You built a site for a client in Toronto last month, a Stripe subscription product for a SaaS founder in Austin, and a WordPress rebuild for a law firm three blocks from your apartment. That can leave you with Stripe payouts, ACH transfers, wires, PayPal payments, and client income mixed into one personal checking account at tax time.

This page is about picking a business checking account that fits how web designers and freelance developers actually get paid — Stripe payouts, ACH from domestic clients, wires from overseas, and the occasional PayPal invoice — without paying monthly fees for a service you didn't ask for.

What do web designers need from a business bank?

Skip the branch network. Skip the "relationship manager." Here are the banking basics that matter when clients pay you through Stripe, ACH, wire, PayPal, or invoice links:

• Client income stays out of your personal checking. It makes taxes easier and, if you're an LLC, it helps preserve the separation between business finances and personal assets, which is important for maintaining an LLC's liability protection.

• Getting paid across payment rails. Stripe, PayPal, ACH, and wire should all land in the same account so you can track them in one place.
• Clean handling of overseas clients. Incoming international wires that route through predictable channels, with clear reference numbers on the statement.
• Invoicing where you bank. Instead of stitching together QuickBooks, Wave, a payment processor, and a bank, one place to send an invoice and see the money arrive.
• No monthly fees and no minimums. Designer revenue is lumpy. A $12,000 month followed by a $1,800 month is normal, and your account shouldn't punish the slow one.

Why should web designers stop using a personal account for client payments?

You can technically run a freelance web design practice out of a personal checking account. Plenty of people start there. A personal account becomes harder to manage once you form an LLC, receive higher-volume client payments, or need clean records for taxes.

You risk piercing the LLC veil. If you formed an LLC for liability protection, mixing client payments with personal spending can make it harder to show that the business is separate from you personally. Mixing personal and business funds in one account can cost an LLC owner the limited liability protection that separates personal assets from business debts.

Courts call this "piercing the corporate veil," and commingled funds are a common factor courts consider when deciding whether an LLC has been treated as separate from its owner.

Stripe and PayPal deposits get flagged. Personal accounts are designed for personal spending, not repeated client payments from processors like Stripe or PayPal. High-volume merchant deposits may create questions for an account that was opened for personal use, and in some cases lead to holds or a closure notice.

Tax prep takes longer when business income and personal spending are on the same statement. Sorting client payments out of DoorDash charges and rent transfers on a personal statement is a full weekend of work. A separate business account gives you cleaner statements and fewer transactions to sort at tax time.

Personal accounts are harder to connect to your stack. A dedicated business account is easier to connect to Stripe, QuickBooks, Xero, Gusto, and subcontractor payment tools because it keeps business activity separate from personal spending.

Which banking features matter most for web designers?

Not every account feature matters equally. For a designer or dev shop, this is the shortlist that changes your day-to-day:

Stripe connected inside the account. Not a CSV export. A live view of Stripe payouts and balances alongside your checking balance, so you know what's already landed and what's still in transit.

Send invoices from the same app. Not a separate billing tool. Draft an invoice, email it, accept ACH or card payment, and watch the deposit arrive in the same interface.

A way to earmark money for tax, retainers, and subcontractors.

A $9,000 client wire that's actually $2,500 in tax, $3,000 in subcontractor pay, and $3,500 you can spend should not look like one $9,000 balance. Tools like business sub-accounts or reserves make this split visible in one dashboard.

No-fee ACH and no-fee incoming domestic wires. Client payments should land whole. A $15 incoming wire fee on a $500 invoice is a 3% haircut for doing nothing.

Virtual cards you can lock to a single vendor. One card for Figma, one for Adobe, one for hosting, one for domain renewals. If a card number leaks, you kill that one card and leave the rest of your subscription stack alone.

Two-way accounting sync. QuickBooks and Xero should reflect today's transactions today, without a weekly manual reconciliation.

Why do generic business-bank lists miss what designers need?

