Capital on Tap vs Revolut Business: credit card versus multi-currency debit

Two different products

Revolut Business is a business account that holds multiple currencies, exchanges between them at close to the interbank rate within a monthly allowance, and issues debit cards to you and your team. It is provided by Revolut Bank UK Ltd (FRN 981170) / Revolut Ltd (EMI, FRN 900562). Its plans are priced monthly: Plans: Basic £10, Grow from £30, Scale from £90 a month. On the question of credit, the help centre could not be clearer: “we don't provide credit, credit cards, or overdrafts”.

Capital on Tap is a revolving credit card for UK companies. It has £0 annual fee, earns 1 point per £1, charges 0% non-sterling transaction fee, and gives you unlimited free employee cards with per-card limits and instant virtual cards. It is not a bank and does not provide a current account: you need a business bank account elsewhere for repayments. It advertises rates as low as 13.86% APR (variable) and does not publish a representative APR; your rate depends on your personal and business credit history and the Bank of England base rate.

I have used the Capital on Tap free card for a few years. I write about Revolut Business from its published pages, not from running a company on it, and the table below is honest about the gaps that leaves.

Side by side

Credit vs multi-currency debit

A debit card spends money the business already holds. A credit card spends the lender’s money and the business repays it on a statement cycle. That single difference drives everything else in this comparison.

With Capital on Tap you spend up to your limit, receive a monthly statement, and pay it. Pay in full and no interest on purchases if you pay the statement balance in full by the due date, which means a purchase early in a billing period is effectively interest-free for several weeks. That gap between paying suppliers and being paid by customers is the point of a business credit card, and it is the thing no debit card can offer. If you do carry a balance, you pay interest at your own rate, and the minimum payment is the greater of 10% of the balance or £100. Our guide on card vs loan vs overdraft sets out when a revolving card is the right kind of borrowing and when it is not.

With Revolut you cannot spend more than the balance in the relevant currency pocket. There is no interest because there is no borrowing, no personal guarantee because there is no credit agreement, and no statement to forget. Those are genuine advantages for a business that does not want debt of any kind. They are also why Revolut cannot help in the month a big invoice is late.

Revolut plan fees against a free card

Revolut’s plans (read in a browser; verify) are Plans: Basic £10, Grow from £30, Scale from £90 a month. The plan fee is the price of the account, and it buys the FX allowance, a number of team cards and the account features. Even the entry plan costs more per year than Capital on Tap’s £0 annual fee, but that is not a like-for-like comparison: Capital on Tap is not an account, and you will pay for a business bank account somewhere regardless.

On the card itself, Capital on Tap’s charges are short: £0 annual fee, 0% non-sterling transaction fee, £0 ATM fee (with interest on cash withdrawals from the day you take them and withdrawals limited to two withdrawals and £400 in any 24 hours), £0 charge for missing the minimum payment, no over-limit fee (the card is declined instead). Revolut’s card-level charge that stands out is cash: 2% per ATM withdrawal. The complete Capital on Tap fee table is on the fees page.

FX: allowances vs no fee at all

This is where Revolut is strongest and where the comparison is closest. Revolut exchanges at the Interbank rate within a monthly allowance (Basic £1,000, Grow £15,000, Scale £60,000), then 0.6%; +1% outside market hours. For a business that receives dollars or euros and wants to hold them, pay suppliers in them, or convert them at a good rate, that is a real capability that a credit card does not have.

Capital on Tap’s answer is simpler and narrower: 0% non-sterling transaction fee, on any card transaction, with no monthly allowance and no out-of-hours mark-up. If your foreign-currency need is spending, on US software, cloud services, ad platforms and overseas suppliers who take cards, a card with no FX fee does the job and pays 1% cashback on top. If your need is holding and converting balances, or paying invoices by transfer in another currency, Revolut is built for it and Capital on Tap is not. Capital on Tap’s Bill Pay can pay UK suppliers by bank transfer from the credit line, for a fee, but it is not a multi-currency tool.

The number to watch on Revolut is the allowance. Exchange more than your plan’s monthly allowance and the fee above it applies; exchange outside market hours and the extra percentage applies too. A business converting a large sum on a Sunday evening can find the “interbank rate” less generous than it sounds. The FX fee calculator compares a typical bank card fee against a card with none, which is the comparison that matters if you are choosing between a high-street card and Capital on Tap for foreign spending.

Rewards

Revolut Business lists none on card spend (read in a browser; verify). Capital on Tap earns 1 point per £1, and 1 point = 1p (1,000 points = £10). Redemption options are balance credit, cash, gift cards, Avios, Virgin Points or Radisson Rewards; cash is £10 minimum for cash to a bank account and paid within two business days. Each transaction is each transaction rounded down to the nearest pound, there are no points on cash withdrawals or fees, and points points expire after 24 months with no earning or redeeming.

On £5,000 a month of card spend, that is around £600 a year back for doing nothing different. It is not a reason to borrow, and if you would carry a balance the interest would dwarf it. But for a business that pays in full, it is a straightforward difference between the two products. The cashback calculator takes your own figure, and the rewards page lists the clauses that can cost you points, such as points can be lost if you are more than 14 days late.

Employee cards and controls

Both products issue cards to staff, and both let you set limits. Capital on Tap offers unlimited free employee cards with per-card limits, with limits per billing period or per transaction, and instant virtual cards. Revolut includes team cards by plan, with the number and any extra-card charges set out on its plans page rather than here.

The difference in kind is again credit versus debit. A Revolut team card can only spend what is in the account; a Capital on Tap employee card spends against the company’s credit limit, within the per-card limit you set. For a small team the Capital on Tap arrangement costs nothing and needs no top-ups. Our guide on employee cards and spend controls describes how we run it, and the virtual cards guide covers the one-card-per-subscription habit.

Eligibility and sole traders

Revolut Business is open to sole traders and companies. Capital on Tap requires a Ltd, LLP or PLC, active on Companies House, with £24,000 minimum annual turnover, no unsatisfied CCJs in the last 12 months, applied for by an active UK director or a shareholder with 25% or more who provides a personal guarantee. It is not available to sole traders. There is no minimum trading history, and the application uses a soft search on your personal credit file when you apply.

For a sole trader, then, Revolut is available and Capital on Tap is not. That does not make Revolut a substitute for credit; it makes it a good no-FX debit card while you look at the credit cards in our sole trader guide. For a limited company, the eligibility page and the checker will tell you quickly whether Capital on Tap is likely to approve you.

When a business wants both

The businesses for whom this comparison is a real choice are rarer than the businesses for whom the answer is both. A company that invoices clients in the US or Europe, holds some of that income in the original currency and pays a few overseas contractors from it has a clear use for Revolut. The same company also pays for software, ads, travel and equipment every month, would rather earn 1% cashback on that than nothing, and occasionally needs a few weeks of slack between paying and being paid. That is a clear use for Capital on Tap.

Run together, the arrangement is simple: income and currency holdings in Revolut (or any business account), day-to-day spending on the card, and the card repaid from the account each month, ideally with Smart Repay: automatic Direct Debit or Open Banking repayments, including daily so nothing is missed. Capital on Tap asks for your average monthly turnover and business bank details; confirm with Revolut that your plan supports the Direct Debit or Open Banking connection before you rely on it.

Who should choose which

The rest of the field, including the debit-card alternatives from Starling and Monzo and the bank credit cards that do charge for FX, is on the best business credit cards UK page.