Bank Business Card or Expense Management Platform? What It Really Costs a Company with 20 Employees
A business card from your bank looks like the obvious choice: you already have the account, the bank adds a card to it, and in the UK a business debit card often has no annual fee at all. The catch is that a card is only a way to pay. It doesn't collect invoices, keep team budgets in check, assign spending to projects or speed up month-end in accounts. Someone still has to do that work, only by hand.
In this article we work out what a year of business spending costs a company with 20 cardholders in three scenarios: a business debit card from a bank, a bank charge card, and the Sparados platform, which combines virtual cards with expense management.
Key takeaways
Card fees are low on every side. Lloyds and Barclays business debit cards have no annual fee, the Barclaycard Select charge card costs £42 a year per account, and in Sparados the card is €0: you pay for the account and active users.
Foreign-currency fees are close. The banks in our example charge 2.75% (debit cards) to 2.99% (charge card) per transaction, Sparados charges 3%, and with the 0% Card there is no FX fee at all.
The biggest cost is time. Companies using Sparados save on average 157 working hours a year, almost a month of full-time work.
In our example of a company with 20 cards the difference is about £3,480 a year compared with bank debit cards and about £3,610 compared with a charge card, almost all of it from time won back.
Control before the payment, not after it: you set limits, merchant categories (MCC), groups and approvals in the panel, without calling the bank or visiting a branch.
A bank card and an expense platform are two different things
A bank business card is there to pay with. The bank issues it to your account, sets a limit and sends a statement once a month. Everything that happens next, such as chasing receipts, describing expenses, assigning them to projects and posting them in the books, happens outside the bank: in emails, spreadsheets and paper folders.
An expense management platform such as Sparados brings together in one place:
virtual business cards issued in seconds, with no waiting for the post, as many as you need,
an admin panel with roles, groups and limits for your teams,
a mobile app where employees add a photo of the receipt or invoice right after a purchase,
integration with your accounting system and invoice and receipt scanning with reminders.
We explain how virtual cards differ from plastic bank cards in our article on virtual cards as a low-cost alternative to bank business cards. Here we focus on the numbers.
What you pay the bank: fees from the price lists
We checked the current business price lists of two large UK high-street banks: Lloyds Bank (Account Charges and Processing Times, applying from July 2026, plus its Business Debit Card and Business Charge Card pages) and Barclays (Barclays Business Account tariff, March 2026, and the Barclaycard Select charge card page). These are the fees that apply to cards.
Fee | Bank debit card | Bank charge card | Sparados |
Card | no annual fee (Lloyds, Barclays) | £32 a year per cardholder after the first year, waived if you spend £6,000 or more across all cards a year (Lloyds); £42 a year per account, no fee for additional cardholders (Barclaycard Select) | €0 per card, no limit on the number of cards |
Account or user | business current account fee under your tariff | business current account fee under your tariff | €20 a month for the account, 5 users free, €1 a month per active user from the 6th user |
Card payment | no fee (Lloyds, Barclays) | no fee per payment (Lloyds, Barclaycard Select) | no fee |
Payment in a foreign currency | 2.75% of the transaction (Lloyds, Barclays) | 2.95% (Lloyds), 2.99% (Barclaycard Select) | 3%, or no FX fee with the 0% Card |
Cash withdrawal | free at UK cash machines; abroad 2.75%, plus 1.5% (min. £1.50) for non-euro cash (Lloyds) | 2.5%, min. £2.50 (Lloyds); 3%, min. £3, plus 2.99% for non-sterling cash (Barclaycard Select) | 1.5% of the amount withdrawn |
New or replacement card | replacement free, First Class post £1.99 (Barclays); new card in 7 to 10 working days (Lloyds) | not published | virtual card straight away, no extra charge |
Limit change | daily limits set by the bank, e.g. £700 cash a day (Lloyds); no fee published | credit limit agreed with the bank, from £1,000 (Lloyds); no fee published | in the panel, free of charge |
Statement copies | copy statement £5 (Lloyds, Barclays) | copy statement £2 (Barclaycard Select); copy of a transaction receipt £5 per item (Lloyds) | report export (Excel, CSV, PDF) included |
Sources: Lloyds Bank Account Charges and Processing Times (applies from July 2026) and its Business Debit Card and Business Charge Card pages; Barclays Business Account tariff (March 2026) and the Barclaycard Select charge card page, all checked in November 2026; and the Sparados pricing. Sparados prices are net and in euros; we convert them at the ECB reference rate of 2 November 2026 (€1 = £0.8358). We leave out business current account fees, because you pay them in every scenario.
Two things stand out. First, the card itself costs little or nothing: UK banks usually issue business debit cards with no annual fee. Second, the real costs show up in foreign-currency payments, where every bank in our example takes 2.75% to 2.99% of each transaction, and in everything the bank leaves to you: limits it sets for you, changes that need a call to the bank, and a monthly statement that someone still has to match with receipts.