Many business-bank roundups focus on the same broad criteria, even when those criteria do not match how web designers get paid. Here's what those roundups miss when your business is web design:

• They rank options on branch access and cash-handling policy, neither of which matters when your clients are in three countries and none of them pay in cash.
• They ignore Stripe payout speed and native integration, which is the actual bottleneck between finishing a project and being able to pay your own rent.
• They rarely explain the LLC-and-EIN sequence in the order a new freelancer needs it, so people guess their way through setup and end up with a personal account under a business name.
• They dodge honest tradeoffs. A digital-first platform that doesn't accept cash deposits is a fine choice for a web designer and a bad choice for a car detailer. Say so.

Why is Novo a good business checking account for web designers?

Novo is a fintech platform built for small businesses that get paid digitally, which fits many web designers who invoice clients by ACH, card, wire, Stripe, or PayPal. What that means in practice:

Free business checking.

Novo does not charge a monthly maintenance fee, a minimum balance fee, or an overdraft fee on its business checking account. The account costs $0 to keep open, whether you had a $22,000 month or a $1,400 month.

No-fee ACH transfers and no-fee incoming domestic wires.

Novo does not charge a fee for ACH transfers or incoming domestic wires, so a client payment sent on either rail arrives whole on Novo's side. The sending bank may still charge its own fee.

Native integrations with Stripe, Shopify, QuickBooks, and Xero. Novo integrates natively with Stripe, Shopify, QuickBooks, and Xero, and the Stripe integration lets users view Stripe payouts and balances inside the Novo dashboard. Connect Stripe once, no CSV shuffle.

Novo Invoices, included. Novo Invoices lets business owners send invoices and accept ACH or card payments directly inside their Novo account without an additional monthly subscription fee. The invoice you sent Monday and the deposit you received Thursday are in the same app.

Novo Reserves for setting money aside. Reserves is a budgeting feature inside your Novo checking account that lets you earmark portions of your balance for different purposes — the 25–30% you set aside for self-employment tax, a client retainer you're holding against future work, and the subcontractor you're paying on the 15th. One deposit, three earmarks, one dashboard. Reserves are not separate accounts.

Virtual cards for subscription control. Issue a virtual card locked to Figma. Another locked to Adobe. Another for AWS. If a subscription price changes, a dedicated virtual card makes the charge easier to identify.

Honest tradeoff: Novo does not accept cash deposits, which is a real limitation for cash-heavy businesses but rarely an issue for web designers paid by card, ACH, or wire. If a client hands you $2,000 in cash, you'll need another option to deposit it. If cash is not part of your workflow, Novo's lack of cash deposits may not affect how you get paid.

Most electronic bank-to-bank transfers in the United States, including direct deposits, vendor payments, and business-to-business transfers, move over the ACH network.

How do web designers open a business checking account?

The order matters. Do it out of order and you'll redo paperwork.

1. Pick a business structure.

Sole proprietorship is the default. There is no entity filing, and income flows to your personal return on Schedule C. An LLC is common for designers who want liability separation between the business and personal assets. An S-corp election may come later, usually when profits are high enough that the payroll paperwork is worth the tax savings.

2. Get an EIN from the IRS.

The EIN is your business's tax ID number. Apply directly at IRS.gov. An EIN is free from the IRS and, when applied for online, is issued immediately at the end of the application. Skip services that charge $75 to file it for you.

3. If you formed an LLC, gather the paperwork. Your articles of organization from the state and your operating agreement. Most providers will ask for both. See our business checking for LLC owners guide for the full document list.

4. Apply online. You'll need government-issued ID, your EIN, your business name and address, and a rough description of what the business does ("web design and development services" is fine). Then wait for Novo's application review.

5. Redirect your payment sources. Update your Stripe payout account, your PayPal business account, and your client ACH details to the new account. Do this before you close the old one so nothing lands in a dead account.

