We recommend products that we love. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
There are much fewer companies that help you build business credit than there are for building personal credit.
That’s why we compiled this list of the seven best business credit builder programs in 2024.
The Best Business Credit Builder Programs
- Nav
- BILL Spend & Expense
- CreditStrong
- Credit Suite
- eCredable
- Wells Fargo Business Secured Credit Card
- Business Credit Builders
Because the Tillful secured business credit card is no longer accepting new customers, we took it off the list. It was acquired by Nav, who promises to re-open a new secured card soon.
To build good business credit, you need both vendor and financial tradelines. In simple terms, those are credit accounts from businesses and financial institutions that report to the major commercial credit bureaus.
Below, you’ll find the best business credit sources offering both types of tradelines for companies at every stage of the business credit building process.
1. Nav: The Best Vendor Business Tradeline & Credit Montoring
There are countless vendor tradelines out there, and you’ll want to acquire around a half dozen of them to fill out your credit profile initially. However, some of them are more useful than others, and Nav’s is one that you don’t want to miss.
Nav offers the only business credit monitoring service that lets you access your business credit scores and reports from D&B, Experian, and Equifax in one place. The service has both a free account option and a paid product.
The free account gives you limited access to your business credit reports and scores. Just start the sign-up flow and you’ll see the option for the free account.
With the paid product, Nav Prime, you’ll receive the full business credit reports and scores for D&B, Experian Business, and Equifax Businness. You also qualify for tradeline reporting. That means Nav reports your monthly payment history to these same credit bureaus as a vendor tradeline.
They also offer a business checking account and a business charge card that reports payments to the business credit bureaus.
If you use the charge card, Nav Prime enables you to get two tradelines for the price of one!
They promise never to report negative business credit history to the bureaus, even if you miss a payment. As a result, you get a guaranteed-to-be-positive vendor tradeline, credit monitoring services, and more for just $49.99 per month.
2. BILL Spend & Expense: The Best Business Card
If you need an excellent budget and expense management software, you can’t go wrong with BILL Spend & Expense (formerly known as Divvy).
They don’t offer a credit building program, but if you qualify for their BILL Divvy Corporate Card they do report your payments to the Small Business Financial Exchange (SBFE) and Dun & Bradstreet.
You don’t need any business credit history to qualify. So it’s a great program to build business credit with.
They require businesses to have at least $5,000 in monthly expenses to qualify. Keep in mind that this card is more of a charge card than a credit card because payments are due in full each month.
BILL Spend & Expense helps business owners to create a budget and never go over budget again. They also provide spend sheets where you can view expenses and keep everything in one place. You can see and manage all of this on the app.
BILL Spend & Expense lets you:
- Create virtual and physical credit cards for multiple users
- Automatically track and categorize business expenses
- Create business-wide budgets and ones for specific users
Meanwhile, they charge no fees, and you can earn some attractive rewards, including extra points on restaurants, hotels, and recurring software subscriptions. To read more about reviews on the BILL Divvy Corporate Card, check out BILL Divvy Corporate Card Reviews article.
3. CreditStrong: The Best Credit Builder Loan
CreditStrong is an online lender that specializes in credit builder loans. There are multiple similar providers that work with consumers, but CreditStrong is the only one to extend the product to businesses.
Credit builder loans function similarly to a traditional small business loan, but you don’t get the loan proceeds until you close the account. Its only purpose is to build business credit, not to finance purchases.
Once you sign up, CreditStrong puts your loan proceeds into a locked savings account as collateral.
Next, you make monthly payments as usual, with part of them going toward the principal amount and part of them to interest. (Of course, this depends on which plan you choose as well.)
Alternatively, you can pay a higher sign-up fee, in which case your payments go entirely toward the principal balance. Either way, CreditStrong reports your payments as a financial tradeline to Equifax, PayNet, and the SBFE. (The SBFE then reports your account and payments to Dun & Bradstreet and Experian.)
They won’t check your business or personal credit score when you apply. All you need to qualify is to be in business for three months, have an Employer Identification Number (EIN), and operate as a legal entity other than a sole proprietorship.
4. Credit Suite: The Best Credit Builder Program
Credit Suite isn’t a credit issuer, so they’re not a direct source of vendor or financial tradelines. However, they offer a comprehensive business credit builder program that can guide you through the process of acquiring them.
If you sign up for the program, Credit Suite’s software and advisors will walk you through the following steps:
- Build business credibility: First, Credit Suite helps you lay the groundwork for lender credibility. For example, they’ll help you get your EIN, set up a 411 listing, and establish a separate business bank account. They’ll even help you Startup Business Credit Cards with No Credit if that is a need.
