The 5 Best Business Credit Cards for E-commerce [2023]

If you’re starting (or already have) an e-commerce business, you’re probably already busy enough trying to manage logistics, new product offerings, legal paperwork, and other business activities. The last thing you want to do is sift through all the available business credit cards to open for your e-commerce company.

That’s why we’ve done all the research for you. We’ve researched various e-commerce niches and brought together all of the most common and significant expenses that you’ll encounter as an e-commerce entrepreneur.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the best business credit cards you can hold to set your e-commerce business up for success.

Let’s get into it!

The Best Business Credit Cards for E-commerce — Overview

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What To Look for in a Business Credit Card for E-commerce

As with every type of business, there’s no “one-size-fits-all” solution for everyone’s credit card needs.

In the ideal scenario, you’ll look through the past year of your business expenses, compare merchant categories, and then you might have enough information to make an informed decision — but nobody really has time for that!

The bottom line is that e-commerce business owners, no matter what niche, probably find that their biggest expenses are typically in shipping, marketing/advertising, online expenses like website hosting and software as a service (SaaS), as well as equipment and warehousing costs.

In this guide, we specifically sought out the best business credit cards that offer bonus rewards points on those expenses, in addition to other benefits like large spending limits and purchase protection for when things go awry, as well as tools to help you improve your record-keeping.

The 3 Best Overall Business Cards for E-commerce

Finding a rewarding business credit card for your e-commerce business is an easy way to get 5% to 10% back on all your business expenses.

You can use the rewards you earn to reinvest in your business, or you can get even more value by redeeming those points for travel through airline or hotel partners.

So, without further ado, here are our best business credit cards for e-commerce.

1. The Business Platinum Card^® from American Express

Hot Tip: Check to see if you’re eligible for a huge welcome bonus offer of up to 170,000 points with the Amex Business Platinum. The current public offer is 120,000 points. (This targeted offer was independently researched and may not be available to all applicants.)

The Amex Business Platinum card is one of the most famous cards in the world, and for good reason. There are so many reasons for your business to have this card in its arsenal, but we’ll quickly run through the highlights.

One of our favorite aspects of this card is the depth of travel benefits you’ll get. First of all, you’ll get access to the American Express Global Lounge Collection, which includes:

With over 1,400 locations, this is the largest group of lounges you’ll get access to with a single card in the entire world.

This card also offers a Global Entry/TSA PreCheck application fee credit, Hilton Honors and Marriott Bonvoy Gold status upon enrollment, access to the world-famous Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts program, and up to $200 annual airline fee credit.

You’ll earn 1.5x points for eligible purchases on your card made at U.S. construction material and hardware suppliers, at U.S. electronic goods retailers and software and cloud system providers, at U.S. shipping providers, and on each eligible purchase of $5,000 or more everywhere else (up to $2 million in purchases per calendar year). This is in addition to the 5x points on flights and prepaid hotels when booked through Amex Travel.

You’ll also get up to $400 in statement credits for U.S. purchases with Dell to help with any new merchandise expenses. Other statement credits include up to $360 at Indeed, up to $150 with Adobe, and up to $120 in wireless credit.

Of course, you’ll get industry-leading perks like purchase protection, cell phone protection, return protection, extended warranty protection, secondary car rental loss and damage insurance, checked and carry-on baggage insurance, travel accident insurance, business expense management tools, and even a 35% rebate when using Pay With Points for airfare.

Why We Like Earning Amex Membership Rewards Points

When you make purchases on your Amex Business Platinum card, you’ll earn Amex Membership Rewards points.

To earn 5x points on your business activities is already an incredible value proposition. And that multiplier goes even further when you consider that Amex points are the most valuable rewards currency there is. That’s precisely why this card is our favorite.

Of course, you can redeem your Amex points in many ways. Here are a few:

But our personal favorite is to transfer them to partners for first and business class flights!

2. American Express^® Business Gold Card

Hot Tip: Check to see if you’re eligible for a huge welcome bonus offer of up to 110,000 points with the Amex Business Gold card! The current public offer is 70,000 points. (This targeted offer was independently researched and may not be available to all applicants.)

The Amex Business Gold card is thought to be the little sibling of the Amex Business Platinum card. If you’re a big spender in the capital-intensive e-commerce industry, you’ll love this card.

You can earn 4x Membership Rewards points per dollar spent on the top 2 categories (shown below) where your business spends the most each month, up to $150,000 in combined purchases per year:

• Airfare purchased from airlines
• U.S. purchases at gas stations
• U.S. purchases at restaurants
• U.S. purchases for advertising in select media
• U.S. purchases for shipping
• U.S. purchases made from select technology providers of computer hardware, software, and cloud solutions

Best of all? These bonus categories are automatically adjusted to earn you the most points.

