Business Owners/Freelancers - What bank do you use?

[MrStash]

Good Morning. I haven't had my mind blown in a while so I guess this was in the making. I opened a US Bank Silver Checking account mid September for my new business, no monthly fees, no minimums, all of us serving you, blah blah. First time I deposit a $100 check? $6.00 Analysis Service Charge. From my brief research online I found that this is extremely widespread and they like to charge you random fees when your account balance is close to $0 in order to trigger overdraft fees.

I don't care why they are stealing my money so I'll not call them. I will not pay anybody a single cent for the privilege of lending my cash out at 25% while giving their customers 0.00001% on their savings accounts.

Question: all of you small business owners and freelancers on this wonderful site, what bank do you use? I'm fine with online banks as long as they are reliable and don't charge for mobile check deposits. Absolutely no fees. No monthly "maintenance" fees, no you deposited a check so you have to pay a fee, no you deposited cash so you need to pay a fee, no you wired money to a different bank so you have to pay a fee, no you transferred money to your personal account so you have to pay a fee, no you haven't done anything yet but you thought about it fee, and no it's Tuesday fee. This last one is important. No Tuesday fees!!

Suggestions?

[Fishindude]

Doesn't anyone walk into a bank building anymore and talk to a human?
I highly encourage doing business with hometown, locally owned smaller banks.

[Cpa Cat]

Doesn't anyone walk into a bank building anymore and talk to a human?
I highly encourage doing business with hometown, locally owned smaller banks.

Me too. There are several local banks that offer free small business checking accounts. But they're fairly basic accounts. Usually they don't offer features like mobile check deposits for free, or free direct deposit if you're running payroll through the account. I never use ATMs, but free business banking usually has ATM fees if you use other banks' ATMs. Whether they provide a checkbook for free is hit or miss.

But the basics of: I deposit money, I withdraw money, I transfer money, I download transactions to Quickbooks, I pay bills - it's all free.

[Vilgan]

The two online banks I use for personal stuff (USAA and Ally) don't offer business checking.

I did some research and eventually went with Chase for business checking. The initial decider was the fact that everything was free for veterans, but I've also been very impressed with their service in general. Online bill pay is great for paying sub contractors. They also have Quick Pay which is even easier and is essentially the same thing that Wells Fargo has been running a million ads about. I haven't seen anything shady and they have a lot of physical locations which is really nice. One thing to be aware of w/ online banks is that the they will frequently have limits on mobile deposits and any check over 10k can be tough to handle. By having a nearby Chase Branch, I'm able to deposit small checks using the mobile app and drive by to drop off larger checks. They can also do things like medallion signature guarantees at a local branch for customers for free - something that smaller banks and especially online banks can't handle.

Overall I've been extremely happy with Chase and plan on staying with them. I was assigned a banker when I created the account who has also been extremely helpful when I had questions or problems.

[Falke401]

I use 1st Bank for my business.  They are ok.  I mainly have it because they have a location close to me. 

[protostache]

I use and recommend EverBank. Their small business checking is free, and so far I haven't incurred any weird fees. The online banking is fine. Nothing special, but not completely broken like lots of credit union web apps. Their mobile app does check deposit, but other than that it's also pretty meh. I also have a business money market for rainy day funds, which doesn't pay much but it's not bad, and it's right there linked to the checking account.

All in all it's a decent, free account with my business's name on it. Nothing special, but then again I'm not paying for "special".