8 Best Purchasing Cards (P-cards) for 2023
Tricia has nearly two decades of experience in commercial and federal government lending. Her expertise is highlighted throughout small business loan content on Fit Small Business.
Benilyn has over a decade of experience as a banking officer. Her expertise is featured throughout Fit Small Business in personal finance, credit card, and real estate investing content.
This article is part of a larger series on Best Small Business Credit Cards.
Editor’s note: This is a recurring post with regularly updated card details.
The best p-cards for businesses come with costs and terms that will work well with your company’s budget and buying habits. When choosing a purchasing card (p-card), find one that simplifies the purchasing process of your business and protects it from unauthorized charges. Your options include charge cards, debit cards, and prepaid cards with streamlined card management tools.
Here are our choices for the eight best p-cards for business:
- Citi Purchasing Card: Best overall purchasing card with custom analysis and payment optimization strategy
- One Card from Capital One®: Best for earning rewards and savings
- American Express® Corporate Purchasing Card: Best for businesses with substantial expenses
- JP Morgan Purchasing Card: Best for building long-term value
- Brex Card: Best for daily or monthly payment options with up to 7x points rewards
- Spendesk: Best for flexible pricing and scalability
- Bento for Business Visa® Debit Card: Best for spend limit of $25,000 per day, per card
- Emburse Spend Card: Best for earning 1% cash back on all purchases
A p-card, also called a procurement or payment card, works like a business charge card, debit card, or prepaid card. It’s linked to the organization’s account, and the business owner controls where it can be used and determines its daily or weekly dollar limits. If the p-card is a charge card, expenses are drawn from a line of credit, and the full balance must be paid each month. If it’s a debit card, the balance will be deducted directly from the company’s bank account. If it’s a prepaid card, the company needs to load money on the card before it can be used.
Best P-Cards at a Glance
Best For | Annual Fee | Best Feature | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Citi Purchasing Card | (Best overall) Custom analysis and payment optimization strategy | None—but there may be customized costs for each business | Offers ATM cash withdrawals for eligible cardholders | |
 One Card from Capital One® | Earning rewards and savings | Undisclosed | Lets you earn cash back on your everyday expenses | |
 American Express® Corporate Purchasing Card | Businesses with substantial expenses | $0 | Offers four ways to use the card to help optimize spending | |
 JP Morgan Purchasing Card | Building long-term value | Undisclosed | Has a dedicated team to help analyze data and assess your program’s past performance and evolving needs | |
 Brex Card | Daily or monthly payment options with up to 7x points rewards | $0 | Can be used for different purposes, not just for procurement | |
 Spendesk | Flexible pricing and scalability | None, but charges a software fee | Allows employees to make digital expense claims | |
 Bento for Business Visa® Debit Card | Spend limit of $25,000 per day, per card | None, but charges a monthly fee starting at $29 | Offers physical spend-limit and fixed-limit cards | |
 Emburse Spend Card | Earning 1% cash back on all purchases | $0 | Can be loaded up to a maximum of $100,000 |
Citi® Purchasing Card: Overall Best Purchasing Card for Custom Reporting & Payment Optimization Strategy
Why we like it: The Citi® Purchasing Card is a great option if you need comprehensive control of your business purchases and prefer access to capital analytics. It offers robust spending controls and streamlined purchasing and payment processes. It’s best for business owners needing to remove purchase orders, invoices, and other inconvenient paperwork.
After establishing which merchants can be paid, how much, and how often, your employees can make purchases without needing your preapproval. With Citi, vendor payments are initiated using a file-based system and smoothly integrate with your other accounts payable processes.
Other benefits:
- Online reporting and compliance tools: Gain access to the following to keep track of payments:
- CitiManager Portal: Provides online access for both cardholders and program administrators to manage accounts and review account statements. Authorized users can set individual card account limits and review and reconcile payments.
- Citi® Working Capital Analytics: An additional service that confidentially analyzes your spending and recommends strategies to help increase efficiency across your business.
- Dedicated account manager: Get a dedicated account manager to support you on ongoing card management, implementation, and consultative advice suited to your business’s needs.
- ATM withdrawals: Eligible cardholders can make cash withdrawals from any of the 2.1 million ATMs within Citi’s global network.
Apply for the Citi® Purchasing Card Now
One Card from Capital One®: Best for Earning Rewards
Why we like it: The One Card from Capital One® offers rewards on your payments; however, the cash back rate is undisclosed. The good news is that there’s no maximum limit on the amount of cash back you can earn, and your rewards won’t expire. Rewards can be redeemed through a statement credit, gift cards, merchandise, and travel. Plus, with Mastercard Easy Savings®, you can save 1% to 4% on more than 30,000 qualifying merchants.
