Rho and Mercury both offer financial platforms for US businesses, but cater to slightly different needs within the mid-market. Rho stands out with its comprehensive suite of integrated tools, including AP automation and global payments, coupled with strong customer support, making it ideal for growing businesses seeking an all-in-one financial operating system and valuing service reliability. Mercury offers a simpler, user-friendly banking experience focused on startups, featuring free wire transfers and quick setup, but faces significant criticism regarding customer support responsiveness and account stability issues.
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Rho is a financial platform designed for growing businesses in the US. It brings together various financial tools into one place, including business banking, expense management, bill payments, and accounting automation. Their goal is to help companies manage their money more efficiently and gain better control over their finances. Rho aims to simplify financial operations, reduce manual work, and provide a clear view of your company's financial position. This makes it particularly attractive for businesses wanting to streamline their financial processes as they expand.
Mercury is a financial technology company offering banking and financial management tools specifically designed for startups. It provides FDIC-insured checking and savings accounts, credit cards, expense management, and integrations with accounting software. Mercury aims to simplify financial operations, offering a single platform for managing banking, expenses, invoicing, and bill payments. While not a bank itself, Mercury partners with established banks to provide these services.
Summary
Main difference
Rho offers a more comprehensive suite of integrated financial tools like AP automation and global payments, backed by highly-rated customer support, aiming to be a complete financial operating system for growing businesses. Mercury provides a simpler, startup-focused banking platform emphasizing ease of use, fast onboarding, and low core banking fees, but with reported challenges in customer support responsiveness and account stability.
Relative strengths of Rho (compared to Mercury)
Rho provides a broader range of integrated financial services: Beyond banking and cards, Rho includes Accounts Payable (AP) Automation and Global Payments capabilities directly within its platform, offering a more complete financial toolkit compared to Mercury's more focused banking and basic bill pay.
Rho is known for better and more reliable customer support: User reviews consistently praise Rho's dedicated and responsive customer support, which is crucial for businesses needing timely assistance. Mercury users frequently report significant delays and difficulties in getting support responses.
Rho offers a more robust, integrated platform for scaling businesses: Rho is explicitly designed as a scalable platform with features like advanced spend controls, AP automation, and dedicated support geared towards businesses managing increasing financial complexity, whereas Mercury's primary focus is simpler startup banking.
Relative weaknesses of Rho (compared to Mercury)
Mercury offers free wire transfers: Mercury provides free domestic and international USD wire transfers, which can represent significant savings for businesses making frequent wire payments. Rho charges fees for foreign currency transfers (1%) and potentially intermediary bank fees for USD international wires.
Mercury may have a faster, simpler onboarding for basic banking needs: Mercury highlights its 10-minute online application, potentially offering a quicker setup for businesses primarily needing core checking, savings, and card services compared to Rho's potentially more involved onboarding for its comprehensive platform.
Rho's credit card limit refresh can be slower: User feedback indicates Rho's credit limit refresh takes up to 48 hours, which could be a drawback compared to potentially faster refreshes elsewhere, although Mercury's specific refresh speed isn't detailed.
We find that Rho is a great fit for US-based businesses, from ambitious startups to growing enterprises, looking to simplify their financial operations. It combines banking, expenses, payments, and accounting automation into one easy-to-use platform. Users frequently praise its straightforward expense tracking and responsive customer support. If you want a clearer view of your finances and less manual work as you scale, Rho is definitely worth considering.
Mercury offers banking designed for startups, especially tech companies. We've seen users praise its user-friendly interface, easy setup, and free wire transfers. However, some users report significant issues with sudden account closures and very slow customer support. While it aims to simplify finances for startups with features like checking/savings accounts, credit cards, and bill pay, potential issues with reliability and support should be considered, particularly as businesses scale.
In our experience, Rho works exceptionally well for small to medium-sized businesses (1-1000 employees) aiming to streamline finances.
Rho is particularly effective for Finance, Banking, Insurance, and Software/IT companies needing an integrated financial platform.
In our experience, Mercury is a great fit for startups and small to medium-sized businesses (up to 1000 employees).
We find Mercury works particularly well for startups in Ecommerce, Tech (Software/IT/Telecom), and the Finance/Banking sector.
Rho and Mercury features
Supported
Partially supported
Not supported
Type in the name of the feature or in your own words tell us what you need
Corporate Cards
10
sources
Not supported
Rho offers corporate cards but lacks the specific integrations mentioned.
Not supported
Mercury offers business credit cards and ERP integrations but lacks the specified corporate card program.
Mercury offers expense management and integrates with accounting software, enabling efficient and timely expense tracking.
Single Dashboard Management
10
sources
Supported
Rho offers a single dashboard for accounting, partner portal, and treasury management.
Supported
Mercury provides a single dashboard for managing business banking and core financial operations.
Credit card integration
10
sources
Supported
Rho supports credit card integrations, including Mastercard.
Supported
Mercury supports company credit cards and automatic transaction imports.
