Tide vs Starling Business Account (2026)

Which Is Better for UK businesses choosing between Tide operational depth and Starling free banking without new overdraft or loan access?

Our view: Starling is the better default for most UK businesses, and the gap is wider than it was.

Starling gives you free unlimited UK transfers, invoicing at no cost and accounting tools with Making Tax Digital built in. Tide wins on a narrower set: the Sage feed, FX on a paid tier, savings rates, company formation and payroll.

Tide is built like a small-business operations tool that happens to hold your money. Company formation with a registered office, expense cards, asset and invoice finance, payroll on Max.

That breadth is real, and it is the reason to pick Tide. What it is no longer is a cheaper way to send invoices.

Starling holds its own banking licence, granted in 2018. What you are really buying is the kit around it: free unlimited UK transfers and accounting software included rather than sold. Its borrowing is closed to new applicants for now.

A dual setup still makes sense for some. Tide for company formation, the Sage feed and cheap FX on a paid tier; Starling for the transfers and day-to-day banking. You reconcile two accounts at month-end, but each does the job it’s built for.

Splitting your balance across the two also splits the FSCS cover. ClearBank and Starling are separate banks, so a reserve above £120,000 is protected in full only if you keep it in more than one place.

Tide vs Starling Fees and Charges

Tide Free is £0 a month and includes five bank transfers. Number six costs 20p, and so does every one after it, in or out. At 50 transfers that is £9; at 100, £19; at 200, £39.

The paid tiers are £12.49 (Smart, 30 transfers and 0% FX), £27.49 (Pro, unlimited) and £69.99 (Max, unlimited plus 0.5% card cashback). Read 15 September 2026 from Tide’s pricing page. Smart buys an allowance, not the run of the account.

Starling Business is £0 a month with free unlimited UK faster payments at any volume, on the sole trader account as well as the limited company one. There is no paid banking tier to weigh up: the only thing Starling charges for is Accounting Plus at £7 a month until April 2027, then £14, and that is for VAT returns. Cash deposits via Post Office carry a 0.7% fee with a £3 minimum.

On per-transfer cost, the crossover point sits at the first outgoing payment. Starling costs nothing at 50, 100, or 500 outgoing UK transfers a month.

Tide bills £9, £19, or £99 at those same volumes on free. And paying does not settle it: at 100 transfers you have blown through Smart’s 30-transfer allowance, so the honest comparison is Starling at £0 against Tide Pro at £27.49.

When your bookkeeper sits down on Friday afternoon reconciling the month’s supplier payments, every outgoing transfer on Tide’s free plan carries a fee that Starling waives entirely. The fee is only worth paying for what Tide gives you elsewhere, and on the free plan that is not much.

Cash deposits diverge. Tide uses PayPoint at a flat 3% on every plan, with no monthly cap. Starling uses Post Office deposits at 0.7% with a £3 minimum. Neither account handles physical cash like a high-street branch. If you take cash daily, pair either with a high-street account.

Tide vs Starling Features and Tools

Beyond pricing, the two accounts diverge most on what the app does for you. Tide leans on UK-business operations: company formation, expense cards, asset and invoice finance, payroll on the top tier.

Starling’s banked-account infrastructure covers direct debits, free unlimited UK transfers at any volume and its own accounting software built into the account.

Starling includes invoicing free on both the business and the sole trader account, with no published cap. Build an invoice with your logo, send it by email from the app or the online bank, track what is paid, and give your accountant view-only access for up to five people.

Tide caps invoicing at three a month on Free and on Smart. We read that limit off Tide’s own pricing table and its invoicing page, because it is the number this comparison turns on. Past the cap you buy Get Invoices Paid at £9.99 plus VAT a month, which adds unlimited invoices and quotes, chasing reminders and branded templates. So the separate invoicing subscription you might expect a bank-app invoicing tool to spare you is, on Tide, the thing you end up buying.

Starling’s accounting tools come with the account too. Accounting Essentials is free: automated bookkeeping with receipt matching, real-time tax estimates, a tax timeline, and Making Tax Digital submissions for Income Tax straight to HMRC. Accounting Plus at £7 a month until April 2027, then £14, adds VAT returns.

Two limits on that, and they matter to some readers more than the headline does. Sole traders have to be on the cash basis to use Starling Accounting, and LLPs cannot use it at all. Tide publishes free Making Tax Digital tools of its own on every plan, so on tax filing the two are closer than on invoicing.

Starling’s business overdrafts and loans are closed to new applicants for now, so neither account adds an overdraft buffer when a client pays late or a milestone slips.

That makes this a comparison of banking and accounting tools, not a choice between two live overdraft offers.

On accounting software, Tide publishes the longer list. Nine connections, including Sage, Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent, KashFlow, Clear Books, Crunch, Coconut and Reckon, with everything except Xero running over Open Banking. The Xero Connector is a direct sync priced at £6.99 plus VAT a month and listed as included from Smart upwards.