If you max out the categories, you’d end up with 600,000 Membership Rewards points. After that, you’ll earn 1 point per dollar.

Plus, we love this card because it offers important protections and benefits, like QuickBooks connectivity, the ability to add up to 99 employee cards for a flat annual fee of $50 (total, not per card), secondary car rental loss and damage insurance, baggage insurance, extended warranty coverage, and purchase protection (see rates and fees).

Bottom Line: The Amex Business Gold card offers myriad relevant bonus categories for e-commerce business owners, including the unique ability to earn points on software and cloud solutions. Simply put, it’s one of the most rewarding cards for business spending. 

3. Ink Business Preferred^® Credit Card

One of our favorite business credit cards, hands down, is the Ink Business Preferred card. This card was designed for business owners, particularly those that focus on having an online presence.

As an e-commerce business, you probably fit that bill!

The Ink Business Preferred card consistently offers an incredible welcome bonus and the ability to earn 3x Chase Ultimate Rewards points on your first $150,000 spent on the following business categories every cardmember year:

The 2 categories where you’ll probably be seeing the bulk of your rewards on this card are shipping purchases and advertising. As an e-commerce company, you’re probably always dealing with the unpredictability of shipping costs and cyclical advertising costs from seasonal trends.

To a certain extent, you can use the rewards from this card to cushion the blow, because if you max out the $150,000 cap and earn 450,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points, this could be worth $9,000!

Other benefits include the ability to earn 5x points per dollar on Lyft purchases (through March 2025), a 25% bonus on redemption value when booking travel through the Chase travel portal, the ability to transfer points to the Chase travel partners, and some incredible cell phone protection insurance.

You’ll also get trip interruption and cancellation insurance, trip delay insurance, travel accident insurance, baggage insurance, baggage delay insurance, primary rental car collision insurance, purchase protection, extended warranty protection, and no foreign transaction fees.

Why We Like Earning Chase Ultimate Rewards Points

Chase Ultimate Rewards points are one of the most valuable points in the world, usually worth around 2 cents apiece.

The easiest way to redeem your Ultimate Rewards points is for 1.25 cents in value each via the Chase travel portal. However, the best-value method is to transfer them to airline and hotel partners.

You can also redeem them for gift cards, merchandise, cash-back, and more. But we generally don’t recommend this because of the reduction in value you’d get.

The 2 Best Alternative Business Credit Cards for E-commerce

Let’s take a look at some of the other great credit cards for e-commerce businesses.

1. Ink Business Unlimited^® Credit Card

Let’s say you’re looking for a simple, rewards-earning credit card, but the Amex Blue Business Plus card doesn’t fit your needs.

Perhaps you anticipate spending more than $50,000 on your business every year but love the idea of earning solid rewards without worrying about bonus categories.

Well, the Ink Business Unlimited card will make sure you earn uncapped rewards on your business purchases, regardless of what bonus category it falls under!

You’ll get a flat 1.5% cash-back on your business purchases with no caps, no bonus categories, and no annual fee. And if you have an Ultimate Rewards credit card like the Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card, you can convert your 1.5% cash-back to 1.5x Ultimate Rewards points, which is equal to about a 3% return on business spend.

You’ll also get zero liability fraud protection, unlimited employee cards for no extra cost, primary rental car theft and collision damage coverage, purchase protection, and extended warranty protection.

2. The Blue Business^® Plus Credit Card from American Express

The Amex Blue Business Plus card will earn you 2x Membership Rewards points on everyday business purchases, up to $50,000 in purchases per year. After that, you’ll earn 1x point per dollar spent.

This card has no annual fee, and it’s one of the few no-annual-fee options that give you access to the award-winning Membership Rewards program. Plus, you’ll enjoy purchase protection, extended warranty coverage, and employee cards at no additional cost (see rates and fees).

Final Thoughts

There’s no simple formula to maximize credit card rewards for all e-commerce businesses. However, if you have a general idea of which expenses make up the bulk of your business’s transactions, you can use that information to figure out the best business credit card for your needs.

But if you’re spending a lot on common e-commerce purchases like shipping, SaaS, equipment, inventory management, materials, and advertising, you’ll do well to choose one of the options above.

Whether you want to max out select bonus categories and get up to 5x points or want to earn up to 2x points without bonus categories, there’s bound to be an option for you.

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.