Mercury’s pricing page says the thing every founder wants to hear: banking is $0 a month. That is true, and it is not the whole picture, because there are two paid plans above it, a set of usage fees that only show up once you start moving money internationally, and one structural fact about who is actually providing the banking that matters more than any of the prices.
I run Ecommerce Paradise and I have used US business banking from Bali for years, paying overseas suppliers and taking US customer payments. If the business behind the account is new to you, start with what high-ticket dropshipping is.
Here is the whole fee picture, read off Mercury’s own pricing page and FAQ on 23 September 2026, and what it actually costs to run a high-ticket store through it.
Business Banking at $0 a Month
Mercury lists no minimum balance, no overdraft fees, no required monthly fees and no account opening fees on its free plan.
The Three Plans
| Plan | Monthly billing | Annual billing | My take on who it is for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mercury | $0 | $0 | Everyone, including most stores |
| Mercury Plus | $35 a month | $29.90 a month | Recurring invoicing and more expense users |
| Mercury Pro | $350 a month | $299 a month | Complex operations wanting a relationship manager |
The annual toggle is labelled 15% off. Run the numbers and it is 14.6%: Plus saves $61.20 over a year and Pro saves $612. Mercury also notes that terms apply and that custom pricing and plan options are available by talking to its team. What the paid tiers add is narrow and worth reading before you upgrade.
Plus adds invoicing with ACH debit at $1 a transaction, recurring invoices, unlimited 1099 tax filings, $50 off eligible LegalZoom compliance plans, and six months free of Xero plus a $100 Amazon gift card.
Pro adds a relationship manager, ACH debit invoicing at $0 a transaction, and NetSuite categorizations, on top of everything in Plus.
There is also Mercury Personal, which is $240 a year on its own and is included free with any business plan while the account stays active and in good standing.
What the Free Plan Actually Includes
This is the part that surprises people who assume free means stripped. On the free plan Mercury lists banking, sending and receiving money, company cards, expense management, invoicing, bill pay, accounting and taxes.
Specifically, and quoting the fee answers on its own FAQ:
- ACH and domestic wires are free to send and receive. So are real-time payments, though other providers may charge their own fees.
- USD international wires are free on the default processing.
- Bill Pay costs nothing. Unlimited bills, processed for free.
- Invoicing is free for creating, sending, tracking and receiving payment on as many invoices as you like.
- Accounting integrations are mostly free. QuickBooks and Xero enriched automations, and bank feed imports across QuickBooks, Xero and NetSuite, cost nothing.
- Cards are free. Debit cards, IO credit cards with no annual fee, receipt policies, reminders and user permissions.
- Checkbooks are free, up to six per year.
Mercury also states no minimum balance requirement, no overdraft fees, no required monthly fees and no account opening fees. For a store that takes card payments through a processor and pays suppliers by wire, that covers essentially the whole job at zero.
The Fees That Do Exist
| Fee | Amount | When it hits |
|---|---|---|
| Non-USD international wire conversion | 1% | Paying a supplier in their own currency |
| Premium USD international wire | $15 flat, optional | You want intermediary fees charged back to Mercury |
| International transaction fee | Rate not stated on this page | Non-USD debit or IO credit card purchases |
| Invoice paid by ACH debit | $1 a transaction on Plus, $0 on Pro | You invoice and get paid by bank debit |
| Invoice paid by card | Stripe’s fee, typically 2.9% + $0.30 | Your customer pays an invoice by card |
| Mercury Books | $35 a month, waived until 31 Dec 2026 | You use the accounting product |
Two of those deserve a closer look for anyone importing.
The 1% conversion fee applies to non-USD international wires. If your supplier invoices in USD, you pay nothing to wire it. If they invoice in euros or yuan and you send in their currency, budget 1% of the transfer. On a $12,000 container deposit that is $120. Mercury says businesses exchanging more than $200,000 should contact them about fees.
The SHA and OUR distinction is the one nobody explains. Free international USD wires are sent SHA, which is standard, and Mercury says intermediary bank fees may be absorbed by the recipient. Paying the optional $15 sends it OUR, meaning intermediary fees get charged back to Mercury and your supplier is more likely to receive the full amount. If you are trying to establish credibility with a new supplier, $15 to make full payment more likely is cheap.
Want the Whole Business Set Up for You?
My done-for-you builds cover the pieces behind the storefront, from the company and the address to the supplier applications.
