Our Verdict on Tide
For UK sole traders, freelancers and limited company directors who invoice clients, Tide’s free plan works well; for high-volume payers and anyone who needs an overdraft, it doesn’t.
The free plan has no monthly fee and built-in invoicing; new accounts get FSCS protection to £120,000 via ClearBank, though legacy accounts are safeguarded instead. Five transfers are free each month, then every transfer in or out costs 20p, rewarding invoicing-led businesses and punishing high-volume payers.
Open a Tide account →Tide makes most sense as an invoicing account; frequent payments, overseas spending and the lack of an overdraft are the reasons to look elsewhere.
Tide at a Glance
| Eligible applicants | UK sole traders and freelancers, and directors of UK limited companies. Partnerships, LLPs, CICs and charities are not eligible |
| Account provider | ClearBank (FCA 754568) provides new accounts; the app is built by Tide Platform Limited (FCA 900843) |
| FSCS protection | New accounts FSCS-protected to £120,000 via ClearBank; some legacy e-money accounts are safeguarded, not FSCS |
| Free plan | £0 a month, no time limit, 3 invoices a month included |
| Domestic transfers | 5 free a month (in or out), then 20p each; Smart includes 30, Pro and Max are unlimited |
| Cash deposits | Post Office: £2.50 to £500; above, 0.99% of whole deposit on Free, 0.5% on paid plans. PayPoint: 3% of deposit. |
| International transfers | Sends and receives via SEPA and SWIFT, with plan-tiered fees; not a multi-currency holding account |
| Overseas card fee | 2.75% on Free; 0% on Smart, Pro and Max |
| Overdraft | None on any plan |
| Phone support | Free: request a callback in-app. Smart/Pro: weekday phone line. Max: wider weekday hours plus Saturdays |
| Savings | Tide Instant Saver 1.50% AER (Free) 3.25% AER (Max), variable |
| Company formation | £14.99 stand-alone, or £1 with the Company Secretary subscription |
Which Tide Plan Is Cheapest for Your Business?
Smart is never the cheapest plan for transfers, at any volume. Its £12.49 a month buys 25 more free transfers than the free plan gives you, and 25 transfers at 20p each is £5, so you are paying £12.49 to save £5.
On monthly billing that leaves Smart at least £7.49 a month dearer than Free, and that is the best case, reached only once you are making 30 transfers a month. Below 30 the gap widens, because the extra allowance is going unused: £12.49 at five transfers a month, £10.49 at fifteen.
Paying annually narrows it but does not close it. Smart’s £99.99 a year works out at £8.33 a month, and after the £5 those 25 extra transfers save, you are still £3.33 a month worse off than on Free. If transfer charges are the only reason you are considering paying, Pro is the tier to look at instead.
Smart does buy you two other things: the overseas card charge drops from 2.75% to 0%, and the Instant Saver rate rises from 1.50% to 2.50% AER. If you spend abroad on the card at all regularly, that alone can justify the fee. What it cannot do is cut your transfer bill, and the figures below, which cover the plan fee and transfer charges on monthly billing and nothing else, show why.
| Transfers a Month | Free | Smart | Pro | Max |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | £0.00 | £12.49 | £27.49 | £69.99 |
| 15 | £2.00 | £12.49 | £27.49 | £69.99 |
| 30 | £5.00 | £12.49 | £27.49 | £69.99 |
| 50 | £9.00 | £16.49 | £27.49 | £69.99 |
| 100 | £19.00 | £26.49 | £27.49 | £69.99 |
| 143 | £27.60 | £35.09 | £27.49 | £69.99 |
| 200 | £39.00 | £46.49 | £27.49 | £69.99 |
| Business Expert calculation from Tide’s published plan fees and transfer allowances (https://www.tide.co/pricing/), 5 October 2026. Figures cover transfer charges and the monthly plan fee only; paid plans also add 0% overseas card use and higher savings rates. Prices verified at tide.co.uk. | ||||
On monthly billing the free plan stays cheapest right up to 142 transfers a month, where it costs £27.40, and Pro’s flat £27.49 overtakes it at 143 transfers (£27.60).
