Tide vs Lloyds Business: what happens after the free banking runs out

Lloyds is the account a lot of small business owners already bank with personally, which makes it an easy default when it is time to open a business current account too — the branch is familiar, the app is the one they already use, and the free introductory period reads as a straightforward saving. Tide has none of that inherited trust; it has to earn consideration on price, features and speed alone. That is a fair fight to have, provided you look past the free period to what your account actually costs in month thirteen, or eighteen, or whenever Lloyds' current offer happens to end.

Our position, stated up front: Lloyds is the stronger choice for a business that banks cash regularly, wants a branch relationship, needs merchant services bundled with its current account, or is actively planning to borrow from its bank. Tide is the cheaper, faster account for a sole trader, freelancer or small limited company that is paid electronically and does not need any of those things. We earn a commission from Tide links on this page and nothing from Lloyds, which is exactly why the worked arithmetic below leans on Lloyds' own published figures rather than ours.

The comparison matters more than it might first appear, because Lloyds and Tide are not simply two prices for the same product. Lloyds is built around a branch-and-relationship model that happens to have a decent app bolted on; Tide is built around an app that happens to have partner-arranged extras bolted on where a full bank would keep them in-house. Reading the fee tables side by side without understanding that difference in design is how people end up disappointed with either account — expecting branch service from an app-only provider, or expecting app-only pricing from a bank built for branches.

At a glance

Three businesses, three different verdicts

Rather than compare headline fees in isolation, it helps to run the numbers for businesses that actually look like the ones reading this.

The freelance consultant. Invoices four or five clients a month, all paid by bank transfer, never touches cash. On Tide Free, that volume sits comfortably inside the five included transfers, or costs a few 20p charges beyond it — call it £0 to £1 a month. On Lloyds, the same consultant pays nothing during the introductory period, then moves onto whichever tariff Lloyds applies to electronic-only activity once that ends; at the time of writing that has commonly been quoted around £8.50 a month for many customers. Over a year that is roughly £100 the consultant would not pay on Tide, for a branch and cash facility they will never use. This is the clearest case for Tide on this page.

The cash-taking trades business. A plumber or electrician who is paid partly by card and partly in cash — say £600 in notes across a typical month, banked in a couple of visits. On Tide, £600 through the Post Office breaks down as £2.50 for the first £500 plus 0.99% of the remaining £100 (about £1) on the Free plan, so roughly £3.50 to £4 a month in deposit fees alone, on top of the transfer allowance. On Lloyds, the same cash can go into a branch or the Post Office under the mixed-payments side of the tariff once the free period ends, and the per-deposit cost depends on the specific plan chosen — worth checking directly, because branch access for a business that banks cash weekly has real convenience value that a flat online comparison undersells. This is a genuinely close call, and one where a tradesperson's actual banking habits, not just the fee table, should decide it.

The small e-commerce Ltd. Twenty-five outgoing supplier payments a month, no cash, and a need for tidy VAT records ahead of quarterly returns. On Tide, that volume sits just under the Smart plan's 30-transfer allowance, so Smart at £12.49 a month covers it with room to spare, and the built-in invoicing, expense tagging and MTD-ready VAT tools are included in that fee rather than bolted on. On Lloyds, the same business banks free during the introductory period, then pays the ongoing monthly fee under electronic pricing, and would typically need separate accounting software or the Business ToolBox's resources rather than an invoicing tool built into the banking app itself. For a company already using cloud accounting software and wanting its bank to stay out of the way, Tide's bundled tools are the more efficient £12.49.

The month the free period ends

The single most important number on this page is not the introductory offer — it is what your account costs the day after it stops. Lloyds' free period has been offered at different lengths at different times, commonly discussed in the region of 12 to 18 months for new and switching business customers, and it is worth getting the exact current length and end date in writing when you open the account rather than assuming a figure from a comparison article, including this one. Once it ends, the ongoing monthly fee plus whichever electronic or mixed tariff applies becomes a permanent line in your outgoings, not a temporary one.

Tide has no equivalent cliff edge to plan for. The Free plan's £0 fee is not introductory pricing; it is simply the price, for as long as your transaction volume stays within the included allowance. Businesses that outgrow it move to Smart, Pro or Max because their volumes changed, not because a promotional period expired.

