If you don’t use your account much, you might want the basic Business Checking account. It doesn’t give you many free transactions or deposits, but it does have the cheapest monthly fee—which you can waive by keeping a $500 minimum balance in your account, spending $500 on your PNC business credit card, or making $500 of merchant services deposits through PNC.
Business Checking Plus more than triples your number of free transactions and doubles the amount of cash you can deposit for free. But it has a higher monthly service fee, and it’s harder to waive. You can keep a $5,000 minimum account balance, spend at least $5,000 on your business credit card, have $5,000 worth of merchant services deposits, or have a $20,000 balance across your checking and money market accounts.
If you prefer to pay for what you use rather than have a number of free transactions, you can get Business Analysis Checking. You’ll pay for each transaction and deposit, but you can get earnings credits based on your average monthly balance. These credits can be applied to both transaction fees as well as the monthly maintenance fee. So if you keep a large balance, this plan could end up being a surprisingly affordable option.
The Treasury Enterprise Plan gives you the most free transactions and cash deposits—five times as many as other plans. You can waive the service fee with a $30,000 balance across your accounts. Note that this is technically a plan and not an account; it gives you Analysis Business Checking plus a Money Market or Business Sweep account. You can also get four other checking accounts and link them.
But what about those specialized checking accounts we were talking about?