What Mercury is built for instead
Mercury's strength is clean, well-designed US-dollar banking for startups, with free ACH and domestic wires and sweep coverage up to $5 million. Mercury describes itself as a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank, with banking services through Choice Financial Group and Column N.A.; the OCC conditionally approved Mercury Bank, N.A. in April 2026, with FDIC and Federal Reserve approvals pending. None of that is a reason to leave it if it is working for you.
What it does not do is take a customer's payment into the account. Mercury invoices can be paid by ACH or wire for free, and by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay through Stripe at Stripe's rates (2.9% + 30¢ on a domestic card), with no Mercury fee on top; ACH debit on invoices costs $1 on Plus and nothing on Pro. We found no card-acquiring product of Mercury's own beyond that.













