In this 21st century of a rapidly growing market, the prepaid debit card becomes the most common thing. Lots of people own the debit card as they become one of the essential parts of our life. In the world of numerous prepaid debit card rewards and perks, finding the best prepaid debit cards which are suitable for you is the trickiest part. That’s because some of them come with an insanely high fee, for just using its services and other cards come with no fees.
Through the past, the prepaid debit card has always been a controversial topic. Why? Let’s get it with an example, In 2010, Kardashians announced its new branded prepaid card in the market. But, the card presses a bad impression because of the fee structure. Not only that, but the customer also can’t find such benefits from using a card. Due to this reason, Kardashians canceled the card soon after the announcement. But, it doesn’t mean that the entire prepaid cards are bad. Nowadays, there are still some best-prepaid debit cards available, which you can use in 2022. And today, we are going to explore them in this article.
When choosing a prepaid debit card, you have to first evaluate their services and offers whether they are the right card for you or not. If you are troubling to find the best one, then parents come in handy. They know better than us because of using them for ages. In addition, you can also learn the responsibilities regarding money management.
However, if you are living alone and can’t make a complete decision whether to buy this one or that one and looking for a best-prepaid debit card in 2022, here, you came into the right place.
But before we move to our main topic, let’s be clear about the Prepaid Debit Card. Maybe you are new, and it’s your first prepaid card of your life. You don’t want to use it in a careless way, right? So why not be clear what is a prepaid debit card and how it is different from the regular cards.
What Are Prepaid Debit Cards?
Prepaid Debit Card is a card that is used to pay for a thing that you have purchased. A card is not linked to any bank accounts which means you can only spend the amount of money that is pre-loaded. Likewise, they are the great alternative of a credit card. why? Because you can freely spend money without worrying about debt. But, it works on your spending condition; the more money you spend to purchase the goods, the more your card starts to get empty. Besides, Prepaid cards are available in Mastercard, Visacard, and American Express brands, this means, you can easily use it all around the world.
A card comes with good features like mobile check deposit, online bill payment, direct deposit, and more. It’s the best way to avoid overdraft fees, and you also don’t need to check your bank account.
The prepaid debit card is like a regular card, but the amount limit is the significant distinction of a card. It works just like your mobile phone balance; you load cash in a card, and when it starts to get empty, then again reload. So as we can say, your card depends on your purchasing condition.
Besides, the prepaid debit card is useful to keep on a budget, avoid debt, and also keep you separate from spending money from your bank account. As I already said, the card is not a credit card, so you don’t have to worry about your credit score. In addition, Prepaid cards are also not reported under three major credit reporting agencies because they do not have any link to credit bureaus.
Likewise, a prepaid debit card also comes with an easy cash refund or load. You can use the checking account to transfer your money or buy a reload pack to load a certain amount of money. Other retail locations and the financial institution also provide the service to add cash in your prepaid debit card.
Now, you might have a clear idea about the prepaid debit card so it’s time to move to our best-prepaid cards worth using in 2022.
7 Best Prepaid Debit Cards of 2022
If you are willing to use the prepaid card, there is a high possibility of finding a card that charges lower fees and also comes with useful benefits. Therefore, the prepaid debit cards on our list carry some good features, provide lots of benefits along with average fees. In addition, some of the listed down below cards also allow you to create sub-accounts within one card. So head through the whole article and find out which listed below card is suitable for you.
Also read: 8 Smart Techniques to Build Good Credit In 2022
Netspend Prepaid [Best for Direct Deposit]
Netspend is the best leading prepaid card company that offers the Netspend Visa Prepaid Mastercard. The paying process of a card is way faster than a direct deposit, which is a plus point of the card. Besides, if you are good at transferring money on the card with the help of a service agent, you can transfer it for free. However, if you don’t know to transfer, then it might cost you $0.50 per transfer.
You can also load the cash in your card via a mobile check deposit available in 130,000 locations. Not only that, your friends and family members can also send you money if they own a Netspend card.
Besides, you need to be at least 18 years old to use the Netspend Prepaid card.
Netspend provides you to choose between two plans, which include different fee structures depends on your deposit habit.
PAY-AS-YOU-GO
It’s a default plan of Netspend prepaid card with no monthly charges. But you have to pay $1.50 for each PIN transaction and signature. The plan is ideal for those people who are thinking about not using the card on a daily basis.
Premier Free Advantage Plan
This plan is a great deal if you direct deposit of $5000 or even more. You have to pay $5 per month for all the transactions without any other additional cost. So, it gives you the best value for the monthly direct deposit.
