Pleo is a growing fintech business aiming to streamline money management for businesses. Pleo defines itself from other challenger banks by approaching a new market. Instead of trying to sell itself to every day consumers, Pleo hopes to appeal to businesses, creating a system which helps manage employees’ business expenses from a single app.
Pleo is aiming to introduce a solution to company expense management, making it easier for businesses to control their spending and see where their money is going. Pleo sells itself as a “solution”, a way of bringing together employee transactions onto one platform and as a result making business financing simpler.
Pleo works from an app on your smartphone, the only physical aspect of it being the company cards which you can hand out to your employees. The app keeps track of your cards, your business’ budget and where it is being spent. This data is recorded and displayed on the app, acting as a bookkeeper and helping you make better decisions for your company.
The Pleo app only offers what it needs to, there are no extra features, nothing to distract you from its core functions. These include:
You will also be able to set spending limits for your cards, connect Pleo to your accounting software and contact Pleo’s customer service if you need help.
Pleo cards can be used on business trips in the same way they can be used in the UK. However, there is a 1.99% or 2.49% foreign transaction fee (depending on your plan) when you use your card abroad.
Pleo has a range of account options to choose from:
Along with the subscription are a number of fees for certain functions on your Pleo account, these include:
 | |
| Product Name | Pleo |
| FSCS protected | |
| Account fee | Free |
| UK ATM charge | £5 |
| Account software integration | |
| Accounting integrations | Fortnox, Sage, Xero |
| Additional cards | Up to 5 users / cards |
| Additional card fee | £10 |
| Requires credit check | |
| Credit check | |
| Overdraft | |
| Freeze card from app or online banking | |
| Instant notifications | |
| Interest rate | 0% |
| Current account switch guarantee |
| |
| Product Name | Pleo |
| Overseas transaction charge | 2.49% |
| Overseas ATM charge | £5 |
| International transfer charge | N/A |
Pleo understands how important your company (and its finances) is to you and as a result keeps security high on its priority list. All its data is protected with industry standard encryption, with a number of other measures in place to defend from any malicious attacks. Your account is kept behind a password of your choosing.
"We chose Pleo as a business account as we have a lot of different people using the same card. We have a 20-person team all on Pleo and it offers a lot of flexibility for getting different cards for different teams but then we all draw from the same account. It keeps us organised and we can all see what’s happening. And the receipt output process is easy – you can just snap your receipts right after you pay.
The best part about Pleo is the flexibility. As people enter and leave the team, it’s been easy to transfer cards from one person to another. For a startup, this flexibility is really key.
If there’s one thing you’d tell a friend who’s thinking of getting this, what would it be?
The only issue we’ve ever had is when people haven’t warned their colleagues they’re taking money out – like a £3,000 charge. That’s the downside of the shared account flexibility. But we set up a Pleo channel on our Slack to cover that."
| Email support | |
|---|---|
| Telephone support | |
| In-app or live chat | |
| Contact form | |
| Branch support |
Pleo can be a valid solution if you own a small business that also has a lot of expenses made by different employees. If that’s the case, it will make your life easier by allowing you to track them easily.
On the other hand, Pleo isn’t a full business account and the fees aren’t especially competitive, so you should compare a range of similar products and make sure Pleo is the best for your needs before going for it.
Get started by visiting Pleo's website and sign up for an account. If you have read this review and decided that Pleo’s account is not for you, you can also compare other prepaid business cards on the market.
In a nutshell, it all comes down to how your business finances work. If you already have a business account but its app is terrible for tracking expenses, Pleo can be an effective alternative.
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