# Melio alternative for startups: An honest comparison Michel Myara, Co-founder & Product Designer ยท Last updated May 29th 2026 Canonical: https://looch.money/compare/melio --- You want to pay a vendor or a contractor with your credit card, even though they only take a bank transfer or a check. Melio is the tool most people reach for, and for that one job it is very good. But Melio does one thing: accounts payable. If you also need a company, accounts, cards, and books in the same place, the comparison shifts. This post maps it honestly. A quick note on what each company is. looch is a financial technology company, not a bank. looch is operated by Simplicity Fintech Inc. Funds are held at Fifth Third Bank N.A., Member FDIC. looch Smartcards are Visa Commercial Cards powered by Stripe and issued by Celtic Bank (source: looch.money). Melio is a B2B bill payment platform that processes your card or bank payment and delivers the funds to your vendor by ACH, check, or other methods (source: meliopayments.com). --- ## What Melio is (and what it is not) ### Where Melio is strong Melio is a dedicated accounts payable tool, and that focus shows. Its signature move is letting you pay any vendor or contractor by credit card, even one that does not accept cards. Melio charges your card, then delivers the money to the recipient by ACH bank transfer or paper check. The vendor pays nothing extra and does not need a Melio account (source: meliopayments.com/pay-by-card/). The card fee on the payer side is 2.9% (source: meliopayments.com/pricing/). That unlocks two real benefits. You can put a bill that would otherwise be a bank transfer onto your card, which extends your cash flow until the card statement is due. And you earn card rewards on spend that normally would not touch a card at all. Standard ACH bank transfers are part of the value too. Melio's free Go plan includes 5 free ACH transfers per month, with additional ACH payments at $0.50 each (source: meliopayments.com/pricing/). For a business that mostly pays by bank transfer and only occasionally reaches for the card, that is inexpensive. Melio also does the workflow parts of accounts payable well. It offers two-way sync with QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, and Xero, so bills, vendors, and payment status stay aligned with your books (source: meliopayments.com). On paid plans it adds approval workflows, where payments above a threshold or from specific vendors require sign-off before money goes out (source: meliopayments.com). If your job to be done is "pay our bills, by card or bank, with controls and an audit trail," Melio is built for exactly that. ### Where Melio has gaps Melio is a single-purpose tool. It does not form your company, it does not get you an EIN, it does not give you a business account with its own account and routing numbers to receive money into, and it does not give you a set of corporate cards with spend controls. It assumes you already have all of that and just need to push payments out. Some of the convenient delivery options carry their own fees. Fast and instant payments are 1% (maximum $75). A standard check is $1.50, a fast check is $20, and an overnight check is $50. A wire is $10 (source: meliopayments.com/pricing/). For more free ACH transfers and features like batch payments and 1099 automation, you move into paid plans: Core is $25 per month, Boost is $55 per month, and Unlimited is $80 per month, each discounted about 20% on annual billing (source: meliopayments.com/pricing/). The deeper gap is scope. Melio handles the "pay out" side. It does not help you form the entity, hold a balance, issue cards, or get paid by your own customers. Those are separate problems, and Melio leaves them to other tools. --- ## The job looch covers that Melio does not: The whole stack Most accounts payable guides assume you already have a company, an account, cards, and a bookkeeping setup, and you are only choosing how to push payments out. That assumption skips a lot of founders who are still assembling the pieces. Forming the entity, getting the EIN, opening accounts, issuing cards, paying vendors, getting paid, and keeping the books are usually six or seven separate products. looch closes them into one app. ### What looch Start includes [looch Start](/start) forms your entity and hands you a financially operational company. Entity options are Delaware C corp, Delaware LLC, Wyoming LLC, and Florida LLC. The all-in price is $249, which includes state filing fees and one year of registered agent service. The EIN is obtained at formation. If you do not have an SSN or ITIN, looch still gets your EIN (source: looch.money/start). ### What opens up after formation Once your entity is formed, your looch financial accounts are ready. These are no-fee accounts with account and routing numbers, with funds held at Fifth Third Bank N.A., Member FDIC, and FDIC pass-through deposit insurance up to $250,000 per depositor where eligibility conditions are met (source: looch.money). looch itself and its technology partners are not FDIC-insured institutions. Smartcards are Visa Commercial Cards powered by Stripe and issued by Celtic Bank. You issue them directly from the app, with per-card daily and monthly limits, merchant and GL category restrictions, weekend and auto-cancel controls, and foreign transaction alerts. [See looch's full financial stack](/features) for the complete card controls. ### Paying a contact by card, the looch way This is the part that overlaps most with Melio. looch lets you send an instant payment funded by a credit card. That instant card-funded payment is 3.3% + 30c (source: looch.money/pricing). The honest read: Melio's 2.9% card fee is lower, and Melio is purpose-built to schedule recurring vendor bills, deliver by check, and sync each bill back to your ledger with approvals. If paying many vendors by card on a schedule is your main job, Melio is the better tool for it. looch's advantage is that the card payment lives inside the same platform as your accounts, your cards, your books, and the money coming in, so there is nothing to reconcile across tools. ### Getting paid, not just paying out Melio is built around paying out. looch also handles the inbound side. You can accept cards online and in-person via tap to pay, and you can get paid by [pay by bank via Request for