BILL Spend & Expense (Divvy) Review

The BILL (Divvy) business credit card sounds great on paper. You get a line of credit that gives you integrated expense and budget management―not to mention employee cards, virtual cards, and more. And you get all that with no annual fee.

But does the Bill Divvy card live up to its potential?

For the most part, yes. We like the Bill Divvy business card rewards program, the integrated software, and how much control BILL gives you over your spending. But BILL does get some bad customer reviews, and it could offer more clarity about how the card and its application process work.

Want more details? Let’s dig into BILL.

You might see the BILL Divvy business card called the BILL Divvy credit card, but that’s not technically correct. It’s more accurate to say that BILL's card is a business charge card that connects to your business line of credit.

So like any credit card, your Divvy card will come with a credit limit (up to $15 million). But unlike a credit card, you have to pay off your Divvy card on a regular basis―you can’t carry a balance from month to month.

Note that you do have to qualify for a BILL Divvy Credit line and card―which means a credit check. But if you have bad credit, don’t panic. BILL offers the BILL Credit Builder program to business owners with lower credit scores.

The BILL Credit Builder program lets you use your BILL Divvy card as a secured business credit card. So you’ll basically load funds onto your card, and that will set your spending limit. Over time, the BILL Credit Builder program can improve your credit score and let you qualify for a normal, unsecured BILL Divvy card.

Either way, the BILL Divvy card doesn't have any annual fee, making it a perfectly affordable business card. Both versions also let you earn rewards points with your BILL Divvy Visa card.

And of course, both versions give you access to BILL’s software integrations and controls―some truly standout features.

BILL offers more insight into and control over business spending than your average business credit card.

See, BILL lets you have as many employee cards as you want. But BILL makes it easy to keep corporate spending under control.

It starts with budget software. With BILL, you can set budgets for employee cards―so no one ever spends more than you want them to. You can also see how your business’s actual budget looks―who’s doing the spending, where they’re spending, and so on. You can also drill down to create budgets for departments, teams, and even specific projects.

Beyond budgeting, BILL also offers simple expense management. Its software can notify you when employees spend money on their cards, categorize transactions, reimburse expenses, create expense reports, and more―all while integrating with popular business accounting software.

And don’t forget that BILL also lets you make unlimited virtual cards (great for fraud prevention) and earn rewards on your business spending.

So yes, BILL Divvy Credit gives you the spending power of a business credit card―but thanks to software integrations and other features, it does way more than just that.

But how exactly does BILL compare to the competition? We’ve compared it to some of the best business credit cards to find out.

The biggest difference: The BILL Divvy card is a charge card, not a business credit card. So other cards come with purchase APR for those times you carry a balance. The BILL Divvy business card, on the other hand, makes you pay your full balance each month.

And while other cards do let you have employee cards with some control over them, BILL’s unlimited employee cards and robust budget and expense management features do stand out from the crowd.

Those features aside, the BILL Divvy card doesn’t look so different. You can find many business credit cards with no annual fee, just like the BILL Divvy Credit card. And many business credit cards earn plenty of rewards―though Divvy’s maximum 7x points rate is pretty impressive.

In other words, you may find you prefer the BILL Divvy card to other business credit card options. But before you sign up, let’s talk about some of the downsides to BILL Credit.

We see many upsides to BILL, but it does have some downsides worth mentioning.

BILL gets pretty good customer reviews, with a 4.3 out of 5 on Trustpilot.¹

On the one hand, you have lots of positive reviews from business owners who say BILL was easy to apply for, offers great expense management features, and has good customer service.

But BILL also gets lots of negative reviews. Tons of them come from business owners who say their accounts got abruptly blocked or suspended―both before and after getting approved for a card. Likewise, you’ll see business owners annoyed that they got pre-approved for a credit but turned down after submitting an actual application.

With such mixed reviews, it’s entirely possible you’ll have a wonderful experience with BILL―but it’s also possible you won’t.

Some of BILL’s bad reviews likely come from its lack of transparency.