With Capital One’s corporate card, you won’t be personally liable for your company’s obligations. You’ll also have access to dedicated customer service and easy-to-use innovative technology. Our software allows you to manage expenses conveniently and enjoy access to expense reporting.
Other benefits:
- Online management tools: These tools allow you to manage expenses, schedule automated reports, view expense reporting, and access up to 36 months of transactions.
- Accounting software integration: You can connect your transactions to accounting software easily, such as QuickBooks and Quicken.
- Dedicated account representative: You’ll be assigned a dedicated account representative to assist you with any questions about the program.
Apply for the One Card from Capital One® Now
American Express® Corporate Purchasing Card: Best for Businesses With Substantial Expenses
Why we like it: The American Express® Corporate Purchasing Card is best if you have 10 or more employees and at least $250,000 in spending, so you can take advantage of the program optimization reports, which provide in-depth expense details. It’s designed for companies with traditional purchasing processes and additional growing business needs.
In addition, you can control and monitor spending, allowing you to understand your expenses and company spending patterns. Plus, it makes payments more efficient by reducing the need for checks and automating payments to suppliers.
Other benefits:
- American Express @ Work® Reporting: Allows employees to create standard or customized reports that can run automatically at scheduled intervals.
- Optimize spending: Choose to use the card to help support your program strategy. You can use the card in four ways, as:
- Individual cards for employees
- Supplier cards for use with designated suppliers
- Department cards for employees within a department
- Accounts payable cards to pay approved invoices
- Concur® Expense and AXP Program Optimization: These are quarterly reports that provide detailed data, allowing you to spot spending trends and savings opportunities. This is available to companies with at least 10 employees and $250,000 in spending.
Apply for the American Express® Corporate Purchasing Card Now
JP Morgan Purchasing Card: Best for Building Long-term Value
Why we like it: JP Morgan Purchasing Card is a type of charge card that allows employees to make purchases for the company without the need for a lengthy and time-consuming approval process. It helps companies streamline payments and purchases as well as set controls for transaction limits and other parameters.
The best thing about the JP Morgan Purchasing Card is that it helps build long-term value for your business. With a dedicated team of experts who can help analyze data, they’ll assess your past performance and evolving needs. Its team also helps build a business case for strategic payments and assists you with implementing industry best practices.
Other benefits:
- Enhanced spending control: It allows you to track spending before and after it happens. You can also set account controls to determine which purchases are allowed.
- Optimized payables process: It offers online and accounting management tools that can integrate with your financial system. With this, you get the necessary insights to make informed decisions.
- Contactless solutions: JP Morgan also provides contactless p-cards, allowing employees to securely make payments and purchases while on the go. It allows you to add the card to Apple Pay, Google Pay, or Samsung Pay for fast and secure purchases made online or in person.
Apply for the JP Morgan Purchasing Card Now
Brex Card: Best for Daily or Monthly Payment Options With Up to 7x Points Rewards
Why we like it: Brex Card is an all-in-one business card that works as a travel and expenses card, vendor card, benefits card, and purchasing card. It offers up to 7x points reward on your purchases, which can be redeemed for cash back, credits, rebates, and billboards. It can be used as either a prepaid card (which is paid daily directly from your account balance) or a charge card (which draws from a credit line and is paid in full monthly).
The card that’s paid daily needs a Brex Cash account where you’ll load your money into. For the one paid monthly, you need to connect any bank account to the Brex Card account. The credit limit will be based on your bank account balance, as well as your Brex Cash account balance if you have one.
Other benefits:
- Built-in expense management: This allows you to automate compliance, set custom limits and controls, and track expenses in real time.
- Accepted in more than 100 countries: Physical and virtual cards are available with multi-currency visibility, which are accepted in over 100 countries.
- Can be used for almost anything: Aside from being used as a p-card, you can enable the card for use for travel expenses, set spending limits for specific vendor expenses, and set up one-time or recurring employee stipends.
Spendesk: Best for Flexible Pricing & Scalability
Why we like it: The Spendesk purchasing card is a great option for companies of all sizes because it offers different plans with flexible pricing options and allows you to change to a higher plan easily as your business scales. It’s also ideal for growing businesses with multiple spending policies and custom approval workflows.
It works like a debit or prepaid card. You simply open an account, verify your company, and transfer funds to your Spendesk wallet from your existing bank account. Then, you can set your spending rules by defining teams, approval workflows, spending policies, and card limits based on your goals. Your employees can request funds, pay securely using the card, and submit receipts using the Spendesk app.