6. Set up a tax Reserve on day one.

Self-employed individuals with $400 or more in net earnings from self-employment generally must file a return and pay self-employment tax. Many freelancers set aside roughly 25–30% of each client payment for taxes, then adjust the amount with a tax professional or based on prior-year tax payments.

Copy-ready client invoice template

Below is a plain-text invoice template you can adapt for web design projects. Fill in the bracketed fields.

INVOICE

From: [Your business name / LLC]
     [Address]
     [Email]
     [EIN or last 4 of SSN if requested]

Bill to: [Client name]
        [Client company]
        [Client address]

Invoice #: [YYYY-NNN, e.g. 2026-014]
Issue date: [YYYY-MM-DD]
Due date:   [Net 15 / Net 30]

--------------------------------------------------
Description                       Qty    Rate     Amount
--------------------------------------------------
Discovery & wireframes             1     $1,800   $1,800
Homepage design (Figma)            1     $2,400   $2,400
Interior page templates (5)        5     $  600   $3,000
Webflow build & CMS setup          1     $2,800   $2,800
Revisions (2 rounds included)      N/A   N/A      Included
--------------------------------------------------
Subtotal                                          $10,000
Deposit received (50%)                           -$5,000
--------------------------------------------------
Balance due                                       $5,000

Payment methods:
- ACH (preferred): [routing / account]
- Card: [Novo Invoices link]
- Wire (US domestic): [routing / account]
- International payment: [confirm receiving method, required bank details, and any intermediary fees before sending]

Terms: Net 30. 1.5%/month late fee after 30 days.
Thank you.

Paste this template into an LLM like ChatGPT or Claude to generate it as a working file. Try a prompt like: "Turn this invoice template into an editable Google Sheet with formulas that calculate the subtotal, deposit deduction, and balance due automatically, and a second tab that logs each invoice by number, date, client, and amount." You'll get back a spreadsheet you can open in Google Sheets or Excel, or ask for it as a fillable PDF or Word document instead.

Frequently asked questions

Do freelance web designers need a business bank account?

If you're a sole proprietor with a handful of small projects a year, you can legally deposit client payments into a personal account. Once you form an LLC, once Stripe or PayPal is doing serious volume, or once tax season becomes painful, a separate business account saves hours of reconciliation and helps keep LLC finances separate from personal finances.

Can I open a business account without an LLC?

Yes. Sole proprietors can open a business checking account using their Social Security Number or an EIN, and they do not need to form an LLC first. If you plan to form an LLC later, some designers wait and open the account under the LLC to avoid renaming it, but it's not required.

How do I get paid by international clients as a web designer?

Three common options are an international wire in USD to your business account, a payment platform that provides local receiving details in the client's country, or a card-paid invoice.

International wires move through correspondent banks and usually settle in one to several business days. Wire fees vary. Novo does not charge to receive incoming domestic wires, but a sending bank or intermediary may deduct a fee before the funds arrive. For international clients, confirm the receiving method and any intermediary fees before sending payment.

Is my Novo business checking account FDIC insured?

Yes. Novo deposits are FDIC-insured up to $250,000 per depositor, per FDIC-insured bank, for each account ownership category through Novo's partner bank, Middlesex Federal Savings.

Do web designers typically need to deposit cash?

Rarely. Novo does not accept cash deposits, which is a real limitation for cash-heavy businesses but rarely an issue for web designers paid by card, ACH, or wire. Most web design work is paid by ACH, card, wire, Stripe, or PayPal. If cash is a meaningful part of your revenue, an account that doesn't accept cash deposits is not the right fit. If it's not, the cash-deposit limitation may not affect your workflow.

What if my revenue is lumpy month to month?

That's the norm for project-based work. Look for an account with no monthly fee and no minimum balance so a slow month doesn't cost you extra. Use Reserves inside your Novo checking account to earmark three months of operating expenses separately from your working balance, so a February with one client feels less like a crisis.