Starling names three in its Marketplace: Xero, QuickBooks and FreeAgent, connected free, and no Sage. We compared the two published lists side by side rather than taking either provider’s summary of itself. If your bookkeeper runs Sage, Tide is the one that says so in writing, and that is the clearest reason left to pick it.

For team spend, neither account is a fintech-grade team platform. Tide offers expense cards with categorisation, one team card on Smart and up to five team logins on Max. Starling offers expense cards and view-only Team Access. If you need deep per-employee controls and batch payroll, look at Revolut Grow or a dedicated expense management platform.

Tide vs Starling International Payments

Neither account is built for multi-currency businesses. Tide handles international payments in-house, applying its own FX markup on the interbank rate. Starling sends payments at Mastercard FX rates. Both are GBP-led UK current accounts, not multi-currency wallets.

We read Tide’s pricing directly: the markup is 1.5% on the free plan, and the paid tiers from Smart upwards advertise 0% FX fees. We put Starling’s Mastercard-rate FX at a wider margin above interbank.

So Tide is cheaper on pure FX cost, decisively so on a paid tier, more marginally on the free plan.

For an SME converting £3,000 a month, we put Tide’s free-plan cost at £45 (1.5%), against a Tide paid tier advertising no FX fee at all. Starling at a typical Mastercard margin lands closer to £60-80. If you convert every month, that gap pays for Smart several times over.

Neither offers currency wallets. Invoice a US client in dollars and, on either account, you convert on arrival rather than hold USD. If your business invoices abroad regularly, Revolut or Wise Business are the structural fits, not these two.

On the money sitting in the account, we rate the two level. Both are FSCS-protected to £120,000: Starling under its own licence, Tide through ClearBank, the bank that provides its current account. Neither holds foreign currency, so the question of protecting a dollar balance never arises.

One thing to watch. If you already bank with another ClearBank-backed brand, your Tide balance shares that same £120,000 ceiling rather than adding to it. Keep a large reserve split across two unrelated banks instead of assuming the cover doubles.

Tide vs Starling Customer Reviews and Reputation

When we checked Trustpilot in May 2026, Starling Business sat at around 4.3 stars across 40,000+ reviews. Tide sat at around 4.2 stars across 30,000+ reviews. Neither score is a red flag, both reflect large, active UK customer bases.

The themes diverge. Starling reviews favour the PRA banking licence and 24/7 support, while older overdraft comments no longer describe what new applicants can get. Complaints lean toward slower business onboarding and occasionally rigid compliance decisions, which read as bank problems rather than fintech ones.

Tide reviews skew toward the speed of account opening and the breadth of the operational tools. Complaints lean toward customer support response times on free-plan accounts and toward the fees and limits on international payments.

Different texture from Starling’s onboarding-slowness complaints; support depth varies by plan tier.

For support, Starling’s 24/7 UK-based phone and chat is the edge if you’d rather talk to a human. Sitting in a van at 7am needing the card unblocked, you get Starling on the line, not a queue.

Tide in-app chat response varies by plan; paid tiers get priority. Both beat a high-street bank’s phone queue.

Tide vs Starling for Sage and FX Depth vs Free Banking Without New Overdraft Access

One factor usually decides Tide versus Starling, and it is rarely price: both are free to open.

A sole trader billing UK clients through a Sage bookkeeper wants Tide’s published Sage feed. For someone handling UK self-assessment alone, Starling offers uncapped invoicing and included accounting. Same two accounts; opposite answers.

For a business converting currency every month, Tide’s paid tiers advertise no FX fee, and we rate that worth the £12.49 on its own once you are converting a few thousand pounds.

For any business that bills more than three clients a month, Starling’s combination of free transfers and uncapped invoicing is the product. Variable cash flow still needs to be managed outside either account. Deposit protection sits at £120,000 on both sides, so it decides nothing.

Downsides of Tide and Starling

Tide Platform Ltd is not a bank, and that catches people out. The current account itself is provided by ClearBank, which is one, so eligible deposits do carry FSCS cover to £120,000. Two things still need checking before you park a VAT reserve there.

First, if you hold an older Tide e-money account powered by PrePay Technologies, it is safeguarded rather than FSCS-protected. Second, the £120,000 is shared with any other ClearBank-backed balance you hold, so it does not stack.

Tide has no overdraft. It offers loans, asset finance and invoice finance, but nothing that sits behind the current account as a buffer for a late payment.

Then there is the transfer meter. Five free a month, then 20p each way, and Smart at £12.49 lifts that only to 30. Starling waves through unlimited transfers on a £0 account, so on this line Tide is charging you for something the bank next door gives away.

Tide’s invoicing stops at three a month on Free and on Smart. Unlimited invoices mean Get Invoices Paid at £9.99 plus VAT a month, on top of whatever plan you are already paying for. For a freelancer billing weekly, that is a real running cost on the account that markets itself on invoicing.

