Lili Bank Review: Good Business Banking Option in 2023?

Since its launch in 2018, Lili Bank has offered innovative banking solutions to small business owners and freelancers.

For starters, Lili offers a business checking account and Visa debit card that aren’t bogged down with hidden fees or overdraft fees. There’s also no deposit required to get started with Lili and you don’t have to keep a minimum balance in your checking account—which means you keep access to your money (as it should be).

In this Lili Bank review, we dive deep into what Lili banking offers its customers, which features you should care most about, and the best way to get started with a Lili business account.

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Lili Bank Summary

In summary, the Lili Business Bank Account is a great option if you are running a very small business (5 people or less) and need a simple but powerful banking solution.

The Lili card makes it easy to control your small business spending and the Lili app puts everything you need right at your fingertips.

Basic features are free, but with an affordable paid plan, you can also tap into some great bookkeeping and tax prep features.

Pros & Cons of Lili Bank

Pros

Cons

No minimum fees or overdraft fees. This is huge for small business owners who need access to all their capital and shouldn’t have to waste time worrying about other nuisance fees. Access to a full suite of tools. Lili’s banking tools pair seamlessly with Lili bookkeeping, invoicing, payments, and tax planning tools. New AI-powered bookkeeping. Leveraging the power of artificial intelligence and auto-categorization means you spend less time managing your money and more time growing your small business.

It’s not actually a “bank.” All over their site, you’ll see that Lili “bank” is not actually a bank at all. It’s actually a fintech company. So who manages and protects your money? Choice Financial Group out of South Dakota, USA. Limits on cash deposits. If your business heavily uses cash, keep in mind there is a daily $1,000 cash deposit limit and a monthly $9,000 limit. ACH, connected accounts, and check deposits have zero fees. SponsoredBecome a sponsor Paid tiers required for premium features. While many banks offer most features to most customers, Lili Bank segments their customers with different monthly subscription plans.

How Lili banking compares

In order to get a clearer picture of Lili bank when compared with the market, let’s compare a few non-traditional banking competitors side-by-side:

	Lili	Oxygen	RelayFi	Novo
Rating	5	5	4	4
Plan Options	$0/mo-$35/mo	N/A	$30/mo	N/A
Minimum balance	$0	$0	$0	$0
Monthly fees	$0	$0	$0	$0
Minimum deposit	0	0	0	$50

In addition, here’s how Lili bank compares with a few more traditional bank options:

Top banking features

For a deeper dive into Lili, let’s review some of their top banking and finance features you might need as you grow your small business.

Lili Business Banking

Of course, the primary offering at Lili Bank is their business banking account. Below, we’ll review plans, features, and lots more to help you determine if this is a good business bank account for you.

Plans

Lili offers essentially 4 plans for your business banking needs: Basic, Pro, Smart, and Premium.

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Lili Basic is completely free. It costs $0/mo to access the features of Lili Basic. With Lili Basic, you’ll receive a basic business checking account with no monthly fees, a business debit card, and access to the Lili app and online banking. Lili Basic rewards you with a pretty standard 1% APY on any savings you have in your account.

Lili Pro is the next plan (by order of price) and costs $9/mo. Lili Pro gives you everything you get with the free Basic plan but also lets you withdraw cash at over 38,000 ATMs. The Pro plan also helps automate your tax savings and removes your overdraft fees (up to $200). Plus, they double your savings interest rate to 2% APY.

Lili Smart costs a bit more at $20/mo. In addition to all of the features mentioned above, you also get access to their Metal Visa Business Pro debit card which also means you can earn cash back rewards through Visa.

Lili Premium rounds out the list with a cost of $35/mo. The biggest addition here seems to be that you get a dedicated account specialist and priority customer support—which sounds nice, but may not be worth the extra $15/mo. It could be there as a price anchor.

Lili Card

When you sign up for Lili, you get your very own Lili Card—a Visa debit card that is accepted anywhere Visa cards can be used (which is basically everywhere).

There’s no fee for the Lili card and, if you subscribe to one of their paid tiers, you can even earn cash back on the money you spend using your Lili card.

Lili App

Of course, because Lili is a financial tech company, their real selling point is the Lili App. Everything we’ll discuss in this Lili review, you can do directly in their app (available on iPhone or Android).

