Where the money quietly leaves
A business bank account in Canada can cost nothing, or it can run past a hundred dollars a month once you stack on transaction fees. For most owners who bank from a laptop, the entry-level digital packages sit in the same narrow band: $5 to $6 per month, before tax. That band hides the real differences, because the monthly fee is rarely what irritates people. The add-ons do.
Take the Interac e-Transfer cap. Several big-bank packages include 10 free outgoing transfers, then charge per use. A contractor invoicing weekly can burn through that by the third week of the month. Freelancers who get paid per project often discover this in their second quarter, when the fee line on the statement stops being a rounding error.
Cash is the other quiet cost. Salons, cafés, market vendors and tradespeople still take a fair amount of it, and cash deposits at a branch are usually priced per amount deposited or per item, with ATM deposits capped. An owner in Guelph depositing $3,000 a week pays for the privilege of holding her own revenue.
Then there is the branch problem. Several institutions still require an in-person identity check before the account goes live, even when the application itself takes fifteen minutes online. If you work 8 to 6, that means losing a lunch hour or a Saturday morning. RBC, for instance, lets you open the Digital Choice package online but asks you to visit a branch to verify documents and activate.
Cross-border income sits on top of all this. Online sellers, designers and consultants billing US clients get hit twice: once when the money arrives, and again on every card purchase made in another currency, where a markup of roughly 2.5% is common at the large banks. A Toronto studio that invoices in USD and pays for US software is effectively paying a currency tax each month.
Priya, who runs a small bookkeeping practice in Mississauga, felt this first. Her clients sent e-Transfers into her personal chequing account for almost a year. "Nothing looked wrong until tax season, when I had to rebuild nine months of deposits," she says. She moved to a $6 digital package, opened a second account for HST money, and now reconciles in an afternoon instead of a weekend.
Side-by-side at entry level
The table below lists published monthly fees and inclusions for packages aimed at businesses that bank mostly online. Amounts are pre-tax and reflect each institution's posted pricing in late October.
| Account | Monthly fee | Transactions included | Interac e-Transfers | Suits | Watch out for |
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| Wealthsimple Business Chequing | $0 | Unlimited | No per-transfer fee | Sole proprietors and corporations wanting a free digital account | Fewer cash and paper options |
| Loop Basic | $0 | Unlimited local transfers (EFT, ACH, SEPA) | Not itemized | Businesses paying suppliers abroad | Not a full-service deposit account |
| BMO Essential Business | $5 | Unlimited electronic and ATM | 6 free | Owners who want a big-bank name at low cost | Cash deposit pricing applies |
| Desjardins Digital Plan | $5.95 | Unlimited digital | Included in digital transactions | Quebec-based businesses | Deposits charged per item |
| RBC Digital Choice | $6 | Unlimited electronic | 10 free | Online-first owners who rarely need a teller | Branch visit needed to activate |
| TD Business Digital | $6 | Unlimited electronic, unlimited deposit items | 10 free | Retailers depositing many cheques | Extra transfers billed per use |
| Scotiabank Right Size | $6 | Pay per use, $1.00 to $1.25 each | Not itemized | Very low-volume months | Costs climb fast with volume |
| CIBC Basic Business Operating | $6 | Pay per use, $1 self-service | Not itemized | Occasional banking | Every action has a price |
A note on the free end of that table: Wealthsimple's business account opened to sole proprietors as well as corporations at the end of October, which makes it a genuine option for a one-person consultancy that never touches cash. Loop works differently again. It is a platform for holding balances in CAD, USD, GBP and EUR and sending payments across borders, so it complements a bank account rather than replacing the deposit-and-cheque part.
The middle of the table is where most small operations land. If you deposit little cash and pay suppliers online, RBC Digital Choice or TD Business Digital at $6 do the job, and the deciding factor is usually whether you write many cheques or need a teller once a month. Scotiabank and CIBC charge per action, which is fine for a business doing 15 transactions a month and painful at 80.
Volume changes the maths entirely. Once you cross roughly a hundred electronic transactions and a steady flow of cash, the higher-tier packages start making sense, and several of them waive the monthly fee when a minimum daily balance stays parked in the account. That balance is money you cannot spend, so compare it against the annual fee before assuming the waiver is a win.
Choosing between a bank, a credit union and a fintech
Credit unions remain a real alternative in certain provinces. Vancity in British Columbia and Meridian in Ontario both offer business accounts with local decision-making, and their staff tend to answer questions about farm or contractor banking without a script. The trade-off is fewer branches outside their home region. A Winnipeg manufacturer with clients in Ontario may prefer a national bank for that alone.
Fintechs win on speed and clarity. You see the fee schedule before you apply, onboarding is often a day rather than a week, and the interface assumes you already know what an EFT is. What they generally lack is a person to call when a five-figure deposit goes missing, plus the deposit-taking protection that comes with a chartered bank. For an online business bank account handling payroll, that matters.
Five steps that save a week of back-and-forth
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Gather the paperwork before you click apply. You will need a CRA business number, your articles of incorporation or a master business licence, government photo ID, and often a void cheque or bank statement from your current account. Sole proprietors trading under their own legal name can sometimes open with less, but the rules vary by institution, so ask first.
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Count three numbers from last month. Electronic transactions, outgoing e-Transfers, and cash deposited. Those three decide which row of the table you belong in, and they take ten minutes to pull from your existing statements.
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Apply in the morning, not on a Friday. Identity verification is the step that stalls, and a request submitted before noon usually clears the same day.
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Keep tax money in a second account. A separate savings or second chequing account for HST and instalments stops the annual scramble. Most digital packages let you add one without a second monthly fee, or for a small one.
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Move the recurring items first. CRA direct deposit, supplier pre-authorized debits, payroll, and your card processing payout. Leave the old account open for 60 days so nothing bounces while the switches settle.
For comparisons beyond the eight institutions above, the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada maintains an account comparison tool, and its rules on low-cost accounts explain which essential services must be included when a monthly fee sits at $4 or below. Provincial business registries publish what counts as acceptable registration documents, which shortens the verification conversation.
A last practical note for anyone searching for an online business bank account for sole proprietors in Ontario or a similar phrase: the account type matters less than the habit. Separate business and personal spending from day one, download statements monthly, and the bookkeeping at year-end becomes a filing exercise rather than an archaeology project. Pick the $5 or $6 row that matches your cash flow, apply before lunch, and move on to the work that actually pays.
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