How we review business accounts

The five scoring criteria

We score each provider out of five on the criteria below, then weight them to produce a single editorial rating. Ratings are Adam Short's editorial judgement, not an average of user reviews, and we never publish aggregate rating markup we cannot substantiate.

• Cost at realistic volume (30%). Not the headline monthly fee, but the cost of a plan once you account for included transfers, overage charges, card FX, cash handling and any features you would have to pay for elsewhere.
• Account protection model (20%). Whether balances sit in a bank-issued account eligible for FSCS protection, or in a safeguarded e-money account, and whether the provider explains the difference clearly.
• Day-to-day tooling (20%). Invoicing, expense capture, accounting integrations, MTD support, team access, payment links and multiple accounts.
• Support and switching (15%). Support channels and hours, fraud handling, and whether the provider supports the Current Account Switch Service for eligible businesses.
• Offer value (15%). Whether any sign-up offer is realistically achievable, how the conditions are structured, and what a typical applicant is likely to receive rather than the maximum headline figure.

Where our facts come from

Product facts come from the provider's own published pricing, terms and help centre pages, plus the FCA Financial Services Register for authorisation details and the FSCS for deposit protection rules. Where a claim is contested or has changed recently, we cite the source at the sentence or table where the claim appears rather than relying on a general sources page. Our full source list is on the sources page.

Pricing tables carry a "checked" date — currently 12 October 2026 — and link to the provider's live pricing page. Rates and fees are variable; we state that directly under each table rather than burying it in a footer.

Journey checks

For any account or promotion we recommend, we walk the actual application and promotion journey and record what a new applicant sees: where a referral code is entered, what information is requested, what confirmation appears, and what the provider says about timing. We report only what we can observe. We do not publish guaranteed approval times, guaranteed payout dates or invented user testimonials.

What we will not do

• Publish a rating we cannot explain against the criteria above.
• Describe a conditional cashback offer as guaranteed, free or risk-free.
• Use countdown timers, invented expiry dates or artificial scarcity.
• Accept payment from a provider to change a verdict, score or ranking.
• Recommend a provider to a reader whose needs it clearly does not meet.

Update and verification cycle

• Monthly: offer status, plan prices, savings rates, FSCS and safeguarding wording, and any broken external sources.
• On change: when a provider changes an offer or price, we update the affected pages and log the change on the changelog and offer history.
• Annually: a full re-review of each cornerstone guide, including the scoring rationale.

Commercial relationships and independence

Independent guide. We may earn a referral fee; your REFER200 offer is unchanged.

Provider relationships never determine inclusion, ranking or score. We keep providers we earn nothing from in our comparisons because a shortlist that only contains partners is not a comparison. See our editorial policy for the full rules.

Corrections

If something on this site is wrong, email editor@businessaccountreferral.co.uk or use the contact page. We verify reported errors against the primary source and action confirmed corrections within five working days, noting material changes on the changelog.