Pay Pro annually at £219.99 and that’s an effective £18.33 a month, dropping the crossover to about 97 transfers: Free costs £18.20 at 96 transfers and £18.40 at 97. Never mix the two billing bases in your head; check which one you’re signing up for.
Max is a harder sum, because the thing it adds that Pro does not is cashback on eligible card spending. At £559.92 a year against Pro’s £219.99, there is £339.93 of extra fee to earn back before the plan pays for itself. Below that, Pro is the cheaper plan.
At 0.5% cashback you’d need £67,986 of eligible card spend a year, roughly £5,666 a month, just to break even on the fee. On the cashback maths alone, Pro is the cheaper tier below that.
Max can still justify its premium if you need unlimited invoicing and wider support hours. The cashback calculation does not put a value on either benefit.
Max cashback applies only to eligible card spending and is paid automatically each month. The cheaper paid plans do not include it, so cashback alone is a poor reason to upgrade unless your eligible spending can cover the extra fee.
For a consultant making around 15 transfers a month, the free plan costs £2.00 in transfer charges where Smart costs £12.49, so Free wins easily. The thing to watch at that volume is not the transfers but the three-invoice-a-month cap, which you reach as soon as you are billing four clients.
Now take a busier trades business running 140 to 150 transfers a month: Free tips over £27.49 around the 143 mark, so Pro’s unlimited transfers become the calmer choice.
Who Tide Is Best For
Tide suits you if your business runs on invoicing and you want the whole sequence in one place. You raise an invoice in the app, send it, and when the client pays, the incoming payment matches itself back to the invoice without you going looking for it. That is the difference between a month-end that takes minutes and one that takes an evening.
The Sage feed is Tide’s clearest advantage for businesses whose accountant already works there, because transactions arrive through a live bank connection rather than a manual export. Xero, QuickBooks and FreeAgent integrations are also available on the free plan.
At low volume the cost side holds up too: around 15 transfers a month comes to about £2 on a plan with no monthly fee, so the invoicing and payment matching arrive without a subscription attached to them. That is the whole of Tide’s appeal to a one-person business, and it is a genuine one.
For a low-volume business, Tide earns its place by combining a free account with invoicing and payment matching. It removes routine reconciliation work without asking you to add another subscription.
Two things take Tide off your shortlist: payment volume and credit. Past roughly 143 transfers a month the free plan costs more than Pro’s flat fee, and there is no overdraft on any Tide plan at all, so a balance that runs low has nothing behind it.
Who Should Avoid Tide
| Profile | Why Tide isn’t the fit |
|---|---|
| Partnerships and LLPs | Tide excludes partnerships and LLPs; Zempler accepts both. |
| High-volume payers | Free includes five monthly transfers, then 20p each way; Pro’s unlimited £27.49 tier wins past about 143 monthly. |
| Cash-heavy businesses | Post Office: £2.50 to £500; above, 0.99% of whole deposit on Free, 0.5% on paid plans. PayPoint: flat 3%. |
| Businesses wanting an overdraft | No Tide plan has an overdraft; its business loans require a separate application. |
| Businesses that need to hold foreign currency | Tide sends and receives internationally, but converts incoming payments to GBP instead of holding foreign-currency balances. |
| Anyone reliant on time-sensitive payments | Negative reviews repeatedly mention restrictions during compliance checks; a payday freeze could be disruptive. |
| Based on Tide’s published pricing (https://www.tide.co/pricing/) and our reading of customer reviews, 5 October 2026. | |
Eligibility rules some businesses out before cost comes into it. Tide takes sole traders, freelancers and limited company directors, so a partnership or an LLP has to look elsewhere, and Zempler accepts both. There is also no overdraft, so a low balance has nothing behind it, and Tide’s business loans are a separate application.