- Establish business credit reports: Second, Credit Suite guides you through setting up your business credit profile with each major business credit bureau, like Dun & Bradstreet (D&B), Experian Business, and Equifax Commercial.
- Get initial business credit: Next, Credit Suite shows you how to get initial vendor tradelines that don’t require a business or personal credit check and report to the credit bureaus under your EIN.
- Get revolving credit: Finally, Credit Suite helps you get more advanced trade credit and your initial financial tradelines.
Managing your business credit on your own can be time-consuming and stressful. There’s a lot of misinformation that can make it hard to find the best route forward.
Credit Suite’s credit builder program eliminates all the guesswork and streamlines the process. In addition to receiving a personalized plan for building your business’s credit, you also have access to advisers to answer all your questions.
They also have a comprehensive database of vendors and lenders whose exact qualifications they know. Many customers have found this “insider” connection to be tremendously helpful when applying for financing.
In fact, one of the first things that they do when you sign up is to give you access to a free Nav account (covered below).
If you’re looking for personalized, step-by-step advice on how to build business credit, Credit Suite is the best in the business. For more of a review on Credit Suite, check out our Credit Suite Review article.
At $3,000, the program’s price isn’t cheap. But others in the industry charge anywhere between $5,000-$10,000 for a less comprehensive program.
5. eCredable
eCredable allows you to report the business bills that you already pay to the business credit bureaus.
This is great because each of your business bills can now be a separate vendor tradeline – with only one subscription! They also report your subscription payments to the bureaus as well.
Here’s how you could use eCredable to get five new vendor tradelines. Say that you have a business phone, internet service, electric bill, and lease. Each one of those would be reported as a separate vendor tradeline. Then the eCredable subscription payment would count as your fifth.
Normally, businesses start building business credit by applying for and paying off one net 30 account at a time. With eCredable, you can really jumpstart things with multiple vendor tradelines at once!
The best thing about eCredable is that you can use it to report up to 24 months of past payments. This can result in a huge credit score boost!
eCredable Business Lift costs only $19.95 per month and can be canceled at any time.
6. Wells Fargo Business Secured Credit Card
Secured credit cards are a popular credit-building tool for consumers, but there aren’t many available for businesses. As a result, it’s a good idea to take advantage of all the ones you can get.
For a third card to round out your credit profile, we recommend the Wells Fargo Business Secured Credit Card. It’s a traditional secured card in that you must deposit $500 to $25,000 to qualify, but you’ll eventually graduate to an unsecured business line.
Fortunately, it has decent rewards, especially for a secured card. You’ll get 1.5% cash back on all qualifying purchases, one point for every dollar spent, and 1,000 bonus points each time you spend more than $1,000 in a billing cycle.
It reports payments and other credit data to the SBFE, and like the other programs on this list, it does not report to the consumer credit bureaus. By starting with secured cards like this, it can help you get the credit score you need for a business loan.
7. Business Credit Builders
Last but not least, Business Credit Builders (BCB) offers another program to guide you through building business credit. It’s comparable to Credit Suite’s in many ways and follows a similar process that includes the following steps:
- Set up your company to follow lender credibility standards, like establishing a 411 listing and a separate business bank account.
- Separate your business and personal credit to avoid giving a personal guarantee by acquiring an EIN.
- Open accounts with each major business credit bureau and acquire net 30 accounts to build foundational business credit.
- Work your way up to bank lines of credit and cash loans to finance your business.
Working with Business Credit Builders is like having a personal business credit coach there to walk you through the process.
While their program isn’t as comprehensive as Credit Suite’s, you can get started for a one-time payment of only $497, or for $97 per month.
Business Credit Builders has been in the business credit industry for a long time, and it’s founder Marco Carbajo is one of the most well-known names in the industry.
The Bottom Line
If you’re a small business owner looking to build credit, we strongly recommend starting with the programs and accounts above. They’ll help you hit the ground running and work your way up efficiently to the business financing you need. Get started today!
Also Read:
- How To Build Business Credit Without Using Personal Credit
- Net 60 Vendors
- Tier 1 Business Credit Vendors
- Tier 2 Business Credit Vendors
- Companies That Help Build Business
- CreditStrong Business Credit Review
- Nav Review
- Secured Business Credit Cards That Report to D&B
Nick Gallo is a Certified Public Accountant and content marketer for the financial industry. He has been an auditor of international companies and a tax strategist for real estate investors. He now writes articles on personal and corporate finance, accounting and tax matters, and entrepreneurship.