Welcome to our site! Our editors have been covering the credit and debit card space for a total of 30+ years and we are proud to have been featured by the Wall Street Journal, among other publications. Unlike almost all card comparison sites that only list cards that advertise with them, 85% of the cards on our site don't pay us a dime.
Prepaid debit cards have become increasingly popular (read article below for more details on growth) in the last several years and can be used for a variety of purposes and can definitely be a low fee option when compared with standard debit cards at big banks (that can have overdraft fees of $35 or higher each time you overdraw your account- prepaid cards don't charge overdraft fees).
Still yet, prepaid cards do typically have quite a few fees, such as monthly membership fees that can be as high as 10 bucks each month. 🙁 But there are no and low fee Visa cards available and we hope our list of the lowest fee prepaid debit cards is helpful.
Chime Visa® Debit Card {Featured Card- Best Overall Visa Card with the Lowest Fees}
This is not a prepaid card, it's an actual award-winning new Visa card that amazingly has no fees (unless you use get cash out of an ATM outside their network), so is much cheaper than most prepaid cards as there aren't any no fee prepaid cards that you can apply for.
No credit check. A new type of mobile bank that offers all the benefits of a traditional bank account without the hassles and without all the fees of a prepaid card.
No overdraft fees. No minimum balance. No monthly service fees. No transfer fees. Over 38,000 fee-free ATMs, plus 30,000+ cash-back locations.
For a limited time, you can earn a cash referral bonus of $50 when you tell your friends about Chime and they sign up (and they'll get paid $50 bucks too) 🙂
This is the lowest fee alternative to prepaid cards (no monthly fees) we have seen since we started reviewing prepaid cards 5+ years ago.
Download Chime's sleek app to deposit checks on-the-go, manage your money, easily pay bills and more.
Over 3 million customers can't be wrong (and counting)
In the most basic terms, here’s how most cards work. Users fund their card – or “load” them, in the vernacular of the prepaid card world – with money via a direct deposit, wire transfer, PayPal or a variety of other means.
And once the card is loaded, it works basically the same as a credit card, debit card or check. Cardholders can complete point-of-sale (POS) transactions, go online to shop, or get cash through ATM withdrawals.
What is different from credit cards and debit cards linked to a checking account is that the users of prepaid cards cannot spend more money than what is loaded on the card.
The Growth of Prepaid Debit Cards
(From the 2014 Archive, but growth has continued through 2019)
For families attempting to run cash only households, prepaid debit cards are helpful for staying on budget and out of debt. The following prepaid debit cards can help you budget and control your spending.
2014 will be yet another record year for prepaid cards. According to a story in Forbes, prepaid card use continues to grow and this year will account for $200 billion in merchant sales.
That’s according to Madeline Aufseeser, a senior analyst with Aite Group, a consultancy that monitors the prepaid card industry. That $200 billion will translate to a whopping five percent of all retail sales in America.
What accounts for this brisk growth? According to Aite Group, it’s a combination of factors. As has long been the case, prepaid gift cards continue to be popular with merchants like Walmart and Starbucks enthusiastically using them. They’re also being utilized as incentives. The Forbes article points out that Nissan is offering $50 prepaid cards to encourage drivers to come into one of their showrooms and test drive a vehicle.
The use of prepaid cards to pay employee salaries is also contributing to growth. An appealing option for employers that do not want to deal with the administrative hassle and expense of running payroll, this practice has also generated a great deal of controversy. Employees have complained that it’s unfair to be forced to pay fees associated with prepaid debit cards in order to access their salaries.
There is also a generational component to the increasing use and popularity of prepaid cards. According to the Forbes article, many of those in the millennial generation were first introduced to prepaid cards by their parents. Instead of giving kids access to a credit or debit card, parents have used prepaid debit cards to help teach their children proper spending and saving skills. Once introduced to prepaid cards, more people in the millennial generation are continuing to use them as they get older.
Prepaid cards also seem to be finding a place in many of the digital wallets currently being developed and rolled out. Among the retailers including prepaid cards in their digital offerings are Target and Starbucks. These digital wallets allow consumers to make purchases using their smart phones.