What We Tested
We opened a Tide free-plan account through the app and used it for routine invoicing, expense handling and savings tasks. The test log separates what we did ourselves from the fees and services we checked in Tide’s published terms.
| What | Detail |
|---|---|
| Plan used | Free plan, opened and run through the iOS and Android app and the web dashboard |
| Checked | 5 October 2026, against Tide’s live pricing, savings, safety and help-centre pages |
| Onboarding | Completed the photo-ID and selfie verification flow and account setup |
| Invoicing | Created, sent and tracked an invoice, and watched an incoming payment match back to it automatically |
| Expense handling | Categorised transactions and attached a receipt photo to a payment |
| Savings | Opened and checked the Tide Instant Saver pot and its stated rate |
| Not tested first-hand | Post Office or PayPoint deposits, phone support or callbacks, and outbound international payments; those figures use Tide’s published terms. |
| Test log, 22 July 2026. | |
We buy or open the products we review, and where we have not transacted something ourselves we work from the provider’s own pricing and terms. So if a fee or rate appears below with no matching line in the log above, it is Tide’s stated figure rather than a number we produced by making the payment.
Tide Fees and Plans Compared
The free plan costs nothing and has no time limit on it. Above that the tiers are £12.49 a month for Smart, £27.49 for Pro and £69.99 for Max, each cheaper if you pay for the year up front.
You’re rarely paying for the fee alone: it’s the extra free transfers, the 0% overseas card rate and the higher savings rate bundled together.
| Plan | Monthly Fee | Annual Option | Free Transfers | Free Invoices | Overseas Card FX | Savings AER | Cashback |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | £0 | Not applicable | 5/month, then 20p each | 3/month | 2.75% | 1.50% | None |
| Smart | £12.49 | £99.99/yr | 30/month, then 20p each | 3/month | 0% | 2.50% | None |
| Pro | £27.49 | £219.99/yr | Unlimited | 3/month | 0% | 3.00% | None |
| Max | £69.99 | £559.92/yr | Unlimited | Unlimited | 0% | 3.25% | 0.5% on eligible card spend |
| Plan prices and inclusions verified from Tide’s published pricing page (https://www.tide.co/pricing/), 5 October 2026. Savings rates are variable and carry an introductory rate up to 4.00% AER for the first 4 months; cashback eligibility and exclusions aren’t independently confirmed. | |||||||
Five transfers a month are free, and after that every one costs 20p, charged on money arriving as well as money leaving. That second half catches people out: a client paying you is a chargeable transfer, so an invoicing business burns through the allowance from both ends.
There’s no warning prompt; you just notice the balance moving faster than the payment total. Fifty transfers cost about £9, a hundred about £19.
The savings rate is the other thing the plan fee buys. The Tide Instant Saver pays 1.50% AER on the free plan and 3.25% AER on Max, both variable, with an introductory rate of up to 4.25% AER for the first 4 months if you switch your account to Tide and pay in £10,000 or more within 14 days. The pot sits with ClearBank like the current account, so it is FSCS-protected, but it shares the same £120,000 ceiling rather than adding a second one.
Payments, Cash Deposits and International Transfers
Cash-heavy businesses should price the Post Office route before using it, because the charge changes once a deposit passes the flat-fee threshold. Above it, the percentage applies to the whole deposit rather than only the excess, so a deposit a little over the line costs more than you would expect.
A Post Office deposit is a flat £2.50 up to £500. Go over £500 and the fee becomes a percentage of the whole deposit, not just the amount above £500: 0.99% on Free, 0.5% on any paid plan.
PayPoint is a flat 3% of the deposit at every level.
The jump that follows is bigger than it looks. A £400 deposit at the Post Office costs £2.50, and a £600 deposit on the free plan costs 0.99% of the whole £600, which is £5.94, rather than 0.99% of the £100 that took you over the line. If you bank takings weekly, work out the fee on your average deposit before you count the account as free.
