Where the money leaks in a branch-first setup
Most small Canadian businesses are sold an account built for a retail shop with a cash drawer. If that is not you, the fee structure works against you. A $6 digital plan at a Big Five bank includes unlimited electronic debits and credits, but only 10 outgoing Interac e-Transfers at RBC and TD, then $1.50 each. BMO's $5 Essential account includes six. Twelve client payments a month and you are already paying extra. CIBC and Scotiabank take a different route: $6 monthly, then $1.00 to $1.25 per transaction on self-service items, which is fine for a quiet consultancy and expensive for anyone billing weekly.
Then there are the small line items nobody reads. TD and CIBC charge $2 to send a payment to the CRA. Paper statements run $4 to $5 at RBC. Cash deposits above a threshold are billed per $1,000 in the branch. None of these are outrageous on their own. Together, on a business doing 80 to 120 transactions a month, they turn a $6 account into a $70 or $80 month.
Industry tracking cited by payments providers suggests digital platform adoption reached roughly half of Canadian businesses by the end of last year. That shift is not about novelty. Owners are counting transactions and moving to accounts where the marginal cost of a payment is zero.
The trade-off is real, though. An online-only account cannot take a roll of coins, a bank draft, or a client's certified cheque. It will not give you an operating line or a commercial mortgage. If you sell at farmers' markets in Guelph or run a café in Burnaby, those gaps matter more than a $6 fee.
What a $0 to $6 account really includes
Entry-level digital plans cluster between $0 and $6 a month, and the difference in what they include is larger than the price gap suggests. Wealthsimple Business Chequing sits at $0 with unlimited transactions, unlimited e-Transfers, no charge on CRA bill payments, and interest on balances. EQ Bank's business account is also $0, pays 2.25% on Canadian dollars, and allows 50 outgoing and 100 incoming e-Transfers each month before charging $0.50 per extra transfer. RBC and TD both charge $6 for unlimited electronic activity with 10 included e-Transfers. Scotiabank's Right Size account charges $6 and then bills each transaction, which makes it a poor fit for volume but a reasonable one for a business moving five items a month.
Interest deserves attention because it quietly offsets the fee. A corporation holding $40,000 in working capital earns noticeably more at 2% than at zero. That is often the whole argument for an online account, more than the monthly fee itself.
Below is how the main options compare on published rates and features.
| Account | Monthly fee | Standout feature | Main limitation | Works best for |
|---|
| Wealthsimple Business Chequing | $0 | Unlimited e-Transfers, CRA payments at $0, interest on balance | No branch, no cash deposits | Freelancers and lean corporations |
| EQ Bank Business Account | $0 | 2.25% interest, unlimited electronic transactions | 50 outgoing e-Transfers included, not offered in Quebec | Sole proprietors and corporations with idle cash |
| Venn | $0 | CAD and USD balances, higher yield on USD | Corporate focus, transaction cap on transfers | Companies holding currency reserves |
| Loop Basic | $0 | Multi-currency accounts with local USD details | Limited day-to-day cheque handling | Exporters and cross-border sellers |
| Float | $0 | Corporate cards with spend controls | Not a full replacement for a chequing account | Teams with heavy card spending |
| RBC Digital Choice | $6 | Branch and ATM access, unlimited electronic items | 10 included e-Transfers | Owners who need cash and lending |
| TD Business Digital | $6 | Unlimited deposit items | 10 included e-Transfers, $2 CRA payments | Mixed deposit types |
| BMO Essential Business | $5 | Unlimited electronic and ATM transactions | 6 included e-Transfers | Sole proprietors wanting a low-cost branch option |
| Scotiabank Right Size | $6 | Flexible pay-as-you-go pricing | $1.00 to $1.25 per transaction | Very low-volume businesses |
A note on the zero-fee rows: several of these providers are not chartered banks in the traditional sense, and deposit protection works differently from a Big Five account. Read each provider's disclosure page before you move operating cash.
Eligibility: sole proprietors, corporations, and provinces
Getting approved is usually harder than choosing. EQ Bank accepts registered sole proprietors and corporations, and turns down unregistered sole proprietors, trusts, partnerships, charities and not-for-profits. If you already hold a personal EQ Bank account, you need to apply with the same email address, and your details have to match the business registry exactly, including the CRA program account number and director information. The account is not available in Quebec.
Wealthsimple now opens business accounts to sole proprietors as well as corporations, which widens the field for freelancers who never incorporated. Venn's core audience is incorporated companies. The Big Five will take a sole proprietorship, but expect a branch visit or a document upload covering your registration and identification.
Provincial gaps are worth checking early. Quebec residents have fewer digital choices, and Desjardins' digital plan at $5.95 is a practical local alternative. In Alberta, ATB's no-fee business account gives you province-wide branch support at $0 monthly.
A workable opening sequence
Start with arithmetic, not marketing. Pull three months of statements and count four things: electronic debits and credits, outgoing e-Transfers, cash and cheque deposits, and payments to the CRA. That gives you a real cost per month at each provider instead of a guess.
- Run the numbers on your current account first, including the extras. Most owners underestimate e-Transfer overage fees.
- Check eligibility documents before you apply. A registry mismatch is the most common reason an online application stalls.
- Open the new account while keeping the old one for 60 days. Route incoming client payments to the new account and leave cash handling where it works.
- Connect your bookkeeping. Direct feeds into QuickBooks or Xero save several hours a quarter and reduce reconciliation errors.
- Review after 90 days. If you are paying overage charges, either renegotiate your plan or move the overflow to a second account.
A pattern that repeats with clients: a consultant billing 40 invoices a month pays $6 plus roughly $45 in e-Transfer overage at a Big Five digital plan, then moves receivables to a $0 account and keeps a $5 BMO account for the occasional cash deposit. The saving is modest in absolute terms, but the reconciliation time drops because everything arrives in one feed.
If you have been putting this off, pick two providers from the table, apply to both this week, and let the approval process tell you which one fits your paperwork. The account you keep should be the one that costs least per transaction you actually make, not the one with the best welcome offer.
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