Receipt uploading
10
sources
Supported
Rho supports uploading receipts via their mobile app.
Supported
Receipt uploading is supported via the Mercury mobile app and web interface.
Mobile app support
10
sources
Supported
Rho offers a dedicated mobile app for managing expenses on the go.
Supported
Mercury offers a mobile app for expense management, including submitting expenses and uploading receipts.
Browse all features
Qualities
Value and Pricing Transparency
No data
+0
Neutral sentiment
Customer Service
No data
-0.23
Neutral sentiment
Ease of Use
No data
+0.7
Strongly positive sentiment
Reliability and Performance
No data
+0.04
Neutral sentiment
Ease of Implementation
No data
+0.37
Rather positive sentiment
Rho and Mercury Pricing
Rho offers a transparent pricing model with no monthly subscription fees. Key features like same-day ACH, domestic wires, checking account minimums, connected in-platform capabilities (AP, Expense & Accounting Automation), per-user fees, and support are all free of charge. There is a 1% fee for foreign currency transfers and a $30 wire recall fee. International wires in USD may be subject to additional fees from intermediary banks.
Mercury offers a free business banking plan with unlimited bill payments and invoice generation. Paid plans offer additional features like recurring invoicing, branded invoices, expense reimbursements for more users, and advanced accounting automations.
Plans
0Mercury
Powerful business banking and finance essentials.
35Mercury Plus
Everything Mercury offers, with more reimbursements and invoicing power.
350Mercury Pro
Everything Mercury Plus offers, with advanced workflows and dedicated support.
Easy expense tracking and receipt uploads via text.
User-friendly interface and easy navigation.
Excellent and responsive customer support.
Real-time budget tracking and spending visibility.
Convenient virtual and physical card options.
User-friendly interface and easy navigation on both web and mobile app
Simple and efficient account setup process
Free international and domestic wire transfers
Virtual card creation and management
Multiple account creation for better financial organization
Users dislike
Difficult to view attached receipt images after upload.
Excessive and frequent email/text notifications.
Occasional bugs and app crashes.
Credit card limit refresh takes 48 hours.
Some expense notifications can be delayed.
Account closures without clear explanations or communication
Unacceptable delays in customer support responses, sometimes taking days
Slow processing times for transfers and check deposits (7-10 business days)
Inconsistent application of compliance rules and requirements
Lack of transparency regarding compliance and account closure reasons
Rho and Mercury Ratings
G2
4.8/5
(111)
Glassdoor
4.1/5
(17)
G2
4.6/5
(101)
Company health
Employee growth
3% increase in the last year
33% increase in the last year
Web traffic
2% decrease in the last quarter
20% increase in the last quarter
Financing
June 2021 - $195M
February 2022 - $152M
How responsive is each company's customer support in resolving urgent issues?
Rho's customer support is consistently highlighted by users as excellent and responsive, suggesting they are likely effective in handling urgent issues promptly. Conversely, Mercury receives significant negative feedback regarding its customer support, specifically citing unacceptable delays often lasting days, which indicates poor responsiveness for resolving urgent matters.
Which platform provides more robust and reliable expense tracking capabilities?
Based on the provided information, Rho offers more robust and reliable expense tracking. Rho explicitly lists detailed Expense Management features, including automated tracking, approval workflows, policy enforcement, and real-time visibility, which users specifically praise for ease of use and receipt uploads. While Mercury includes expense management, its feature description is less detailed, and significant user complaints about slow processing, poor customer support, and overall platform reliability raise concerns about the dependability of its expense tracking functions compared to Rho's more focused and positively reviewed capabilities in this area.
What are the advantages of Rho?
Rho offers several advantages, notably significantly better customer support and reliability according to user feedback, contrasting sharply with Mercury's reported issues with support delays and unexplained account closures. Rho provides a more comprehensive suite of integrated financial tools specifically designed for growing businesses, including robust AP automation, commercial cards with stronger spending controls, and dedicated global payment features. Additionally, Rho's pricing model offers its core integrated platform features free of charge, potentially offering more cost predictability than Mercury's tiered plans for advanced capabilities. Users also frequently praise Rho's ease of expense tracking via text and its responsive support.
What are the disadvantages of Rho?
Based on user feedback, Rho's disadvantages include difficulties viewing uploaded receipt images, an excessive volume of email and text notifications, and occasional software bugs or app crashes. Users also report delays, specifically a 48-hour timeframe for credit card limit refreshes and occasional delays in receiving expense notifications.
Michal has worked at startups for many years and writes about topics relating to software selection and IT
management. As a former consultant for Bain, a business advisory company, he also knows how to understand needs
of any business and find solutions to its problems.
TT
Tymon Terlikiewicz
CTO at Gralio
Tymon is a seasoned CTO who loves finding the perfect tools for any task. He recently headed up the tech
department at Batmaid, a well-known Swiss company, where he managed about 60 software purchases, including CX,
HR, Payroll, Marketing automation and various developer tools.
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