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What To Look for in a Business Credit Card for Dentists
Business credit cards offer many different benefits over personal credit cards, but in today’s world, many credit cards allow you to separate expenses, access larger credit lines, and manage employee spending.
So what sets apart a particular business credit card from the rest of the pack? Rewards and benefits, of course!
To figure out the best business credit cards for your dental practice, you need to first determine how you can earn the most rewards and benefits!
While dentistry clinic costs run the gamut of categories, they’re concentrated on:
Payroll
Laboratory fees, drugs, supplies, and other medical expenses
Office supplies, utilities, and rent
Insurance
Advertising and marketing
Expenses #1, #2, and #4 don’t really have any special bonus categories from different credit cards, so there’s not a whole lot of optimization that can be had here.
However, office supplies and advertising are 2 optimizable expenses that we should be focusing on. So in this guide, we’ll walk you through our favorite credit cards that offer bonus rewards on office supplies, advertising, and non-bonused expenses.
The 6 Best Business Credit Cards for Dentists — Summary
1.5x Membership Rewards points on eligible purchases in key business categories, as well as on purchases of $5,000 or more everywhere else, on up to $2 million of these purchases per calendar year
Starting with a bang, the Amex Business Platinum card is thecard to get if you’re a dentist. And to be honest, this card reigns superior to almost every business credit card out there. Remember that you’ll also earn 5x points on flights and prepaid hotels at Amex Travel.
This card is probably the best business card in existence, and we’ve barely scratched the surface of its benefits.
As far as travel benefits go, you’ll enjoy the most impressive lounge access possible from a single card, collectively known as the American Express Global Lounge Collection, and this includes:
Plus, the Amex Business Platinum card confers travel protections like trip interruption and cancellation insurance, baggage coverage, and so much more.
The card earns 1.5x on eligible purchases in key business categories, as well as on purchases of $5,000 or more everywhere else (up to $2 million in purchases per calendar year). The large spending bonus can come in handy if you tend to make purchases of $5,000 or more.
This card doesn’t come with a preset spending limit, so your monthly spending isn’t constrained by a normal credit limit you’d find from a credit card. If Amex thinks you have the ability to pay your bills, it may extend to you much more credit to help you operate your business.
Why We Like Earning Amex Membership Rewards Points
You can redeem Amex points for cash-back to reinvest into your business, charitable donations, gift cards, merchandise, travel bookings made through Amex Travel, or for top-notch first class and business class travel via the Amex transfer partners.
2. Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card
Our next-best credit card is the Ink Business Unlimited card for 1 very simple reason: the vast majority of a dentist’s expenses will be non-bonused purchases, so the bulk of your rewards will come from these non-bonused categories.
The Ink Business Unlimited card offers an unfussy and uncapped earning structure whereby you can get unlimited 1.5% cash-back on any purchase you make. You don’t need to pay attention to any bonus categories — just swipe your card, and you’ll be confident that you’ll earn 1.5% cash-back.
This card also comes with an awesome welcome bonus and no annual fee!
It’s hard to beat the rewards you’d earn from this, but one of the ways to do it is to couple your rewards with an Ultimate Rewards credit card like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card that would allow you to instead earn 1.5x points per dollar spent.
Since we value Ultimate Rewards points to be 2 cents each, this simple conversion from cash-back to Ultimate Rewards points results in doubling your return on spending!
Having uncapped rewards is essential because a dentistry office will probably have large overhead costs!
The Ink Business Unlimited card also offers 0% introductory APR as an added benefit, plus zero liability protection, employee cards for no fee, primary rental car collision damage coverage, purchase protection, and extended warranty protection.
Why We Like Earning Chase Ultimate Rewards Points
Normally, this card earns flat cash-back as rewards. That means you wouldn’t ordinarily be able to transfer your rewards to transfer partners.
The Amex Business Gold card is yet another top pick. It’s the “1 level down” from the Amex Business Platinum card, but it has a totally different place when it comes to the best Amex credit cards!
Starting with a nice welcome bonus, this card focuses almost entirely on rewarding large business spending, instead of travel benefits.
Specifically, this card earns 4x Membership Rewards points per dollar spent on the top 2 categories where your business spends the most every month (up to $150,000 in combined purchases per calendar year):
Airfare purchased from airlines
U.S. purchases for advertising in select media
U.S. purchases made from select technology providers of computer hardware, software, and cloud solutions
U.S. purchases at gas stations
U.S. purchases at restaurants
U.S. purchases for shipping
Whether you’re marketing your business, traveling to dental conferences, or paying for business software, the Amex Business Gold card has you covered. If you were able to take advantage of the entire $150,000 in bonused spending, you’d earn 600,000 points. After that, you’d earn 1 point per dollar.
Best of all, you don’t even need to select the top 2 business categories every month — it’s done automatically for you.