The Thing to Understand Before the Prices
Mercury states it plainly at the bottom of its own pricing page, and I am going to repeat it because it is the single most important line there: Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group and Column N.A., both members FDIC, and deposit insurance covers the failure of an insured bank. If that distinction is new to you, the FDIC’s own explainer on deposit insurance is worth ten minutes.
What that means in practice is that the company you log into and the institutions providing the banking services are not the same entity, and that deposit insurance is tied to an insured bank failing. Mercury’s page does not state a coverage amount, so if the number matters to you, ask before you deposit rather than assuming. Separately, the concentration question applies to any single account anywhere, and it is the same one I raise about payment processors being a single point of failure.
How Mercury Makes Money When You Pay Nothing
A $0 plan always raises the same question, and Mercury answers it directly rather than dodging. It says it earns interest on deposits, foreign exchange processing on international wires, fees on Mercury Treasury and Mercury Venture Debt, foreign currency transactions on its cards, interchange when you spend on a debit or IO credit card, and subscription revenue from its paid workflow products and Mercury Personal.
Interchange is the one worth understanding, because it explains the incentive. When you buy something on the card, the merchant’s processor pays a fee and Mercury receives a share of it. That is part of why card issuance costs you nothing. It is a perfectly normal model, and it is the same reason your business card has no annual fee.
The practical takeaway is that the $0 tier is monetised on deposits, currency conversion and card interchange rather than on a monthly charge. That is the model as Mercury describes it today, which is not the same as a promise about next year’s pricing.
Treasury, and Why $250,000 Is the Line
Mercury Treasury shows on the free plan’s feature list with an asterisk, and the asterisk says it unlocks at a $250,000 Mercury balance. The FAQ repeats it: Treasury is available to users with account balances over $250,000 across all Mercury accounts. To be clear about a number that appears twice in different contexts, that $250,000 is a product access threshold, not an insurance figure.
For a store doing $50,000 a month in revenue with supplier payments going straight back out, that threshold is usually academic. It becomes relevant when you are holding real reserves, and it is the reason some businesses split cash between a Mercury operating account and somewhere else entirely. Mercury also lists account management fees on Treasury among the things that do cost money, so it is not free money on idle cash.
The Five-User Reimbursement Limit
Here is a fee trigger that catches growing teams and is easy to miss on the plan cards. Mercury’s FAQ says a paid plan, starting at $35 a month, is needed to reimburse out-of-pocket expenses for more than five active users in a month.
Five is a lot for a one-person store and not many for an agency with contractors expensing software. If your team is about to cross that line, the number to budget is $35 a month, or $29.90 on annual billing, rather than $0. Everything else on the spend side, including cards, receipt policies, reminders and user permissions, is free.
Mercury Books, and the Date on the Calendar
Mercury’s accounting product, Books, sits on the free plan’s card with a note attached: $35 a month, waived until 31 December 2026. That is a promotional waiver with an expiry printed on the pricing page, which makes it a diary entry.
If you adopt Books now because it is free, budget $35 a month from January 2027 or plan to move your bookkeeping before then. Adopting an accounting product and then migrating out of it is one of the more annoying jobs in a small business, so go in knowing the date.
What a High-Ticket Store Actually Pays
Here are three realistic setups, priced on the figures above.
| Setup | Monthly | Year one |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan, US suppliers paid by ACH and domestic wire | $0 | $0 |
| Free plan, one $12,000 non-USD supplier wire a quarter | Varies | About $480 in conversion fees |
| Plus on annual billing, recurring invoices to trade customers | $29.90 | $358.80 |
For most stores the honest answer is the first row. You take card payments through a processor, you pay US suppliers by ACH, and your banking costs nothing. The second row is where real money appears, and it is a currency decision rather than a banking one: ask your supplier to invoice in USD and the 1% disappears.
The Plus upgrade is worth it in one specific case, which is if you invoice trade or wholesale customers on repeat terms. Recurring invoices and ACH debit at $1 a transaction beat chasing payments manually. If you are selling to consumers through a store checkout, Plus buys you nothing you need.
Where Mercury Sits Against the Alternatives
The pricing conversation usually ends up being about what else you would use instead. My own view is that a $0 base plan is hard to beat on headline cost, and that what actually differs between providers is everything around it.
If holding balances in several currencies matters more to you than sending USD wires and paying 1% when you convert, that is a different product category. I walked through setting one of those up in my Airwallex setup guide.
If you want the full field, I compared ten options in my Mercury alternatives guide. The deeper product assessment, including what the account is like to actually use, is in my Mercury review.
One more practical point. A US business account generally means having a formed company and an EIN from the IRS in place first, so the order of operations matters.