Take the charge card thing, for example. The BILL website doesn’t make it immediately obvious that BILL offers a charge card and not a credit card. That’s an important distinction. But you see reviews from customers still calling it a credit card who are frustrated they have to prepay or pay each cycle.

Put simply, BILL needs to make it clearer how the card works.

Then you’ve got borrower requirements. Like any company that offers credit lines, BILL expects to see a certain credit score, revenue amount, and business age. But BILL doesn’t list any of those requirements. So again, you’ll see reviews from people who got rejected and don’t know why.

If BILL simply published minimum requirements, it could keep a lot of business owners from wasting their time on an application that won’t get approved.

Finally, BILL doesn’t use a typical credit application. In fact, you can’t directly apply on the BILL website. Instead, you have to sign up for a demo to see how BILL works. And only after that can you actually begin the application process.

We saw quite a few angry reviews about that application process. BILL, of course, requires plenty of personal information about you and your business. You also have to pass a video verification process―and evidently some applicants get blocked during that process. They’re angry not just that they got blocked, but that they got blocked after handing over so much private information.

So yeah, BILL’s application process could be simplified and sped up. 

Okay, now that we’ve shown you the bad, let’s get back to the good. And believe us, there is more good.

We’ve told you already that BILL lets you earn rewards, whether you use BILL Credit or BILL Credit Builder.

Here’s the interesting thing about BILL rewards, though: you earn more rewards for paying off your card more often.

If you pay your balance weekly, you can earn up to 7x points―one of the best rates we’ve seen on a business card. But if you make just monthly payments, you max out at 2x points. That rate is okay, but nothing to write home about.

So if you’ve got the cash flow to do so, we definitely recommend paying off your BILL Divvy card weekly. That way, you can earn lots of rewards.

And one final thing about BILL Divvy rewards: BILL lets you earn a higher rate on recurring software subscriptions. That’s a great category to earn more in, and one we don’t usually see from business credit cards. If you’ve got a software-heavy business, the BILL card could really boost your rewards.

Both the BILL Credit and BILL Credit Builder programs let you build business credit. BILL reports your card usage to credit bureaus, which means your credit score can improve as you use and repay your BILL Divvy card.

In fact, if you’re using the BILL Credit Builder program (a secured card, as you may recall), you may improve your credit score enough to qualify for BILL Credit (an unsecured card).

Sure, BILL isn’t the only business card to report to credit bureaus, but it’s still a nice touch.

As we mentioned earlier, BILL lets you have all the virtual cards you want.

Virtual cards offer a great way for your small business to prevent fraud. You can just generate a new virtual card for each vendor you use (for different ad accounts, for instance). That way, you don’t have to widely share your real credit card number.

And remember, BILL lets you set spending limits for each card you have. So if you use different virtual cards for different vendors, you can make sure no individual vendor can charge you more than you expect.

It’s just one more way BILL lets you control your business card usage.

Finally, BILL offers Payment Services―a service that has BILL process invoice payments to vendors for you.

Payment Services lets you earn rewards through your BILL Divvy card (unlike if you paid through more traditional methods). Plus, Payment Services can save you time, since it automates most of the payables process.

BILL’s business card and integrated software give you tons of control over your corporate spending. With budgeting and expense management software, you can keep spending under control. But since BILL has great rewards and features like virtual cards, you don’t have to miss out on any cool credit card features.

But you should know that BILL gets very mixed reviews―in part because it hides things like borrower requirements and its lengthy application process.

If you fully understand how BILLworks, though, we think you’ll like the extra control its charge card and software offer your small business.

Don’t think BILL quite fits your business? See the best alternatives on our list of the best small-business credit cards.

Yes, BILL is secure. It meets relevant credit card data handling standards, requires multi-factor authentication to access sensitive information, and monitors for fraud.

BILL Credit makes money by taking a percentage of credit card processing fees (the fees a merchant pays to Visa or other card companies). It doesn’t charge fees to BILL users.

Disclaimer

At Business.org, our research is meant to offer general product and service recommendations. We don't guarantee that our suggestions will work best for each individual or business, so consider your unique needs when choosing products and services.