Payment](/blog/pay-by-bank-for-small-business), where your customer approves a payment directly from their bank account with no card required. looch charges 1% (minimum $1, maximum $10) for pay by bank on inbound invoices. Card acceptance is 3.3% + 30c online and 3% + 15c for in-person tap to pay (source: looch.money/pricing). Real-time accounting runs in the background with automatic transaction tagging, and looch Pay is the in-app payment experience that ties acceptance to your books. AI-powered 1099 calculation and filing is built in: looch AI scans your transactions and payment methods to determine what to include, and instant 1099 filing costs $2 per filing (source: looch.money/pricing). --- ## looch vs Melio: A side-by-side comparison | Feature | looch | Melio | |---|---|---| | Primary job | All-in platform: formation, accounts, cards, payments, accounting | Accounts payable: pay vendors and bills out | | Pay a vendor by credit card | Yes, instant card-funded payment at 3.3% + 30c | Yes, 2.9% card fee, even if the vendor does not accept cards | | Pay a vendor who only takes ACH or check | Yes, through the platform | Yes: delivers by ACH or check while you pay by card | | Standard ACH transfer cost | No-fee accounts; see [looch pricing](/pricing) | 5 free per month on Go plan, then $0.50 each | | Fast or instant payment fee | Instant card-funded payment 3.3% + 30c | 1% (max $75) for fast or instant | | Check delivery | Not a stated feature | $1.50 standard, $20 fast, $50 overnight | | Wire fee | See [looch pricing](/pricing) | $10 per wire | | Monthly plan | $0 primary business account | Go free; Core $25/mo; Boost $55/mo; Unlimited $80/mo | | Approval workflows for bills | Not a dedicated AP approval feature | Yes, on paid plans | | QuickBooks / Xero sync | Built-in real-time accounting instead of external sync | Two-way sync with QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, Xero | | Company formation | Yes, included at $249 (DE C corp, DE LLC, WY LLC, FL LLC) | Not offered | | EIN without SSN/ITIN | Yes, gets your EIN even without SSN/ITIN | Not offered | | Business accounts with routing numbers | Yes, no-fee accounts at Fifth Third Bank N.A. | Not offered (pays from a linked account) | | Smartcards with spend controls | Yes: per-card limits, merchant and GL restrictions, weekend and auto-cancel | Not offered | | Get paid by customers | Yes: cards, tap to pay, and pay by bank via RfP | Inbound bill receipt, but not the core focus | | 1099 filing | Yes, AI-powered, $2 per filing | W-9 and 1099 automation on paid plans | Several rows in this table favor Melio. Its card fee is lower, its check delivery options are richer, and its accounts payable workflow with approvals and two-way accounting sync is deeper than anything looch positions as a dedicated AP tool. The table does not hide that. --- ## Who should use Melio Melio is the right call if: - Your main job is paying vendors and contractors, and you want to put those bills on a credit card to extend cash flow or earn rewards - You need to pay vendors who only accept ACH or check, and want Melio to handle that delivery while you pay by card - You already have a company, an EIN, a bank account, and a bookkeeping setup, and you only need the "pay out" piece - You want approval workflows and two-way sync with QuickBooks or Xero around your bill pay - You pay enough bills that a dedicated accounts payable tool earns its place in your stack If you already have your company and your books and you simply need disciplined, card-friendly bill pay, Melio is a strong, focused product and probably the right one. This post is not arguing otherwise. --- ## Who should use looch looch is the right call if: - You have not incorporated yet and want to go from idea to a financially operational company, accounts, and cards in a single app - You are a founder who needs an EIN without an SSN or ITIN, handled at the same time as your accounts - You want to pay a contact by card, accept payments from customers, and keep real-time books in the same platform, without stitching tools together - You need to get paid by bank through Request for Payment, not just pay vendors out. See how [pay by bank via Request for Payment works for small businesses](/blog/pay-by-bank-for-small-business) - You want the full financial stack, formation through accounting, under one login rather than a single-purpose bill pay tool The core difference is scope. Melio is an accounts payable tool. looch is a formation-to-accounting platform that also lets you pay a contact by card and get paid. If paying bills out is your only job, Melio is more specialized at it. If you need the whole stack, looch covers more of the path in one place. --- ## The honest decision framework Four questions that clarify the decision quickly. **1. Is paying vendors and bills out your main job?** Yes, and you already have a company and books: Melio is purpose-built for it, with a lower card fee and richer check and approval options. No, you need more than bill pay: looch covers formation, accounts, cards, payments in, and accounting in one place. **2. Do you still need to form the company or get an EIN?** looch forms the entity and gets your EIN, even without an SSN or ITIN, then opens your accounts in the same flow. Melio does not form companies or issue EINs. **3. Do you also need to get paid, not just pay out?** looch Pay accepts cards, tap to pay, and pay by bank via Request for Payment. Melio is built around paying vendors out. **4. How much does the card fee and check delivery matter?** Melio's 2.9% card fee is lower than looch's 3.3% + 30c instant card-funded payment, and Melio offers paid check delivery. If high-volume, card-funded bill pay is the core need, that favors Melio. --- ## Bottom line Melio is a strong, focused accounts payable tool, and the cleanest way to pay a vendor by card when that vendor does not take cards. looch is the right choice when you need the whole stack: forming the company, no-fee accounts, Smartcards, paying a contact by card, getting paid by bank, and real-time accounting, all under one login. --- Ready to build the whole stack at once? [looch Start](/start) forms your entity and opens your accounts in one app, $249 all-in, including state filing fees and registered agent. Or explore [looch's full financial stack](/features) if you are already incorporated and evaluating your options.