Invoicing with Lili

If you already bank with Lili, sending invoices to clients may be a little bit simpler but only if you’re on the Smart or Premium accounts (see above).

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You can export invoices from the Lili invoicing dashboard and share with clients or send them directly using email. Like many freelancer invoicing tools, you can also set up client reminders and status notifications.

Accounting & Bookkeeping

Traditionally, to do the accounting or bookkeeping for your small business, you would have to sync your bank with a tool like Quickbooks and then categorize your expenses there.

With Lili, that option still exists, but you can also auto-categorize your spending without any syncing or exporting right within Lili which means less time doing your books and more time growing your business—which is a definite win.

This auto-categorization is just the first step in Lili’s aim to integrate AI into their toolset.

Tax Preparation

If you subscribe to one of Lili’s paid plans, you’ll get access to some pretty cool tax preparation features as well.

For example, Lili can help you auto-save for tax time so you’re not stuck with a tax bill you can’t afford.

Plus, Lili can generate your tax forms with all the right info based on the categorization we talked about earlier.

Lili customer service

Finally, if you sign up for Lili, you can expect to be met with quality customer service. You can reach their support team directly from the Lili App once you’ve downloaded it. Just click “Help Center.”

Or you can use email ([email protected]) or their support phone number (855-545-4380).

Keep in mind, they do not offer 24/7 support, so you’ll have to plan ahead to contact them during regular customer support hours as shown below:

For email support: Mon-Fri 9am-7pm EST and Sat-Sun, 9am-6pm EST

For phone support: Mon-Fri 9am-7pm EST (bank holidays excluded)

How to open a Lili account

If you’re ready to open a Lili account, the process is pretty simple. Here’s what you should do:

1. Click this link to visit Lili.co.
2. Click “Get Started” and create an account.
3. Download the Lili App.
4. Add funds to your account by scanning a check, connecting a bank account, or initiating an ACH transfer.

Lili Bank Review FAQ

If you’re not quite ready to sign up, here are a few more questions and answers about Lili.

Q: What restrictions should I know about when using Lili?

A: There are not many restrictions, however here are a few you may want to be aware of before signing up for Lili:

• Outbound ACH Transfers: Max $10,000 per day and $60,000 per month
• Lili Card Purchases: $10,000 per day
• ATM Withdrawals using Lili Card: Max $1,000
• Cash Deposits: $1,000 per day and $9,000 per month
• Inbound ACH Transfers: $1,000 per day and $5,000 per month
• Mobile Check Deposits: $50,000 per month and $10,000 per day.
• Maximum Check Value: $10,000 (you can also petition this in the app)

Q: Do I have to download the Lili App?

A: Nope. You can use Lili’s website in order to access your account and perform most actions you can accomplish using the app.

Q: Wait…Lili is not a bank? Is my money safe?

A: Pretty much yes. Funds you deposit into your Lili bank checking account are managed by Choice Financial Group which is a member of the FDIC. This means your money is guaranteed to be protected by the U.S. government up to $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank.

Q: Do I need an EIN to sign up for Lili?

A: Not necessarily. If you’re a sole proprietor, you can just sign up with your social security number. But if you’re an LLC, you’ll need both your social security number and your Employer Identification Number (EIN).

Currently, you can open a Lili bank account if you have one of the following business types:

• Sole Proprietor
• Single-member LLC
• Multi-member LLC
• S-Corp
• General Partnership
• Limited Liability Partnership

Q: How long does it take to open a Lili business account?

A: Depending on how quick you are at typing, setting up a Lili business bank account only takes a few minutes. A few more minutes to download the app (either before signing up or after) and add funds to your account, and you’re probably looking at somewhere around 10-15 minutes all-in. Depending on transfer speeds with your current bank, it may take longer to actually transfer funds to your Lili account.

Conclusion

The Lili Business Bank Account and Lili Card are a great, simple-yet-powerful option for freelancers and self-employed professionals. Their paid tiers enhance their offering which may be a better fit for LLCs or Partnerships. From what we can see, Lili will continue to innovate and adapt to provide better and better financial tools for self-employed.

If you’re in the market for a simple bank account, we definitely recommend you try Lili.

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