Revolut for Business review: account for borderless freelancers and companies

Summary

Core features
Revolut Freelancer
Revolut Company
Pricing
Deposits and receiving money
Online payments
Getting started
Our experience
Verdict

Image: Emily Sorensen, Mobile Transaction

Business users can create sub-accounts in several different currencies.

Image: Stéphanie Garrel (SG), Mobile Transaction

Virtual cards allow the account holder and staff to make secure purchases over the internet.

Revolut Business: Freelancer account

The Revolut for Business Freelancer account (or Revolut Business Freelancer) is for self-employed professionals, freelancers and sole traders working under their own name.

The mobile app allows anytime banking.

The Freelancer account is in the name of the self-employed person, with his or her name appearing on bank transactions.

There are actually three account options for freelancers: the Free (£0), Professional (£7 a month) and Ultimate (£25 per month) accounts.

We tested both the free and paid account. ‘Free’ is suitable for those with few transactions monthly, while the Professional subscription is better value for self-employed people with multiple incoming and outgoing transactions a month in different currencies.

You can order up to two physical Mastercard prepaid cards on a Freelancer plan, though just one is included for free per team member. Up to 20 virtual cards can be created for online purchases per month. One metal card is included on Ultimate, but has to be purchased for £49 on Professional (it’s not possible to get it on Free).

The Professional plan has some handy extras like expense management where you can capture payments on the move, bulk payments and the ability to give your accountant limited access to the Revolut account.

The paid plans give you access to some of the same features as the Freelancer plans, e.g. bulk payments and expense management. Otherwise, the Company plans have identical features, but with the varying limitations indicated in the following table.

The following companies are eligible for a Revolut Company account: private limited companies (LTD), public limited partnerships (PLC), limited liability partnerships (LLP), other partnerships and unlimited companies. Associations, charities or publicly traded companies cannot open one of these accounts.

Some high-risk areas of business are also not accepted by Revolut, for example adult entertainment, promotion of illegal content, armament, art dealers, auctions, gambling, video game arcades, cryptocurrencies, precious metals and stones dealers, client money management, non-profits or religious organisations, political parties and used-car dealerships.

Revolut for Business accounts differ from many competitors by the absence of conversion fees – up to a limit – on the paid plans. In case of withdrawing or transferring in a currency other than pounds sterling, only the interbank exchange rate (FX) applies. Revolut does not take any additional commission on the currency conversion within the limits determined by the chosen plan. Beyond the limits of your chosen plan, a conversion fee of 0.4% applies to each transaction involving currency conversion.

Revolut online checkout page.

Transactions exceeding these limits cost only 1.3% for consumer cards issued in the UK or EEA – this is a lower fee than most competitors offer. All other card transactions do, however, always cost 2.8%. If you’re on a free plan, you pay these fees from the start, with no free transactions included.

Signing up requires email and identify verification, but it is a simple procedure with step-by-step guidance.

Then come the verification steps, including giving general information about your business.

Simply submit the required information about your business and take a picture of your identity document (passport, driver’s licence or other photo ID), then finalise the application. You receive an email saying it may take up to a week to approve the application, but we actually got approved the day after.

Once opened, you’re encouraged to transfer money to the new account so subscription fees can be deducted from it (if applicable). It wasn’t possible for us to transfer less than £10 into the new account by debit card.

To order a prepaid Mastercard, pick between free shipping taking up to nine working days, or £19.99 express delivery taking up to two working days – in which case you need £19.99 in the new account.

Every time you log into your Revolut account, a number code is sent to your email address, ensuring only the approved user can access it. Clicking on that code logs you into the account which opens up in a new tab.

Revolut Business is without contractual commitment. Only two weeks’ notice is required to properly close the account.

Image: SG, Mobile Transaction

Example of a free international transfer.

We were also curious whether the lack of transfer fees – one of Revolut’s big selling points – was real.

Indeed, there were no transaction fees for a SEPA transfer received in the Eurozone. This may of course vary depending on the issuing bank, but from our tests in France, that promise was kept.

However, when we performed an incoming SWIFT transfer from outside Europe to a UK Revolut account, both from GBP to GBP currency and euro to GBP currency, exactly £15 was deducted before reaching the Revolut account.

We know this fee was deducted in the UK, but Revolut did not include it in the total – they only included the £3 Transfer Fee they advertise online. So in total, we were charged £18 for each international SWIFT transfer to GBP.

We contacted Revolut to ask about this, and they replied: “sometimes there are fees, which are applied by the intermediary banks”. They refused to refund the £15 as it was not applied by them, despite us pointing out that Revolut does not mention the existence of such an extra fee on their website.

You should be careful when communicating bank details to your debtors so you don’t leave out the BIC code when necessary, for transactions outside SEPA.

Another drawback: Revolut for Business is in principle a multi-currency account. When activated, it first offers three accounts: in GBP, EURO and USD. To benefit from the promised multi-currency account, you must go through an additional verification step and make the request via the chat. After our request in France, our multi-currency account was activated that day.

It’s regrettable that this procedure is not clearly explained at the time of account creation and in the FAQs. We had to browse the Revolut user forum to discover this step-by-step activation.

Save all your payees in the ‘counterparties’ section.

The lack of clarity in customer communication is also not great. While generally reactive during the day, customer service is only available via chat. It may be necessary to use the dedicated forum to solve your problems on the free plans, but any of the paid plans include 24/7 support when you need to reach a member of the Revolut team.

The no-fuss interface and speedy transactions are clear draws for freelancers.

The Revolut Freelancer Professional account is ideal for entrepreneurs and sole traders who depend on UK or SEPA transfers – the no-fuss interface and speedy transactions are clear draws. Just keep an eye on the fees applied to international transfers.

The absence of an authorised overdraft is limiting and requires regular verification of the balance, which can be prohibitive for a company using several bank cards. Some companies will also not like that you cannot apply for credit from Revolut.

Those negatives should eventually be resolved as Revolut plans to have an overdraft and credit option for the Business accounts. Revolut is constantly evolving, regularly promising new features that are sometimes slow to arrive.