can pay off the Rho corporate card daily (to get the 1.25% cash back rate) will particularly benefit from Rho. Businesses with irregular cash flows may also benefit from Rho’s flexible repayment terms.

However, smaller businesses may not see much benefit — in fact, they may not qualify for a Rho account in the first place.

The main problem with Rho is that several competitors in the corporate card space, including Brex, Ramp, and BILL Spend & Expense, will see you earning more rewards for your business spending while offering a similar suite of expense management features.

As an alternative, if you want a handy spending instrument for you and your employees and you don’t need a full expense management suite, check out the best business credit 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.

The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆

Rho	Visit Site

After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see Rho for yourself.

The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆

Rho	Visit Site

After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see Rho for yourself.