ATM withdrawals are £1 each, on every plan. Paying a cheque in through the app costs 90p, but only newer ClearBank-provided accounts can do it at all: if yours is a legacy PrePay Technologies account, the app will not take a cheque.
| Transaction | Fee |
|---|---|
| ATM withdrawal | £1 per withdrawal, all plans |
| Cash deposit (Post Office, up to £500) | £2.50 flat, all plans |
| Cash deposit (Post Office, over £500) | 0.99% of the whole deposit (Free); 0.5% (Smart, Pro, Max) |
| Cash deposit (PayPoint) | 3% of the deposit, all plans |
| Cheque deposit (in app) | 90p per cheque; needs a ClearBank-provided account |
| Fees verified from Tide’s published help centre (https://www.tide.co/support/joining/what-is-tide/how-much-does-tide-cost/), 5 October 2026. | |
Tide both sends and receives international payments, so an overseas client can pay you and you can pay an overseas supplier. What it will not do is sit on a euro or dollar balance: anything arriving in a foreign currency converts to pounds automatically, at the markup shown below.
It won’t sit on a euro or dollar balance for you; incoming foreign payments convert to GBP automatically. If holding and spending in other currencies is central to how you trade, Tide is the wrong shape, and a dedicated FX account will serve you better.
| Route | Free | Smart | Pro | Max |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEPA (EUR) | £1 + 1.50% FX markup | £0.50 + 1.25% | No fixed fee + 0.75% | No fixed fee + 0.50% |
| SWIFT (30+ currencies) | £10 + 1.50% markup | £7.50 + 1.25% | £5 + 0.75% | £3 + 0.50% |
| International payment fees verified from Tide’s help centre (https://www.tide.co/help-centre/send-and-receive-eur-with-your-tide-account/, https://www.tide.co/help-centre/how-to-receive-international-payments/) and pricing pages, 5 October 2026. Percentage fees apply on top of the flat amounts shown. | ||||
Is Tide Safe? FSCS, ClearBank and Account Checks Explained
Tide is not itself a bank, and that matters more than it sounds. Tide Platform Limited (FCA 900843) builds the app and runs the service, while ClearBank (FCA 754568), a fully licensed UK bank, provides new accounts and holds the money in them. Because the money sits with a licensed bank, eligible deposits in a new account carry FSCS protection up to £120,000, which is the same statutory cover a high-street account gives you.
Some longer-standing customers still have legacy e-money accounts provided through PrePay Technologies rather than ClearBank. Their money is safeguarded if the provider fails, but it does not receive FSCS deposit protection.
Your sort code tells you which you hold, and it takes a moment to look up in the app: 04-06-05 is a ClearBank-provided account and FSCS-eligible, while 23-69-72 is a legacy PrePay Technologies e-money account, safeguarded but not covered by the scheme. It is worth checking rather than assuming, because nothing in the app branding distinguishes the two.
Protection is capped per bank, not per account, which catches people who open a savings pot expecting a second allowance. The £120,000 covers everything you hold with ClearBank added together, so a current account and a Tide Instant Saver share one limit between them.
We confirmed this against tide.co.uk and the FCA register on 22 July 2026.
Compliance checks can temporarily restrict a Tide account, as they can with any regulated provider, and the negative reviews return to this repeatedly: an account frozen while a review runs, with little explanation of how long it will take. That is an industry-wide pattern rather than something specific to Tide, so it is not a reason to rule the account out on its own. It is a reason to think about timing if a paused account in the wrong week would mean a supplier run or a payroll going unpaid.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Who holds your money? | ClearBank (FCA 754568), a fully licensed UK bank, provides new accounts |
| Is a new account FSCS-protected? | Yes, eligible deposits are protected up to £120,000 |
| What about older accounts? | Legacy PrePay Technologies e-money accounts are safeguarded, not FSCS-covered |
| Does the limit include savings? | Yes, the £120,000 covers all ClearBank-backed balances combined, including a Tide Instant Saver |
| Is Tide itself a bank? | No; Tide is the brand and app (FCA 900843), and ClearBank is the bank behind new accounts |
| Verified from tide.co.uk and the FCA register, 22 July 2026. | |
Invoicing, Accounting and Team Tools
Invoicing is the reason most people come to Tide, and it is capped on three of the four plans. Free, Smart and Pro each include three invoices a month, and only Max makes it unlimited. So a business billing five or six clients a month runs out of invoices on every plan but the dearest.
