Frequently asked questions about Relay

Relay is a no-fee, online business banking and money management platform designed to help small businesses take control of their cash flow. With Relay, you can:

• Organize income, expenses and reserves using 20 accounts, including 2 savings accounts with 1-3% APY¹
• Issue up to 50 physical or virtual Visa® debit cards
• Send and receive ACH transfers and wires (checks coming soon)
• Deposit and withdraw cash at Allpoint ATMs
• Collect payment from tools like Stripe, Square, Shopify and more
• Use auto-transfer rules to move cash between accounts automatically
• Give team members and financial advisors secure, role-based banking access
• Get personalized customer support by email
• Each Relay account is FDIC insured through Thread Bank and Evolve Bank & Trust^2,3and covered by the Visa® Zero Liability Protection³ Policy.

Each Relay account is FDIC insured through Thread Bank and Evolve Bank & Trust^2,3 and covered by the Visa® Zero Liability Protection³ Policy.

Yes! Once your account is approved, you can create up to 20 accounts online with just a few clicks of your mouse. Set up accounts to earmark income for day-to-day operating expenses, payroll, taxes and more. You can automate the transfer of income into each checking account using dollar amounts or percentages.

Physical or virtual Visa® Debit cards can also be created online by you. Assign cards to the business or a specific team member. Physical cards can be shipped to any US or international address, arriving in 8-10 business days. Virtual cards can be used as instantly as they are created. You can set daily and monthly spending and ATM withdrawal limits for each card, as well.

U.S. corporations, LLCs, general partnerships and sole proprietors. We support business owners that are citizens and residents of over 200 countries around the world, including the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and many others—as long as the business has an operating presence in the U.S. However, if you are a citizen of one of the countries listed here Relay will not be able to serve your business.

Relay is unable to support any business that deals with provisioning and exchanging cryptocurrency, the sale of firearms or weapons, credit repair, privately owned ATMs, money services, unlawful internet gambling and cannabis sales.

Yes! Relay is the official banking platform for Profit First Professionals and is built to keep you on track with the Profit First method.

That’s because each business gets:

• Up to 20 real checking accounts (not just envelopes) with no account fees or minimum balance requirements.
• The ability to give each checking account a unique nickname (i.e., Income, Profit, Owner’s Pay, Taxes, Operating Expenses)
• Percent-based transfers between checking accounts
• Auto-transfer rules that can automate your Profit First allocations on a daily, weekly, twice-monthly or monthly basis
• Secure collaboration features that make it easy to get coaching from a Certified Profit First Professional inside Relay

To quote Mike Michalowicz, Creator of Profit First: “Relay is the only banking platform that I know of that supports Profit First right out of the box. It is so easy to set up. I would go to Relay immediately.”

Relay’s core banking features are free! We don’t charge account or overdraft fees—and we do not require a minimum balance. Core banking features include up to 20 checking accounts, 50 physical or virtual Visa® Debit cards and ACH transfers. We charge for outgoing domestic and international wires—$5 and $10, respectively. If you choose to convert an international wire payment into a recipient’s local currency then we apply a competitive exchange rate fee (as little as 1% per wire). All incoming wires are free.

Relay gets a portion of the merchant fee that Visa® applies each time you use your debit card. The merchant (or vendor) pays this fee—not you! We also earn interest on each customer’s balance; interest is paid to Relay by the Federal Reserve via our Partner Bank, Thread Bank, and is not paid by you.

You can use Relay on any web or mobile browser! You can also download the Relay mobile app onto your iPhone or Android.

You can deposit and withdraw cash from any Allpoint ATM for free. There are over 55,000 Allpoint ATMs across the United States.

You can also use any ATM in the world without getting charged a fee by Relay. However, it’s likely that the owners of out-of-network ATMs will charge you a withdrawal fee.

Relay offers 2 savings accounts per business. Savings accounts earn 1-3% APY¹depending on how much you keep in each reserve account:

• 1% APY for balances under $50k
• 1.5% APY for balances between $50k and $250k
• 2% APY for balances between $250k and $500k
• 3% APY for balances over $1M

Absolutely! You can use role-based permissions to provide colleagues and advisors with the exact level of access they need to help with bill payments, debit card management, bookkeeping and more. Each invited user will have their own login credentials, protected by two-factor authentication—to keep your banking account and money safe.

Yes! Monthly statements are made available in each Relay account. You can download or email forward statements in the following formats: PDF, CSV and OFX.

Checks can be deposited in your account using the Relay mobile app (available on iPhone and Android).

You can write checks from our web and mobile applications, and we’ll send them to the recipient on your behalf. We do, however, recommend using digital payment like ACH or wire if possible. They’re cheaper, faster and better for the environment!

Yes! Deposits up to $2,500,000 per business are insured by the FDIC through an insured cash sweep program managed by Thread Bank, Member FDIC. The insured cash sweep program is only available to Relay customers that have upgraded to Relay 2.0 or signed up for a Relay account on or after January 1, 2023. Relay customers that signed up for an account before January 1, 2023 and have not yet been invited to upgrade to Relay 2.0 are insured up to $250,000 by the FDIC through Evolve Bank & Trust.

Not right now. Email our team with your ideas about why and how Relay should offer loans to small businesses.