Indeed, you won’t get lounge access benefits or any airline fee credits with this card, but you will still get purchase protection, extended warranty protection, travel insurance, secondary car rental coverage, the ability to add 99 total employee cards with no annual fee after the first employee card ($50 annual fee), and no preset spending limit (rates and fees).
The last benefit can be crucial if you have lumpy expenses from running your dental office, which, as you know, can happen quite often. The last thing you need is the inability to make essential purchases just because you maxed out a credit card.
We stand by our top 3 recommendations of the best business credit cards for dentists. But if you wanted to simply consider all the options and you love having more choices, then the next section is for you.
In this next section, we’ll walk you through some of the non-intuitive picks for business credit cards that actually make sense for some cohorts of dentists.
Although they’re probably not superb fits like the 3 cards above, you might still find value in learning about the top 3 alternative business credit cards for dentists.
1. Ink Business Cash® Credit Card
The Ink Business Cash card is at the top of our alternatives list, thanks to a unique bonus structure that dentists will find useful.
This no-annual-fee credit card comes with the ability to earn up to 5% cash-back (on up to $25,000 in combined purchases) on office supply stores and cellular phone, landline, internet, and cable TV services.
This is an incredible value proposition you should be able to easily max out as a dental office owner.
You can also earn 2% cash-back (on up to $25,000 in combined purchases) on gas stations and restaurants.
Everywhere else, you’ll earn 1% cash-back.
But what’s extra appealing is that you can convert your cash-back to Ultimate Rewards points at a 1:1 ratio (1% cash-back to 1x Ultimate Rewards points) if you have one of the best Chase credit cards such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred card.
The Ink Business Cash card also offers unlimited employee cards for no additional fee, primary rental car insurance, travel coverages, and purchase protection.
2. The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express
The Amex Blue Business Plus card is an amazing business credit card overall, with cardholders having the ability to earn 2x points on everyday business purchases, up to $50,000 in total purchases per calendar year. After that, you’ll earn 1x points.
The card also comes with a 0% introductory APR benefit (as shown in the table above) you might utilize to save on interest fees with any carried balances.
The only downside to this card is that with a $50,000 yearly purchase limit for 2x points, dentists operating their own offices will probably meet that cap very quickly. Other than that, it is a fantastic business credit card.
3. Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card
The Ink Business Preferred card is the last card choice we’ll be outlining. Normally, it’s one of the best business credit cards out there, and it’s known to be the king of business credit cards.
You’ll start with a low annual fee of $95, and 3x Ultimate Rewards points per $1 on up to $150,000 in combined purchases on internet, cable, and phone services, shipping expenses, travel, and ads purchased with search engines or social media sites. Lastly, you’ll earn 5x points per dollar on Lyft purchases through March 2025.
The major bonus category that could be relevant to a dentist would be advertising, and even then, a well-known dentist may not always buy ads!
If you happen to be spending a significant sum of money on these categories, the Ink Business Preferred card could be a great fit for you.
This card is an Ultimate Rewards card, which means that your 3x points are equal to approximately 6% return on spend.
This card also offers cell phone protection insurance if you break or damage your cell phone or if it’s stolen. This coverage is worth up to $1,500 per year in the form of 3 claims every rolling 12 months, $600 in coverage limits per claim, and a $100 deductible per claim ($500 per claim in net payouts).
The Ink Business Preferred card also delivers purchase protection, extended warranty coverage, no foreign transaction fees, and travel insurance (including primary rental car coverage).
Final Thoughts
Dentists operating their own offices have lots of expenses to keep track of. And as a business owner, having the right credit cards could get you a nice chunk of points and/or cash-back that you can use for travel and reinvest into your business.
Regardless of which cards you sign up for, you should focus on maximizing the expense categories where the largest purchases are made, whether it’s office supplies, advertising, or payroll.
Now you know the best business credit cards for dentists!
For rates and fees of The Business Platinum Card® from American Express, click here. For rates and fees of the American Express® Business Gold Card, click here. For rates and fees of The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express, click here.
Featured Image Credit: BalanceFormCreative via Shutterstock
Frequently Asked Questions
Our favorite business cards for dentists are the Amex Business Platinum card, the Ink Business Unlimited card, and the Amex Business Gold card.
Other great options to consider are the Ink Business Cash card, the Amex Blue Business Plus card, and the Ink Business Preferred card.
With a dental practice, not having the right business credit card means you’re basically leaving a lot of money on the table. Whether you’re looking for points or cash-back, there’s so much you can gain just from making your business purchases on the right business card.
The best business cards for office supplies currently are the Ink Business Cash card and the Amex Business Gold card.
The best business cards for advertising currently are the Amex Business Gold card and the Ink Business Preferred card.
Stephen is an established voice in the credit card space, with over 70 to his name. His work has been in publications like The Washington Post, and his Au Points and Awards Consulting Services is used by hundreds of clients.
Disclaimer: Any comments listed below are not from the bank advertiser, nor have they been reviewed or approved by them. No responsibility will be taken by the bank advertiser for these comments.
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