Rho vs Relay: Which Business Bank Fits?

Choosing a business bank usually comes down to one question: what do you have to do to get the good stuff? Rho and Relay answer that question in almost opposite ways, and neither answer is wrong.

Rho is a fintech company built around a single no-fee business banking platform, where its highest card rewards tier is unlocked by concentrating more of your financial activity with Rho rather than by paying a subscription.

Rho is a fintech company, not a bank or an FDIC-insured depository institution. Checking account and card services provided by Webster Bank, a division of Santander Bank, N.A. Member FDIC.

Relay, by contrast, sells its higher-value features (a bigger savings APY, higher card cashback, and automation tools) as paid upgrades on top of a genuinely capable free tier.

Below, we break down fees, account limits, savings rates, card rewards, and FDIC coverage for both. Then we give you a straightforward rule for picking one.

Rho vs Relay at a Glance

Monthly Fees: Free Forever vs. Pay-to-Unlock Tiers

Rho's checking accounts carry $0 monthly fees, $0 per-user fees, and $0 minimum-balance fees, with no paid tier to graduate into. Domestic ACH transfers, wires, and checks are also $0.

Relay's Starter plan is free too, and it is not a stripped-down trial. But Relay's more advanced functionality sits behind paid plans: Grow runs $30 a month and Scale runs $90 a month (recently reduced from $120).

Here's the catch.

Relay's cheapest paid tier adds recurring invoices, bookkeeping automations, multi-step approval rules, and batch vendor payments, features a growing team will likely want. Scale adds bill-payment automation, cash-flow forecasting, fee-free same-day ACH, and faster phone and email support.

In practice, Relay's $0 tier covers basic checking well. The operational tooling that helps a growing business run its finances sits behind a paid plan, while Rho doesn't gate any of its core functionality behind a subscription.

Checking Accounts and Sub-Account Limits

If you want a lot of sub-accounts for envelope-style budgeting (separating payroll, taxes, marketing, and runway into distinct buckets), Relay's structure is built for that. Its Starter and Grow plans include up to 20 checking accounts per business, and Scale goes up to 50.

One detail worth knowing: every Relay account shares a single routing number (084106768, via Thread Bank), with each individual account getting its own unique account number rather than its own routing number.

That's a common structure for multi-account fintech platforms, and it doesn't affect FDIC coverage math on its own.

Rho doesn't publish a comparable per-plan sub-account cap in the way Relay does, since it has no paid tiers gating account creation in the first place.

A business that wants dozens of free sub-accounts for granular cash-flow separation will find Relay's tiered structure more purpose-built for that use case today.

Business Savings: Tiered APY vs. Relationship-Based Rate

Relay's savings APY is tiered by plan: 1.11% on Starter, 1.75% on Grow, and 3.00% on Scale, as of Sept 2, 2026. In other words, the top rate requires paying $90 a month. Relay also allows up to 2 savings accounts per business.

Rho Business Savings works differently. It requires a $25,000 average monthly balance to earn interest, with interest accruing daily and posting on the 5th business day of the month. Withdrawals are capped at 6 per month, with no limit on transfers in.

What that means in practice: Rho's rate isn't gated behind a subscription tier, but current savings APY changes and isn't something we'll hardcode here. Check the live number at rho.co/business-savings before making a decision either way.

Corporate Card Rewards: Plan-Gated Cashback vs. Platinum Status

Relay's business credit card, the Relay Visa Credit Card, pays cash back tied directly to your plan: 1% on Starter, 1.25% on Grow, and 1.5% on Scale. It carries no annual fee, reports to commercial credit bureaus, and is currently invitation-only for U.S.-incorporated businesses.

Rho's Corporate Card works on a different lever entirely. Up to 2% Cashback with Rho Platinum (terms apply) is the top published rate on card spend.

That top rate is reached by concentrating more of a company's card, banking, and payroll activity with Rho, rather than by paying a monthly fee. Cashback applies to up to $1,000,000 in eligible card spend per calendar year.

Here's the structural difference in one line: Relay charges you a subscription to unlock a better rate. Rho asks you to consolidate more of your financial stack with them instead. Neither is a trick; they're just different mechanisms for the same idea: rewarding your best customers.

FDIC Coverage and Deposit Protection

Both platforms are fintech companies, not banks, so their FDIC coverage runs through partner bank arrangements rather than a banking charter of their own.

Rho checking coverage is $250,000 per entity, not per account. That means if you open multiple secondary checking accounts under one Rho entity, they share that single $250,000 ceiling.

Rho's savings product works differently. It sweeps deposits across a network of 400+ FDIC- and NCUA-insured institutions, reaching up to $75,000,000 in coverage capacity per entity, with no single institution holding more than $250,000.

FDIC insurance coverage is only available to protect you against the failure of an FDIC-insured bank that holds your deposit; it does not protect you against the failure of Rho.

Here's how Relay's coverage compares.

Relay's deposits are FDIC-insured through Thread Bank's insured cash sweep program, covering up to $3,000,000 total, with $250,000 per program bank.

That's a smaller coverage ceiling than Rho's savings sweep capacity, though it's worth noting Rho's $75,000,000 figure is a network capacity rather than a contractually guaranteed cap.

On cash deposits specifically, Relay customers can deposit cash for free at Allpoint+ ATMs (55,000+ locations), or for a fee of up to $4.95 at more than 90,000 Green Dot Network retailers. That's a real option for businesses handling physical cash that a fully cardless setup wouldn't offer.

Which Business Should Choose Rho, and Which Should Choose Relay

Neither platform's model is objectively better. They're just built for different founders.

Choose Relay if you want many free checking sub-accounts for granular cash-flow separation, a Profit First-style setup, for example, and you're willing to pay a monthly fee as you scale to unlock a higher savings rate and automation tools.

It's also the better fit if you have real use for cash deposits at retail locations.

Choose Rho if you want one no-fee account structure with no tiers to climb, and you're comfortable consolidating more of your banking, card, and payroll activity with a single provider in exchange for a higher card rewards tier.

To be fair to Relay: its tiered multi-account structure, up to 50 free checking sub-accounts on Scale plus a savings APY reaching 3.00%, is a well-executed product for founders who want that kind of granular organization without opening accounts at multiple banks.

Rho doesn't offer sub-accounts in that same form today.