Monzo Business vs Starling business account: which is better for you?

The short verdict

Choose Starling if you want the most you can get without paying a monthly fee: invoicing and connections to Xero, QuickBooks and FreeAgent come with the free account, and it accepts LLPs, which Monzo does not.

Choose Monzo Business if you pay in cash regularly, if you want automatic tax set-asides, or if you are a limited company that will grow into a team. Monzo charges £1 per deposit for cash, where Starling charges a percentage with a minimum. Its Team plan adds approvals, bulk payments and room for up to 15 people.

For a sole trader who invoices a few clients and rarely touches cash, the two are close, and the free Starling account is hard to argue with. For a company with staff spending on cards, Monzo’s Team plan is the more complete product, and that is the plan we use.

Side by side

Every Monzo figure below comes from Monzo’s fee sheet and plan pages. Starling’s come from its business account page and related pages, checked on 9 October 2026. Where we have no verified Starling figure, the cell says so.

Eligibility criteria apply. The £50 is for people who have never had a Monzo account and complete the steps within 30 days.

Are both proper banks?

Yes. This is the first thing to check on any app-based account, and here the answer is the same for both. Monzo Business accounts are held with Monzo Bank Limited, authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the FCA and the PRA (FRN 730427). Starling accounts are held with Starling Bank Limited. Both are UK-authorised banks, so eligible deposits are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme up to £120,000.

Starling’s FSCS page notes that business deposits count as a single depositor. The limit applies per banking licence, so a business with more than £120,000 in reserves could split it between the two banks and have each slice protected. That is a perfectly sensible reason to hold both accounts.

That separates both from e-money accounts such as Revolut Business, where balances are safeguarded rather than covered by the FSCS. Our guide to FSCS protection for business accounts explains the difference.

Monthly fees and what you get free

Starling’s business account is free, with an optional paid add-on. Monzo has three tiers, and the free one does less.

Monzo Lite covers the core account, payments, card acceptance, savings pots and 24/7 support. Invoicing, Tax Pots, accounting integrations, virtual cards and connected accounts sit on Pro and Team. Starling includes invoicing and connections to Xero, QuickBooks and FreeAgent on the free account, and charges for its built-in Starling Accounting software through the Accounting Plus add-on.

So the honest comparison is Starling free against Monzo Pro at £108 a year, or Monzo Team at £300 a year before extra members. If all you need is invoicing and a Xero feed, Starling does it for nothing. What Monzo’s fee buys is mainly the Tax Pots that move a percentage of every payment automatically, the higher savings rate Monzo offers on some paid plans (the rate depends on your plan; check the app), and on Team, the spend controls covered below.

Both charge nothing for UK transfers and nothing on card spending abroad. Monzo has no minimum term, so you can drop from Team to Lite and get the unused part of the month refunded. For every Monzo charge, including what each plan adds, see our Monzo Business fees breakdown.

Cash deposits

Monzo is cheaper for almost every cash deposit. Monzo charges a flat £1 per deposit at any PayPoint or Post Office. Starling’s charge is Post Office, 0.7% (minimum £3), so the cost grows with the amount.

A shop or trade business paying in £1,000 a week would pay £52 a year at Monzo against £364 at Starling. That gap alone can outweigh a Monzo Pro subscription.

Limits matter as much as fees. Monzo caps cash deposits at £10,000 a month (limited companies) and £3,000 a month (sole traders). Starling’s sole trader limit is £5,000 a day and £20,000 a year. Starling pays in cheques free by post or through the app; Monzo also accepts cheques. If your takings regularly exceed these limits, a high-street bank with branch counters may suit you better. Our page on Monzo Business cash deposits walks through how paying in works.

International payments

Monzo publishes its international fees; Starling’s business pages do not. That makes a precise comparison impossible from public information, so check Starling’s app before you send.

Monzo’s fees are changing on 1 November 2026. Until 31 October 2026, an international transfer costs a fixed fee of up to £9 plus 0% to 1.8%. From 1 November 2026, the fee is under £0.80 for most currencies, up to £11 in some cases, with a margin in the exchange rate. Monzo also charges a 1% conversion fee on incoming euros and other currencies, capped at £1,000. Our page on Monzo Business international payments explains the change and when a margin in the rate costs more than the old fixed fee.

Starling says business customers can send to accounts in 34 countries, but does not publish the outbound fee on the pages we checked. Card spending abroad is free from both, and Monzo’s cash withdrawals are free in the UK and EEA, and free up to £200 every 30 days outside the EEA, then 3%.

If you pay suppliers abroad every week, neither is built for it. A multi-currency account such as Revolut Business or Wise holds balances in other currencies and usually prices FX more keenly; see Monzo Business vs Revolut Business.

Accounting, invoicing and tax

Starling includes more on its free account; Monzo’s tax tooling is stronger on paid plans.