It is also worth being honest about how these numbers move if your business changes shape. The freelance consultant who lands a retainer client and starts invoicing weekly rather than monthly might cross into Smart territory on Tide sooner than expected, at which point £12.49 a month buys 30 transfers and 0% FX fees — still comfortably below what many Lloyds customers pay once their introductory period ends. Equally, a trades business that starts taking more card payments and less cash over time will find Tide's relative cost falls as its cash-handling fees shrink, which is the mirror image of what happens to a Lloyds customer whose payment mix shifts the other way. Neither comparison is static, and it is worth re-running the arithmetic annually rather than treating an account choice made at incorporation as fixed for the life of the business.

Business ToolBox versus built-in invoicing

Lloyds' Business ToolBox is worth understanding on its own terms rather than as a like-for-like rival to Tide's invoicing suite. It is a set of resources and partner discounts — legal document templates, cyber-security guidance, accounting support and similar — made available to Lloyds business customers, rather than a bookkeeping tool built into the banking app itself. That makes it genuinely useful for a business that wants pointers towards trusted third-party services, but it does not replace the need for separate accounting software if you want to raise invoices, chase payment and reconcile transactions day to day.

Tide takes the opposite approach: invoice creation, automatic matching of incoming payments to the invoice that generated them, expense categorisation and receipt capture are built into the same free app as the current account, with MTD-ready VAT tools layered on top. For a business that would otherwise be paying separately for invoicing software on top of its bank account, that bundling is worth more in practice than a discount directory, even though it looks like a smaller feature on a comparison table.

Where Lloyds earns its keep

None of the arithmetic above should read as a case against Lloyds generally. Its branch network and Post Office access give a cash-heavy business more physical places to pay in takings than Tide's Post Office-and-PayPoint-only model, and for some trades — market stalls, cafés, salons, tradespeople handling deposits in cash — that convenience is worth a monthly fee on its own. Lloyds is also one of the UK's largest business lenders, with overdrafts, term loans, asset finance and invoice finance available directly against your trading history with the bank, plus a long track record with government-backed lending schemes; Tide's partner-arranged finance is useful for a quick facility but is not a substitute for that kind of established lending relationship. Add merchant services that can sit alongside the current account, and Business ToolBox's accounting, legal and cyber-security resources, and it is easy to see why an established, cash-taking or borrowing-minded business would choose Lloyds and be entirely well served by it.

What Lloyds does not do as well is speed and simplicity for a business that does not need any of that. Opening a Lloyds business account typically involves more paperwork and a longer decision than Tide's phone-based application, and the branch network and merchant services that justify Lloyds' fee for a cash-taking business are simply unused capacity for a consultant who is paid by transfer and has never set foot in a branch since incorporating.

The REFER200 partner code

Tide runs an ordinary customer refer-a-friend route for existing customers, and separately a partner code that pays more. REFER200 is that partner code: up to £200 in total, made up of £75 after opening the account and spending £100 on the Tide card within 30 days, plus £125 after depositing at least £5,000 into Tide Instant Saver within seven days and leaving it there for a month. Lloyds does not have a standing equivalent; it periodically runs its own switching incentives, which are worth checking separately and are not something we are paid to promote. Offer terms checked 29 August 2026.

Regulation and deposit protection

Lloyds Bank holds its own UK banking licence and eligible deposits are FSCS-protected up to £85,000 per depositor. Tide's current accounts are provided by ClearBank, a UK-authorised bank, using ClearBank's sort code 04-06-05, and eligible deposits held there can attract FSCS protection up to £120,000, subject to the usual eligibility rules and aggregation with any other balances you hold with ClearBank. Our guide to Tide and FSCS protection sets out exactly which balances qualify, and both firms can be checked on the FCA Register.

The verdict

Choose Lloyds if you take cash regularly and want a branch to pay it into, if merchant services alongside your current account would save you managing a separate relationship, if you expect to need a business loan or overdraft from your own bank in the next year or two, or if the familiarity of an existing personal relationship with Lloyds outweighs a modest monthly saving elsewhere. Those are legitimate, common reasons and Lloyds handles them well.

Choose Tide if you are a UK sole trader, freelancer or small limited company paid mostly or entirely by bank transfer and card, if you want invoicing, expense tracking and a savings pot built into the same free app, or if you would simply rather not have a free-period end date to diarise. That describes the majority of the small businesses we hear from, which is why our recommendation leans towards Tide on this page — with the caveat that we would say so even if we did not earn a commission on it, because the arithmetic for an electronically paid business genuinely favours the account with no introductory clock running.

Tide vs Lloyds Business FAQs