Within that allowance the flow is genuinely tidy: you create and send an invoice in the app, track its status, and when the client pays, the payment matches back to the invoice automatically.
The Sage feed is why a Sage-using accountant will point you at Tide. It is a live Open Banking connection, available on the free plan, so transactions arrive in the ledger on their own instead of as a CSV somebody has to export and import each month.
QuickBooks and FreeAgent are supported the same way, and Xero through a direct sync. We confirmed all four integrations on 22 July 2026.
The free feeds and Tide’s paid accounting products are two different things, and the names make them easy to confuse. On the free plan, Tide Accounting costs £13.99 plus VAT a month for sole traders (£19.99 plus VAT for limited companies), and the Xero Connector costs £6.99 plus VAT a month. Tide’s pricing table includes the Xero Connector on Smart, Pro and Max, Tide Accounting on Pro, and the Admin Extra bundle, which contains Tide Accounting, on Max.
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| Invoicing allowance | 3 invoices a month on Free, Smart and Pro; unlimited on Max |
| Payment matching | Incoming payments match back to the invoice automatically |
| Accounting integrations | Sage, QuickBooks and FreeAgent through Open Banking, and Xero through a direct sync, all on the free plan |
| Expense capture | Photograph a receipt and attach it to the transaction; stored for year-end |
| Team and expense cards | £5 per card a month; Smart, Pro and Max include 1, 2 and 3 team cards |
| Access | iOS and Android app, plus a web dashboard for desktop-first teams |
| Feature detail verified from Tide’s published product pages, 22 July 2026. | |
Customer Support and Account Reviews
Support goes up with the plan, and the free plan is better served than it first appears. There is no direct number on Free, but you can ask for a callback through in-app chat during the same hours the paid phone lines operate, so you can speak to someone without paying for a plan.
Smart and Pro get a direct line on weekdays; Max widens the hours and adds weekend cover.
| Channel | Availability |
|---|---|
| In-app chat and email | All plans |
| Callback request (Free) | Requested in-app, during paid-plan phone hours |
| Phone line (Smart and Pro) | Weekdays 9am to 6pm, excluding bank holidays |
| Phone line (Max) | Weekdays 7am to 7pm, Saturdays 9am to 1pm, priority callback Sundays |
| Support hours verified from Tide’s help centre, 22 July 2026. | |
Tide holds 4.4 out of 5 on Trustpilot across more than 36,000 reviews, which we last read in October 2026. The praise is consistent on the things you use daily: setup that takes minutes, an app that does not get in the way, and invoicing that works without a fight.
We read the reviews rather than lifting the headline score, and the daily-use praise lines up with what we found testing the app.
The complaints cluster too, around support response times and account restrictions during compliance checks. Treat this as a pattern in the review anecdotes, not a measured failure rate; we have no verified incidence figure, and the same theme dogs most app-based business accounts.
On balance, the ratings are good and the known weakness is a timing risk rather than a cost: worth planning around if Tide is to hold your main account, rather than a reason to avoid it.