Card Purchase Cost: $9.95
Reload Fee: Up to $3.95
ATM Withdrawal: $2.50
American Express Server [Best for Cash Reload]
In our list, another best-prepaid card is the American Express Server, which is popular for cashback service. It’s a perfect opportunity for the customers to get such cash rewards. For the cash rewards process, you have to spend more than $800 each month from your prepaid debit card. Likewise, when you shop in the online store, then 1% cashback is a guarantee in your wallet. Rewards are added into your card right after you earn them, and you can redeem them anytime you want. More important, your rewards cash won’t have an expiry date.
When we talk about the fee’s the initial card cost up to $3.90 if you buy them in a retailer shop. If you live in TX, VT, or NY, then for that, you have to pay a certain fee like $5.98. American Express Server won’t charge any fee in direct deposit, network ATM withdrawal, fraud protection, and on 90-days purchase protection when you purchase up to $1000. Besides, if you use other ATM expect MoneyPass, the charge could be $2.50.
Another thing I think most people don’t like is the monthly fee, which costs $7.98. If you want to break down the fee then you have to spend like $785 or even more.
Card Purchase Cost: $3.95
Reload Fee: $3.95
ATM Withdrawal: $2.50
Walmart MoneyCard Visa With Cashback Rewards [Best for Walmart Shoppers]
Walmart MoneyCard Visa card is generally best for Walmart shoppers. You can get 3% cashback on every purchase made on the Walmart.com. In addition, 1% cash back at Walmart store and 2% on the purchase at Murphy USA and Walmart fuel station. Interesting cashback scheme, right? When we calculate the cashback, then we save around $75 each year.
Walmart Money Card comes with no credit, which means you don’t have to go for a credit check to approve for the card. Likewise, there is also no overdraft fee for the card, which comes handy while direct deposit, online bill payment, and mobile check deposit. But you have to pay for a reload fee, which costs $5.95 depending on a certain location. You even have to pay a more expensive charge for a reload process according to the location.
If you want to withdraw money from the ATM, you have to pay an extra $2.50 for using the service. Besides, if a user wants to inquire about their balance, $0.50 will be deducted from your card.
Some of the good features of this card are that free money transfers between two cards. But the second party cards need to be issued by Green Dot Bank and Walmart MoneyCard.
Card Purchase Cost: $1.00
Reload Fee: Can Up to $5.95
ATM Fee: $2.50
Chime Visa Debit Card [Best for Alternative Banking]
Prepaid cards are the essential things that make our life easy. But when it comes to maintaining, it hit us at a high price. If we don’t think about the cost, then we get some good benefits from using the Prepaid Debit card.
Considering the above thing, we have another best-prepaid debit card ever called Chime Visa Debit card. You get a direct deposit two days earlier than most of the traditional banks available out there. You also don’t have to worry about the fees as Chime Debit card didn’t use any monthly fee, card fee, and for daily purchases. Just think about how good that is using a card without any fee.
However, if you use the network ATM, the charge is free, but if you use other ATMs, you have to pay an extra $2.50 for service.
Chime is a kind of saving account where every time you make a purchase, they will round up to the dollar, and rounded changes will get a deposit into your savings account. Chime also won’t charger any amount for transfer the money in and out from your account. And the best of the Chime, every time you direct deposit money, you will get free $5 in your account. Sound interesting, right?
Another best of using Chime is, in case if you lose your card somewhere, then you can lock your card. You will also receive an instant transaction alert during the deposit and withdraw.
Card Purchase Cost: Free
Reload Fee: Free
ATM Fee: $2.50 on other ATM
Akimbo Prepaid MasterCard [Best for Budgeting]
Akimbo Prepaid card is designed and suitable for budgeting. Users can create up to 5 additional cards for your budget goals, and each sub-card will act the category of the budget. The cardholders can transfer their budgeted amount to each of their cards. To manage the budget or card, you can use either a web portal or a mobile application.
Another best part of owning the akimbo card is that you can customize the card as you want with category name. For example, if you want to use your card for groceries, create a card for it, and if you want it for entertainment only, then create another card for that category. For with the help of an additional card, you can easily manage your card.
So talking about the fee of purchase, users have to pay $4.95 for each sub-account expects the first free one, and the card replacement fee also is the same. Besides, there is no activation, signature purchase, and monthly fee charges; however, you have to pay $.99 for each PIN purchase transaction. So for the ATM fee, you cannot find a free network, you have to pay $1.98 for withdrawal transaction and $.33 for ATM balance inquiry.
