Relay vs Mercury 2026: when to choose each for your Delaware LLC

Mercury strengths

Mercury's interface is the cleanest in the SMB banking space. API access for engineering teams, integrated treasury for excess cash, and broad acceptance by VCs and US banks for credit line applications.

Best for: SaaS, agencies, consulting, tech-services LLCs. Approval rate from non-resident countries is generally high with EIN.

Relay strengths

Relay's sub-account architecture (up to 20 distinct accounts) maps cleanly to profit-first methodology used by many ecommerce founders. Tax savings, profit, operating expenses, owner's compensation can each have their own account.

Best for: Amazon FBA, Shopify ecommerce, dropshipping, print-on-demand. Acceptance from non-resident countries is good with EIN; sometimes slightly slower review than Mercury.

When to use both

Some founders run Mercury as primary and Relay as backup (or vice versa). The redundancy protects against single-bank account issues (frozen accounts, KYC reviews). Cost: $0 (both have free tiers); benefit: meaningful continuity insurance.