Tide vs Starling, Monzo, Revolut, Wise and ANNA
| Alternative | Choose It Over Tide If | Choose Tide If | Apply |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starling | Choose Starling for free UK transfers at any volume, a full banking licence and an overdraft for limited companies. | Your accountant uses Sage: Starling also invoices for free, but publishes no Sage bank feed | View Deal → |
| Monzo | You prefer Monzo’s mobile-first app and don’t mind paying for invoicing and accounting connections | You want invoicing and a Sage bank feed on a free plan; Monzo charges for both | View Deal → |
| Revolut | You trade in multiple currencies and want to hold foreign-currency balances at strong rates | Your business is UK-focused and invoicing-led | View Deal → |
| Wise | You make regular international payments and want a true multi-currency account that holds balances | You want a UK business current account with invoicing rather than an FX-first account | View Deal → |
| ANNA | You want VAT and tax admin automated inside the account | You want free invoicing plus a Sage bank feed rather than tax automation | View Deal → |
| Every figure read from each provider’s own pricing page in August 2026: tide.co/pricing, monzo.com/business-banking/plans-pricing, starlingbank.com and anna.money/pricing. | |||
How to Open a Tide Business Account
You apply entirely through Tide’s app, with no branch visit. Have your photo ID ready, then upload it and complete the selfie check in the app.
Tide says an application can be approved within minutes where it clears the automatic eligibility checks, and that anything needing a manual look takes longer. The checklist below covers the five things that decide whether Tide suits you, and all five are easier to settle before you apply than after.
- Download the Tide app on iOS or Android.
- Choose your business type: sole trader or freelancer, or a UK limited company.
- Verify your identity with photo ID and a selfie.
- Enter your company number if you’re a limited company, or use Tide’s formation service to register with Companies House at the same time.
- Wait for approval, which Tide says can come within minutes, then start using the account and Mastercard debit card.
- Eligibility: you’re a UK sole trader, freelancer, or the director of a UK limited company. Partnerships and LLPs aren’t accepted; Zempler is one alternative that takes them.
- Documents: photo ID and a selfie ready, plus a company number if you’re a limited company.
- Payment volume: you’ve counted your monthly transfers, since Free covers only five and Smart 30 before Pro’s unlimited tier makes more sense.
- Cash and FX needs: you’ve factored in the Post Office and PayPoint cash-deposit fees and the 2.75% free-plan overseas card fee, if either applies.
- Overall fit: you don’t need an overdraft or an account that holds foreign-currency balances.
Tide Company Formation and Savings
- Tide bundles a Companies House registration into the sign-up flow, handy if you haven’t incorporated yet, but the real price isn’t £0.
- Stand-alone formation is £14.99 (Tide frames this as reduced from £100, so treat it as a promotional rate), or £1 if you subscribe to Tide’s Company Secretary service, which then costs £12.50 plus VAT a month.
- You can use your own UK address as the registered office at no charge. A virtual office address, if you need one, is a separate paid service at £22.99 plus VAT a month or £190 plus VAT a year, not a free add-on.
- If you already have an accountant or formation agent, compare their price first.
- For an alternative formation route, see ANNA’s company-registration service. ANNA takes up to four directors or shareholders, where Tide’s cheaper stand-alone route accepts a single shareholder only.
- Standard rates: 1.50% AER on Free, 2.50% on Smart, 3.00% on Pro, and 3.25% AER on Max, all variable. Read the balance ceilings beside them, because each rate stops dead rather than tapering: Tide pays 0.00% on anything over £75,000 on Free, over £100,000 on Smart, over £150,000 on Pro and over £1m on Max. Hold £100,000 on the free plan and you earn 1.50% on three quarters of it and nothing on the rest.
- For the first four months Tide pays an introductory rate instead, tiered by balance: 3.75% AER up to £1m, 4.00% AER on the slice between £1m and £10m, and 0.00% above that. So the headline “up to 4%” belongs to balances most businesses will never hold, and 3.75% is the rate a new saver actually gets.
- New savers get an introductory rate up to 4.00% AER for the first 4 months.
- Because it’s held with ClearBank, the balance is FSCS-protected, but it shares the £120,000 limit with your current account rather than adding to it.
- For the full breakdown, see our Tide business savings review.
FAQs
Can sole traders and freelancers open a Tide account?