Other benefits:
- Expense claims: Employees do not need to do any manual expense reports. If employees pay for expenses out of pocket because the merchant only accepts cash, Spendesk allows employees to snap a picture of their receipt via the Spendesk mobile app and create an expense claim digitally.
- Custom control: Spendesk allows you to customize payment methods with individual rules and spending policies.
- Real-time expense tracking: You can view all spending as it happens through the Spendesk software.
- Zero liability protection: Spendesk purchasing cards are protected against fraud. This applies to in-store purchases and those made over the phone, online, and via a mobile device. All ATM transactions are also protected by zero liability.
Apply for the Spendesk card Now
Bento for Business Visa® Debit Card: Best for Spend Limit of $25,000 Per Day, Per Card
Why we like it: Bento for Business Visa® Debit Card is a business debit card that can be used for procurement purposes. It comes with a straightforward fee structure that will be based on how many cards you need. It also offers a high maximum spend limit of $25,000 per day and doesn’t charge fees for domestic and international transactions. It’s our top choice for the best business prepaid cards.
It offers virtual and physical cards. Its physical cards have two options:
- Spend limit card: Allows you to set limits that can be used for everyday purchases
- Fixed-limit card: Can be used for one-time payments or transactions that don’t require monitoring, such as per diem for employees
Bento has a load limit of $10,000 per day—however, there’s no limit if the account is loaded through standard ACH or wire transfers. Note that funds held within Bento are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to at least $250,000 through the Bancorp Bank (Member FDIC).
Other benefits:
- Expense management system: Bento’s expense management system allows you to monitor and control your transactions, access analytics and reporting, capture receipts, customize alerts, and change card status.
- Accounting integration: You can connect any accounting software to Bento, allowing you to reconcile your transactions seamlessly.
- Several ways to transfer funds: You can load your Bento account via direct Bento transfer, automatic deposit via Bento, bank transfer through ACH, and wire transfers.
Apply for the Bento for Business Visa® Debit Card Now
Emburse Spend Card: Best for Earning 1% Cash Back on All Purchases
Why we like it: Emburse Spend Card is a prepaid business card that lets you earn an unlimited 1% cash back. It doesn’t charge monthly and local transaction fees and can be loaded up to a maximum of $100,000. If you need an increased limit, you may request for a higher maximum load, subject to additional review.
Additionally, the card has a streamlined expense management system, which lets you approve or reject transactions. Like most other cards on this list, it doesn’t require a personal guarantee, so you can keep your personal and business liabilities separate. It’s one of our leading business cards with no personal guarantee.
Other benefits:
- Options to transfer funds: You can load the card through ACH transfer or connect any bank in the US and use the account and routing number to transfer funds.
- Expense management system: You can track real-time expenses, categorize vendors, and approve or reject transactions.
- Accounting integrations: Capture receipt and expense details in real time to reconcile on the spot and manage transactions through your business’s accounting system, including NetSuite, Intacct, QuickBooks Online, and Xero.
Apply for the Emburse Spend Card Now
How We Selected the Best Purchasing Cards
When researching the best purchasing cards, we took various factors into consideration, such as cost, terms, qualifications, and control. We also looked at access to reporting and analytics and the convenience of their online account management system.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- Small Business Credit Cards: Small business credit cards allow you to float expenses while growing your business. Cards that are the best fit give you opportunities to save money with low introductory and ongoing interest rates, relevant rewards, and grow your credit score. Check out our selections for the best small business credit cards for options.
- Prepaid Business Cards: A prepaid business card requires that you preload funds into the card whenever the total available funds become low. It has lower qualifications than a small business credit card. To find options, see our roundup for the top-ranking prepaid business cards.
- Secured Business Credit Cards: Secured business credit cards are a good option for those who cannot qualify for a nonsecured card due to poor credit, low credit score, or lack of credit history. In time and with consistent on-time payments, you can grow your credit score and qualify for a nonsecured card. Here are some of the leading secured business credit cards that you may consider.
The major difference between small business credit cards and purchasing cards is how the terms are set up. A business credit card allows you to carry a balance with APR while purchasing cards are either a charge card (meaning your balance is due in full every month) or a prepaid or debit card (which means you need to preload funds into your card before you can use it).
Both can be used to pay for business expenses, but purchasing cards are specifically designed to streamline the purchasing process for business-to-business transactions. If you want to learn more, read our small business credit cards vs purchasing cards comparison.
Bottom Line
The best p-cards for your organization allow you to control spending and streamline the purchasing process. This results in a more efficient payment method and better accountability. When choosing a p-card for your business, consider the costs, terms, features, and qualification requirements.
