Best Business Checking Accounts for Tutors and Private Coaches (2025)

If you're a tutor or private coach, your business checking account probably isn't the first thing you think about when you wake up. But it should be the thing that quietly works in the background—taking payments, keeping fees low, and not adding friction to your day.

Traditional banks weren't built for solo educators. They demand minimum balances, charge monthly maintenance fees, and treat international wire transfers like a relic from another century. Meanwhile, you're juggling Venmo requests from a student in London, recurring subscription billing from a coaching cohort, and the occasional check from a local parent. You need an account that moves as fast as your schedule.

We dug into the options—consulting product documentation, NerdWallet's latest rankings, and real-world use cases for tutors and coaches—to find the three accounts that actually make sense for the things actually worth buying in business banking. Here's what we found.

Why Fintech-Forward Accounts Beat Traditional Banks

For a solo tutor or coach, a traditional business checking account at a major bank is often overkill. You don't need a branch network. You don't need a dedicated business banker. What you do need is:

• Zero or low monthly fees — Every dollar counts when you're building a practice.
• Built-in invoicing — Sending a polished invoice should take seconds, not a separate software subscription.
• Easy international payments — More tutors than ever work with students abroad. Low FX fees matter.
• Seamless payment processor integration — Your checking account should talk to whatever you use to actually get paid.

The three accounts below deliver on all of these—and they're all digital-first, meaning you can open them from your phone in under 10 minutes.2

The Best Business Checking Accounts for Tutors & Coaches

�� Wise Business — Best for International Clients

Best for: Tutors and coaches who work with students or clients outside their home country.

If you've ever sent a wire transfer through a traditional bank, you know the pain: hidden exchange rate markups, $40+ fees, and a process that feels like filing taxes. Wise (formerly TransferWise) built its entire model around fixing this, and Wise Business brings that same transparency to business banking.

Wise Business holds balances in over 40 currencies and lets you convert between them at the mid-market rate with a small, transparent fee.1 For a tutor in the U.S. teaching English to a student in Japan, that means the student pays in yen, you receive in dollars, and the total cost is a fraction of what a traditional bank would charge.

The account also comes with a business debit card, batch payments, and integration with accounting tools like Xero and QuickBooks. There's no monthly fee for the basic account—you only pay when you convert or send money.

The trade-off: Wise isn't a full-service bank. You don't get a credit line, and there's no built-in invoicing. Pair it with a free invoicing tool and you're golden.

Monthly fee: $0 (pay-as-you-go for transfers)1 International transfer cost: ~0.41–0.65% (mid-market rate + small fee)1 Best for: Tutors with international students or clients

�� PayPal for Business — Best for Integration

Best for: Coaches who already use PayPal to collect payments from clients.

Love it or hate it, PayPal is everywhere. And for tutors and coaches, that ubiquity is actually a feature. PayPal for Business gives you a business checking account that's directly integrated with the payment platform you (and your clients) probably already use.

The PayPal Business account comes with a debit card, cashback rewards on eligible purchases, and the ability to accept payments in 25+ currencies.2 More importantly, it eliminates the lag between "client pays via PayPal" and "money lands in your account." Since the checking account is part of the same ecosystem, funds are available immediately.

For coaches running group programs or selling digital courses, PayPal's invoicing tools are built right in—create a professional invoice, send it, and track it from the same dashboard where you manage your balance.

The trade-off: PayPal's fee structure can be confusing. Payment processing fees (2.99% + $0.49 for online transactions) are standard, but international payments and currency conversions add additional costs.2 This isn't the account for high-volume international transfers.

Monthly fee: $0 (with no minimum balance)2 Payment processing: 2.99% + $0.49 per online transaction2 Best for: Coaches who already use PayPal for client payments

�� Stripe — Best for Subscriptions

Best for: Coaches running recurring billing, subscription programs, or cohort-based courses.

Stripe isn't a bank—it's a payment processor that offers Stripe Treasury, which gives you a business checking account through its banking partners (Evolve Bank & Trust). But for the purposes of this guide, it functions as a business checking account with superpowers.

If you run a coaching business on recurring subscriptions—say, $200/month per client for weekly sessions—Stripe's subscription management is the best in class. Automated billing, prorated upgrades, dunning emails for failed payments, and detailed revenue reporting all come standard.1

Stripe Treasury accounts have no monthly fees, no minimum balances, and earn interest on your balance. You get a debit card, and funds from processed payments settle instantly—no waiting two business days.

The trade-off: Stripe is a payment processor first, so the banking features are more limited than a dedicated checking account. You can't deposit cash, and there's no check-writing capability. It's best used as your primary operating account if all your revenue comes through Stripe anyway.

Monthly fee: $01 Subscription processing: 2.9% + $0.30 per successful card charge1 Best for: Coaches with recurring subscription billing

Side-by-Side Comparison

Which One Should You Choose?

The honest answer: it depends on how you run your business.

• You teach students in multiple countries → Wise Business. The FX savings alone will pay for themselves in your first few international transfers.
• You collect payments via PayPal and want everything in one place → PayPal for Business. The integration is seamless, and the zero monthly fee makes it a no-brainer.
• You run subscription-based coaching programs → Stripe. Automated recurring billing is a game-changer for cohort-based courses and monthly retainer clients.
• You want the best of all worlds → Use Stripe to process payments and Wise Business as your primary operating account for transfers and expenses. Many tutors we spoke to run this exact combo.1

Recomate earns affiliate commissions when you sign up for these accounts through our links. This doesn't affect our recommendations—we only recommend products we've vetted and would use ourselves.

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