Sage is missing from everything Starling publishes about connecting accounting software. Tide documents that integration and Starling does not, so a Sage-led bookkeeper is left with manual exports or a conversation about changing platforms. For those practices, that is decisive.

Starling Accounting also has eligibility edges. Sole traders must be on the cash basis to use it, and LLPs cannot use it at all, so the free tool that makes Starling look strong here is not free to everybody.

Starling’s FX side is weaker than Tide’s. No multi-currency wallets, Mastercard-rate margins on outbound foreign payments, against Tide paid tiers that advertise no FX fee. For businesses with any meaningful overseas supplier or client flow, Starling alone costs more on FX.

Neither provider replaces a high-street business bank. No physical branches, no relationship managers, limited cash handling (Tide via PayPoint at 3%, Starling via Post Office at 0.7%, min £3).

If you need branch access, lending beyond an overdraft, or daily cash, pair either with a Lloyds, Barclays, or NatWest account.

Alternatives to Tide and Starling

Tide and Starling are worth considering, but they’re not the only options. We weighed four alternatives against both accounts. Which one fits depends on your priorities:

• Mettle by NatWest, free sole-trader and limited company account from a high-street bank. FSCS-protected via NatWest, and FreeAgent comes with it, because NatWest owns FreeAgent. Pick this if you want a high-street parent without the legacy bank fees and you don’t need an overdraft.
• Monzo Business, PRA-licensed bank with FSCS cover, free Lite tier, Pro at £9/month with tax pots and auto-sweep. Pick this if you want a tax-pot workflow that neither Tide nor Starling matches, and you accept £108 a year for it.
• ANNA Money, UK business account with built-in invoicing, automatic VAT calculations, and AI receipt scanning. Pick this over Tide if you want deeper tax automation and you don’t need the Sage feed.
• Revolut Business, PRA-authorised UK bank from 11 March 2026 with 25+ currency wallets and interbank FX inside plan allowance. Pick this if your business touches foreign currency or needs multi-currency capability that neither Tide nor Starling provides.

Final Verdict: Tide or Starling?

For most UK businesses, Starling is the better account because free unlimited transfers, invoicing and accounting are included before you pay for anything.

Tide wins on a narrower but real set: a published Sage connection, no FX fee on the paid tiers, higher savings rates, company formation and payroll.

Deposit protection is level at £120,000 either way, so the decision splits on the Sage feed and FX cost against free banking and included accounting.

A Sage-led accountant settles it for Tide. Tide documents a Sage connection among nine accounting integrations; Starling publishes Xero, QuickBooks and FreeAgent and says nothing about Sage. When your bookkeeper opens Sage on Monday morning expecting a feed, that published connection is the difference between a live sync and a manual export.

Regular currency conversion points to Tide too. Smart at £12.49 and every tier above it advertise no FX fee, where Starling converts at Mastercard rates. Convert £3,000 a month and the plan pays for itself on FX alone.

Forming a limited company tips it Tide’s way. Tide bundles company formation with the account, including a registered office address. Starling doesn’t. For a founder spinning up a new Ltd, the bundled path saves real admin time at the start.

And if you want your spare cash earning, Tide pays up to 4% AER on its introductory saver and 3.75% on Max, which Starling does not match. Payroll software on Max is another Starling has no answer to.

Deposit protection is not the reason to pick Starling, and we would not let anyone tell you otherwise. Both accounts cover eligible balances to £120,000, Starling under its own licence and Tide through ClearBank. If you were leaning Starling to keep a VAT reserve safe, that argument has gone.

What is left is the transfer bill and what the account includes before you pay for anything. Weighing the two published price lists against each other, we put Starling ahead on both.

Borrowing does not rescue either account: Starling is closed to new applicants for now, and Tide has no overdraft at any tier.

For businesses with variable cash flow, trades waiting on milestone payments, seasonal retail or agency work on 30-day terms, that means arranging a separate credit line rather than relying on either current account.

Anyone billing more than three clients a month is better off with Starling. Invoicing is free and uncapped on both the business and the sole trader account; Tide stops at three a month until you add £9.99 plus VAT.

The accounting tools point the same way. Bookkeeping, receipt matching and Making Tax Digital submissions for Income Tax are included, with VAT returns the only paid extra at £7 a month until April 2027. Check you qualify first: sole traders need to be on the cash basis, and LLPs are excluded.

High transfer volume seals it for Starling. If you push out 50+ UK transfers a month, unlimited free transfers beat an allowance every time. At 100 a month Starling costs nothing, Tide Free costs £19, and Smart’s 30-transfer allowance is long gone.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Pages

Looking for more comparison pages? We have head-to-head comparisons across digital and high-street business accounts.

• Tide vs Monzo, invoicing tools vs tax-pot automation
• Tide vs Revolut, UK invoicing depth vs multi-currency wallets
• Revolut vs Starling, multi-currency vs UK banking strength
• ANNA vs Tide, AI tax automation vs all-round free banking
• Best business bank accounts, full comparison of 15 UK providers

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