Accounting software

Monzo Pro and Team connect to Xero, FreeAgent, Sage and QuickBooks, syncing every few hours, every single day. Receipts and categories sync with Xero, and auto-exports go to Google Sheets, Google Drive and OneDrive. Starling connects to Xero, QuickBooks and FreeAgent on the free account, and its own Starling Accounting software is the paid add-on. Lite has no accounting integration, which is the main reason most companies on Monzo pay for Pro.

Monzo also has a partner offer: 6 months' free Xero with Pro, 8 months with Team (new Xero customers, until 31 May 2027).

Invoicing

Both let you raise invoices in the app. Monzo’s invoicing, on Pro and Team, covers invoices and quotes in the app or on the web, with automatic matching and a pay-by-card link. Starling offers free invoicing in the app. For card payments on an invoice, Monzo uses Stripe at £0.20 + 1.5% for standard UK cards on invoices and payment links.

Tax set-asides

This is where Monzo pulls ahead for us. Monzo’s Tax Pots take a percentage of every incoming payment, moved automatically, with up to 3 Tax Pots on Pro or Team. A limited company can name them VAT and Corporation Tax and pay HMRC straight from the pot. Starling offers spaces for tax, free MTD for Income Tax tool and Corporation Tax estimate, and notes that the Corporation Tax return still needs separate filing software.

For sole traders, both have Making Tax Digital for Income Tax tools. Monzo’s is free Making Tax Digital for Income Tax software, built on Sage, and it does not file VAT or Corporation Tax. Our guide to Monzo Business Tax Pots shows how we set percentages.

Team access and expense cards

Monzo’s Team plan is the more complete option for a growing company; Starling’s expense cards are free.

Monzo Team comes with the first 6 team members included, then £5 a month per extra team member. Limited companies can have up to 15 people with 3 admins; sole traders have a team of 3 (you plus 2). Team adds 5 expense cardholders as standard, spend and transfer limits per person, with admin approval above them, and up to 200 payments at once from a CSV.

Starling offers free expense cards; team access for up to 5 users. For a business with one or two people who need a card, that is cheaper than Monzo Team. Once you need approval limits, bulk payroll-style payments from a CSV, or more people, Monzo’s plan is worth its fee.

Overdrafts and loans

Neither is a strong lender to limited companies, and you should check each app for what you are offered.

Monzo offers sole traders an overdraft up to £3,000 at a representative 39.0% EAR (variable) and loans of £200 to £25,000. For limited companies, Monzo’s own pages conflict: one section describes overdrafts of £500 to £5,000 at a representative 35.9% EAR (variable), with an annual fee and a personal guarantee, while another says Monzo does not offer overdrafts to limited companies. Loans for companies go through partner iwoca: £500 to £35,000 at a representative 33.1% APR, and Monzo earns a commission from iwoca. Lending is subject to status, so check what the app offers you.

We do not hold verified figures for Starling’s current business lending. Check with Starling directly before relying on an overdraft from either provider.

Eligibility differences

Starling accepts LLPs; Monzo does not. Starling is stricter about who owns the company.

Monzo is open to sole traders and private limited companies (limited by shares). It does not support partnerships, LLPs, PLCs, charities, CICs, companies limited by guarantee, trusts and funds. Applicants must be 16 or over, UK based and UK tax resident only, and earning mainly from trading, not investments. You can run up to 3 businesses per person, and you do not need a Monzo personal account.

Starling’s position: LLPs accepted; general partnerships and unincorporated charities not supported. It also notes: all PSCs must be UK-resident individuals; no corporate shareholders or holding companies. A company owned by another company, such as a trading subsidiary of a holding company, would need to look elsewhere. Monzo’s full rules are in our Monzo Business eligibility guide.

Referral offers

Monzo Business pays £50 to both the referrer and the person who joins, on any plan including free Lite. To qualify, the new customer must have never opened a Monzo account before of any kind, and within 30 days must download the app, apply, add money and make a first card payment. A card payment is needed: ATM withdrawals, bank transfers and virtual-card payments do not count. The details are on our Monzo Business referral page.

Starling’s referral terms describe £25 each to referrer and referee, effective 24 August 2026. The catch is that referrers must be invited by Starling, and the reward conditions are set in each referral message. Starling’s public refer-a-friend page says a new scheme is being trialled with selected customers. In practice, you cannot count on finding a Starling referral.

Who should choose which

Choose Starling if

• you want invoicing and accounting connections without a monthly fee
• your business is an LLP
• you need one or two expense cards and nothing more elaborate
• you rarely deposit cash, so the percentage charge does not bite

Choose Monzo Business if

• you pay in cash regularly, since £1 per deposit beats a percentage on all but the smallest deposits
• you want Tax Pots that set aside a percentage of every payment automatically
• you are a limited company with staff who need cards, limits and approvals
• you have never had a Monzo account and want the £50 referral reward

If neither fits, our comparison of the best UK business bank accounts covers Tide, Mettle and the high-street banks, and the business bank account cost calculator estimates a year’s fees from your own numbers.