My business formation guide covers what has to exist before you apply. If you have not chosen what to sell yet, the high-ticket niches list is the earlier step.
The step after the account is opened is getting approved by suppliers, and a dealer application that shows a real business account in the company’s name reads very differently from one that does not.
Reading the Plan Comparison Without Getting Sold
Mercury’s own comparison table runs fourteen rows, covering plan type, banking, sending and receiving money, Treasury, company cards, expense management, invoicing, bill pay, accounting, taxes, platform, security and compliance, support and services, and partners. It is thorough, and it is also a lot of surface area for a decision that usually comes down to three questions.
Do you invoice on repeat terms? If yes, Plus. Recurring invoices and ACH debit at $1 a transaction are the reason that plan exists. If your customers buy through a store checkout, no.
Do you run NetSuite? If yes, the enriched automations are on the paid tiers and the categorizations are Pro only. If you run QuickBooks or Xero, the automations are already free.
Do more than five people expense things each month? If yes, you are on a paid plan whether you wanted one or not.
Beyond those three triggers, the paid items worth knowing about are Books at $35 a month once the waiver ends, Treasury account management, and the invoicing polish that Mercury puts on paid plans, including recurring invoices, logos and colour schemes. Everything else on that table sits on the free tier. In my experience founders upgrade in month one out of a vague sense that the free plan must be missing something, then never use a paid feature. Start free and upgrade against a specific need.
Three Ways People Overpay
Upgrading for features the free plan already has. Invoicing, bill pay, cards, expense management and QuickBooks and Xero automations are all on the free tier. The paid plans buy recurring invoices, NetSuite depth, more expense users and a relationship manager. If you cannot name which of those you need, you do not need them.
Letting suppliers invoice in their own currency by default. A 1% conversion on every international wire is a recurring tax on a decision you could make once. Ask for USD invoicing before the first order, not after the fifth.
Sending SHA wires to new suppliers and wondering why the amount is short. On the default free routing, Mercury says intermediary bank fees may be absorbed by the recipient. For an important first payment, the $15 OUR option makes the full amount more likely to land.
Open the Account Before You Need It
Free ACH and domestic wires, free USD international wires on the default routing, and no account opening fee.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Mercury really free?
The base plan is $0 a month with no minimum balance, no overdraft fees, no required monthly fees and no account opening fees. Usage fees exist: a 1% conversion on non-USD international wires, an international transaction fee on non-USD card purchases, Mercury Books at $35 a month once the waiver ends on 31 December 2026, and a paid plan if you reimburse more than five active users in a month.
What does Mercury Plus cost?
$35 a month billed monthly or $29.90 a month billed annually. It adds recurring invoices, ACH debit invoicing at $1 a transaction, unlimited 1099 filings and a few partner perks.
What does Mercury Pro cost?
$350 a month billed monthly or $299 a month billed annually, adding a relationship manager, $0 ACH debit invoicing and NetSuite categorizations.
Are wires free on Mercury?
ACH and domestic wires are free to send and receive. USD international wires are free on the default processing, with an optional $15 flat fee for the routing that charges intermediary fees back to Mercury.
Is Mercury a bank?
No. Mercury states it is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank, with banking services provided through Choice Financial Group and Column N.A., members FDIC.
What is the minimum balance?
There is no minimum balance requirement on the business account. Mercury Treasury is a separate product available to accounts holding more than $250,000 across all Mercury accounts.
Is Mercury Personal included?
Mercury Personal is $240 a year standalone and is included at no additional cost with a business account that stays active and in good standing.
Related Articles
- Mercury Bank Review
- Mercury Alternatives
- Best Business Bank Accounts for Ecommerce
- Business Formation for High-Ticket Dropshipping
- How to Set Up Airwallex
Trevor Fenner is an ecommerce entrepreneur and the founder of Ecommerce Paradise, a platform focused on helping entrepreneurs build and scale profitable high-ticket ecommerce and dropshipping businesses. With over a decade of hands-on experience, Trevor specializes in high-ticket dropshipping strategy, niche and product selection, supplier recruiting and onboarding, Google & Bing Shopping ads, ecommerce SEO, and systems-driven automation and scaling. Through Ecommerce Paradise, he provides free education via in-depth guides like How to Start High-Ticket Dropshipping, advanced training through the High-Ticket Dropshipping Masterclass, and fully done-for-you turnkey ecommerce services for entrepreneurs who want a faster, more hands-off path to growth. Trevor is known for emphasizing sustainable, real-world ecommerce models over hype-driven tactics, helping store owners build scalable, sellable, and location-independent brands.
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