Yes. Sole traders and freelancers are core eligible types, alongside directors of UK limited companies. Partnerships and LLPs are not eligible, so if you trade through one of those, look at an alternative like Zempler. As a sole trader you get all free-plan features, including invoicing, expense categorisation, and the full accounting-integration suite. We confirmed the eligibility rules against Tide’s website on 22 July 2026.
Does Tide support international payments?
Yes, both sending and receiving. SEPA euro payments start at £1 plus a 1.50% FX markup on the free plan, falling to a 0.50% markup on Max; SWIFT payments start at £10 plus 1.50% and drop to £3 plus 0.50% on Max. What Tide isn’t is a multi-currency holding account: it won’t keep a euro or dollar balance for you, and incoming foreign payments convert to GBP. For multi-currency trading, Wise or Revolut fit better.
Is Tide FSCS protected?
If you open an account today, yes. New accounts are provided by ClearBank (FCA reference 754568), a fully licensed UK bank, so eligible deposits are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme up to £120,000. Some longer-standing members still hold legacy PrePay Technologies e-money accounts, which are safeguarded but not FSCS-covered; check in the app if you’re unsure. The £120,000 limit covers all your ClearBank balances combined, including a Tide Instant Saver. We confirmed these details from tide.co.uk and the FCA register on 22 July 2026.
Does Tide have a phone support line?
It depends on your plan. Free-plan customers don’t get a direct number, but can request a callback through in-app chat during the same hours the paid phone lines run. Smart and Pro include a phone line on weekdays, 9am to 6pm; Max runs 7am to 7pm on weekdays plus Saturday mornings, with a priority callback on Sundays. In-app chat and email are available on every plan. Hours confirmed from Tide’s help centre, 22 July 2026.
How much does Tide cost to use?
The free plan has no monthly fee. You get five free transfers a month, then 20p each, charged on incoming payments as well as outgoing ones. ATM withdrawals are £1. Post Office cash deposits are £2.50 up to £500, then a percentage of the whole deposit above that; PayPoint is 3%. Paid plans are £12.49 (Smart), £27.49 (Pro), and £69.99 (Max) a month. See the plan-cost section above for which tier is cheapest at your transfer volume.
Is Smart cheaper than the free plan if I make more transfers?
No, not on transfer charges. Smart’s £12.49 fee buys 25 extra free transfers, worth at most £5 a month, so on monthly billing it costs at least £7.49 a month more than Free on transfers, and more than that below 30 transfers a month. On annual billing that minimum premium is £3.33 a month. Either way Smart never undercuts Free on transfers; its value is 0% overseas card use and a higher savings rate. If transfer count is your only concern, stay on Free until about 143 transfers a month, then move to Pro.
How much does a cash deposit cost with Tide?
At the Post Office, a flat £2.50 for deposits up to £500. Above £500, it’s a percentage of the entire deposit, not just the amount over £500: 0.99% on the free plan and 0.5% on paid plans. So a £600 free-plan deposit costs £5.94, not a fee on the £100 excess. PayPoint charges a flat 3% at any amount. If you handle cash regularly, those fees mount up.
Does Tide offer a business overdraft?
No. There’s no overdraft on any Tide plan, so the account won’t stretch if your balance runs low. Tide does offer business loans and a merchant cash advance, but those are separate products with their own applications rather than a facility sitting behind the current account. If you run a limited company or LLP, Starling offers business overdrafts of £1,000 to £50,000; it does not offer them to sole traders.
How much does Tide company formation cost?
It’s £14.99 as a stand-alone service (a promotional price Tide frames as reduced from £100), or £1 if you add the Company Secretary subscription, which then costs £12.50 plus VAT a month. You can use your own UK address as the registered office for free; a virtual office address is a separate paid extra at £22.99 plus VAT a month or £190 plus VAT a year. It is not a free service.
What savings rate does the Tide Instant Saver pay?