Apart from that, Akimbo also charges for inactivity fee of $5.95 per month. This means if you don’t use the card for a purchase, you have to pay the fee but after the 12 months of inactivity behavior.
So, for loading the money, akimbo provides lots of options to choose from, such as Direct Deposit, Mobile Check Deposit, Online Bank Transfer, and Cash Reload. In online banking, there is a limitation of $1000 per day for transfer. For cash reload, cardholders have to pay a service charge of $4 to $6.
Card Purchase Cost: First card is free after that $4.95 for each card
Reload Fee: $4 to $6 in direct cash reload
ATM Fee: $1.98
FamZoo Prepaid Debit Card [Best for Kids]
Today’s greatest responsibility is to teach our kids how to manage or handle money. Taking concerns about that, FamZoo offers the prepaid credit card that helps the parents to teach their kids to stay on a budget and how to handle funds properly.
FamZoo prepaid card is ideal for the children from the pre-school to the college. A card is like a financial product which needs to be lookout by the parent under their supervision. So, children can control the card and account at times. Parents can also create another account for monthly allowances and payment for chores.
What’s makes the card different from others is the features to set up a separate account category such as saving, transfer, and investing. You can easily transfer money between one card to another and even set up an automatic recurring transfer between two cards.
FamZoo also has a feature to tie penalties and parent access to lock and unlock the card if they find any unusual fraud behavior.
Now, for the pricing of FamZoo, there is a lot of option to choose. Such as:
- Charge of $5.99 per family for one each month.
- $4.33 if you pay $25.99 in advance for 6 months.
- $3.33 if you pay $39.99 in advance for 1 year.
- $2.50 if you pay $5.99 in advance for 2 years.
FamZoo also won’t charge any direct deposit, transfer charge, pay on a purchase and in-network ATM withdrawal. It also won’t charge in cash reload, but some of the providers can charge you a fee, it depends on the location.
Now for loading money, FamZoo provides different retailers locations like Walmart, Rite Aid, Walgreens, 7-eleven, and more. You can also reload the cash from the MoneyPak and load it to your card. FamZoo also accepts Paypal transfer and Wells Fargo SurePay.
Card Purchase Cost: $2 for each card after 4 free cards
Reload Fee: Depends on the method you choose
ATM Fee: No charge for In-network
PayPal Prepaid Mastercard [Best for Money Transfer]
Everybody knows PayPal; even you are a 90’s person. Because of its best services and features, almost 202 million people use the PayPal Prepaid MasterCard. A card is a well-trusted card from the consumers and also retailers. It has more networks than the rest of the prepaid cards available out there.
You can easily transfer money with free of cost from your PayPal account. It also provides features like free deposits, which is faster than the paper check.
PayPal prepaid is also well known for its fee scheme. You only have to pay $4.95 for an unlimited monthly purchase, and it won’t even charge for your card activation. When we talk about the ATM fee, it does charge $1.95, which is pretty much lower than other prepaid cards. Not only that, but cardholders also get cashback if they select the best retailer and even in restaurants.
Besides, for the foreign currency, PayPal charges a 2.5% fee and also gets the best rate without any foreign transaction fee. However, you need to be approved for the free transaction fee.
In the loading cash process, PayPal won’t charge for the direct deposit or while transferring the money. If you want to reload the money, then choose any of the Netspend locations out there.
Another interesting thing about using a PayPal card is that if you refer any friend to use this card and when they sign-up and load their card, you and your friend get an extra $5 cash bonus. Sound cool, right?
Card Purchase Cost: Free though online
Reload Fee: free
ATM Fee: $1.95
Conclusion
Above all, the prepaid card helps a lot by making our daily life easier. If you are going to grab one of them, do check the terms and conditions of the cards and its fee, which suits you the best. Besides, all the above cards work differently and have different features along with the benefits.
Furthermore, a prepaid debit card makes a person more responsible in terms of handling the expenses, but if only you choose the right one. Otherwise, even the best-prepaid debit cards can cause lots of trouble when it goes to the wrong hands.
So choose wisely from the above-listed best-prepaid debit cards and be responsible cardholders. Besides, you can also choose other prepaid cards which are not listed above in this article, but these are the best one in 2022.
Have any queries regarding the above-listed cards? Let us know in the comment section down below. Also, do visit our official site Online Help Guide for more finance-related articles.
Happy surfing!