The cost missing from the price list: your finance team's time
No bank puts the hours your bookkeeper spends hunting for last month's receipt into its price list. Yet those hours cost the most. With a bank card alone, your finance team has to:
collect receipts and invoices from employees, often after several reminders,
match statement lines with documents by hand,
assign expenses to projects, clients and departments,
settle cash advances and business trip expenses,
order, block and replace cards, and ask the bank for every limit change.
According to Sparados calculations in our client stories e-book, companies using the platform save on average 157 working hours a year. Clients also report concrete results:
GoPay settles business trips 80% faster,
Kodoro saved 15% of its accounting time,
HUNTERS dropped cash advances and pro forma invoices for field expenses.
The calculation: a company with 20 cards over a year
Take a company where 20 people pay with a business card. Our assumptions:
total card spending: £15,000 a month, of which £3,000 is in foreign currencies (SaaS tools, ads, travel), so £180,000 a year, £36,000 of it in other currencies,
working time that can be won back: 157 hours a year,
fully loaded cost of an hour of finance work: £25 (salary plus employer National Insurance and pension contributions; the ONS puts the UK median for full-time employees at £19.67 an hour in April 2025; use your own rate),
we leave out cash withdrawals and business current account fees, because they depend on how your company works and are similar in every scenario.
Cost over a year | Bank debit card (Lloyds) | Bank charge card (Barclaycard Select) | Sparados |
Cards and platform | £0 (20 cards × £0 annual fee) | £42 (annual account fee, no fee for additional cardholders) | £351 (€420: account €20 × 12 months + 15 users × €1 × 12 months, at €1 = £0.8358) |
Fees on card payments | £0 | £0 | £0 |
Foreign-currency fees | £990 (2.75% of £36,000) | £1,076.40 (2.99% of £36,000) | £1,080 (3% of £36,000) |
Working time to win back | £3,925 (157 h × £25) | £3,925 (157 h × £25) | won back |
Total | £4,915 | £5,043.40 | £1,431 |
In this example a company using Sparados spends about £3,480 less a year than with bank debit cards and about £3,610 less than with a bank charge card. Almost all of that comes from time: on fees alone, standard Sparados costs about £440 more than the debit cards here, because its 3% FX fee is slightly above the banks' 2.75%. If you pay a lot in foreign currencies, the 0% Card charges no FX fee: the account is €20 a month and each card user €2 a month, so about £602 a year for 20 users (€720), about £390 less than the FX fees on the bank debit cards.
The main lesson from the table: the saving doesn't come from a cheaper card. It comes from the time your finance team no longer spends on manual work and, if you pay in other currencies, from the FX fees you can avoid with the 0% Card.
What you get beyond a lower price
The calculation shows costs, but not the difference in control over spending. A bank card has one limit, and you only see the money on the statement. In Sparados you set the rules before an employee pays:
limits per card and per group: general, online, cash machine and abroad, also periodic,
merchant category (MCC) restrictions and blocks on specific merchants, more in our article How to restrict card transactions,
groups and approvals: teams, departments and projects in a structure of up to four levels, and a request above a group's limit goes to the admins of the parent group,
a separate card for every purpose: a project, a client, a subscription or a one-off purchase, also as a single-use card,
real-time transactions and instant card freezing when you need it,
integration with your accounting system and invoice and receipt scanning with reminders, at no extra cost.
On top of that, the cards work with Apple Pay and Google Pay, and a new employee gets a virtual card straight away instead of waiting for plastic in the post.
When a bank card is still enough
Not every company needs an expense platform. A bank card is enough if:
only one or two people pay by card and there are a few transactions a month,
you hardly ever pay in foreign currencies,
your accounts team handles a few documents a month and reconciliation takes no real time,
employees often withdraw cash in the UK, where business debit cards from Lloyds and Barclays charge nothing at cash machines.
Once the number of cards grows and spending spreads across teams, projects and currencies, the cost of time rises faster than bank fees. That is usually the point where a platform pays off.
FAQ
Does Sparados replace my business bank account?
No. You top up your Sparados account by bank transfer from your business current account and issue cards in the platform. Your bank account stays; what changes is how you pay for and settle business expenses.
How much does a card cost in Sparados?
€0, with no limit on the number of cards. You pay €20 a month for the account (about £16.72 at the ECB rate of 2 November 2026), the first 5 users are free, and from the 6th active user the fee is €1 a month (about £0.84).
Can I set limits on a bank card too?
Yes, but mostly within limits the bank sets, for example £700 cash a day on a Lloyds Business Debit Card, and a charge card's credit limit has to be agreed with the bank. In Sparados you set limits per card and per group, merchant categories and approvals yourself in the panel.
Where do the 157 hours of savings come from?
It is the average from Sparados calculations for companies that use the platform. The time is won back mainly on collecting documents, matching them with transactions and settling cash advances and business trip expenses.
Does Sparados integrate with my accounting system?
Yes. Integration with your accounting system is included in the price, as are invoice and receipt scanning with reminders, report export (Excel, CSV, PDF) and an open API.
Run the numbers for your own company
Plug your own figures into the calculation: the number of cardholders, monthly spending and the share of payments in foreign currencies. If you like, we'll work it out with you and show you what your company's spending would look like in the Sparados panel.