It rises with your plan: 1.50% AER on Free, 2.50% on Smart, 3.00% on Pro, and 3.25% AER on Max, all variable, and each rate pays 0.00% above its balance ceiling: £75,000 on Free, £100,000 on Smart, £150,000 on Pro and £1m on Max. New savers get up to 4.25% AER for the first four months if they switch their account to Tide through the Current Account Switch Service and pay in £10,000 or more within 14 days, and 3.25% for those four months otherwise. 3.75% is the Max Boost rate on a balance between £1m and £10m. The pot is FSCS-protected through ClearBank but shares the £120,000 limit with your current account. See our Tide business savings review for the full picture.
Is Tide better than Starling?
Tide suits you better if your accountant works in Sage, because Tide has a Sage bank feed and Starling publishes none. Starling is better if you send a lot of transfers, because UK domestic transfers are free at any volume, and it offers business overdrafts to limited companies and LLPs. Both give FSCS protection to £120,000. On transfer cost alone Starling is cheaper from Tide’s sixth transfer of the month, and past about 143 a month even Tide’s unlimited Pro plan costs £27.49 a month where Starling charges nothing.
Which Tide plan is best?
The free plan suits invoicing-led businesses with low transfer volumes and three or fewer invoices a month. Smart (£12.49) adds 0% overseas card use and a better savings rate, but never beats Free on transfer cost. Pro (£27.49) is the first plan with unlimited transfers and makes sense past about 143 transfers a month. Max (£69.99) only pays off on heavy card cashback. Count your transfers before you pick.
How we reviewed Tide
What we tested. We opened a Tide free-plan account and used the app for the everyday jobs: raising and matching an invoice, categorising payments, capturing a receipt, and checking the Instant Saver pot.
We weighed pricing, terms, features, and eligibility, though cost and safety carry the most weight in our verdict. The full test log, including what we did not transact first-hand, is in the What We Tested section above.
Data sources. Tide’s pricing, savings, safety-and-security, company-formation, and help-centre pages were checked directly on 5 October 2026.
We re-verified plan prices, transfer and FX fees, cash-deposit mechanics, international-payment charges, savings rates, support hours, eligibility, and deposit protection.
The FCA register was cross-checked for the ClearBank (754568) and Tide Platform (900843) authorisations. The Trustpilot figure reflects our October 2026 reading.
Evidence key. We distinguish Tide’s published facts from our plan-cost and break-even calculations, which use the provider’s stated prices and allowances.
Customer-review themes are treated as anecdotal rather than measured failure rates. Recommendations about who Tide suits are our editorial judgement, based on the costs, eligibility rules and product limits set out on the page.
Where we couldn’t verify a figure, we’ve left it out.
Material change log (22 July 2026). Eligibility corrected to sole traders, freelancers and UK limited company directors only (partnerships and LLPs removed).
International payments corrected: Tide sends and receives, with SEPA/SWIFT fees added; the old “no international payments” framing removed.
International-payment fees re-checked plan by plan against Tide’s own send-and-receive pages. An earlier version had the SEPA and SWIFT figures shifted one plan column out of line, so the Smart, Pro and Max fees were each misstated; corrected here on independent re-verification.
Free-plan phone support corrected to a callback request via in-app chat. Company formation corrected from “free” to £14.99 stand-alone or £1 with a Company Secretary subscription.
Post Office cash-deposit fee corrected: the percentage applies to the whole deposit over £500, not the excess. Removed the false Smart-vs-Free break-even claim; Smart is always £7.49 a month dearer than Free on transfers.
Removed unverified “500,000 primary accounts”, “most widely used”, “no VAT”, and “no credit check” claims, and an unverifiable service-survey citation.
We buy or open the products we review and work from the provider’s own pricing and terms. Some links on this page are affiliate links, see our editorial policy.
Update cadence. We re-verify this page regularly and whenever a provider changes pricing, eligibility, or terms. The verification date on the page reflects the most recent full review.