Best Prepaid Debit Cards

This list of the best prepaid debit cards was compiled after significant research into the prepaid card marketplace.

There are over 60 companies offering prepaid debit cards, so sometimes it’s tough to find out which card is the best (and for which purpose).

RANKING	CARD	RATING	CARD FEES	READ REVIEW	VISIT CARD WEBSITE
#1	GET: RushCard Visa	9.2/10	View RushCard Visa Fees	RushCard Review	RushCard Website
#2	GET: AccountNow Visa	8.0/10	View AccountNow Visa Fees	AccounNow Review	AccountNow Website
#3	GET: Vision Visa	7.5/10	View Vision Visa Fees	Vision Review	Vision Website

How I Came To Use Prepaid Debit Cards

Lateisha Washington Picture Small I’ve been using prepaid cards for 10 years. I’m a 31 year old single mother of 2 great kids. I had my first child pretty early when I was 20. My second came at 23. And their deadbeat fathers have barely ever paid a penny in child support. I’ve worked two jobs most of my life, and I could never find time to go to my bank. One of my friends told me about prepaid cards and I’ve been using them ever since. Lats year, I went back to college in Finance and started to really understand how all of these cards worked. So I decided to design my own formula for comparing prepaid debit cards and figuring out which ones give you the best value for your money!

The Best Prepaid Cards: How This Site Ranks Top Prepaid Cards

A lot of people don’t realize that you have to look at a lot more than activation fees hen buying a prepaid debit card. While a lot of reviewers will list all prepaid debit card fees, they will leave it up to you to figure out which one to use. The problem is that most prepaid card companies have over 50 fee types for a given card. So it’s a bit of a pain in the ass to go through all of that data. At he end, most people end up making the wrong choice, because of hidden fees, bad service or low accessibility to reload the card.

This formula is pretty complicated, but what it comes down to is looking at the three main aspects of prepaid cards …

The Top Prepaid Cards Focus On Low Fees, Great Service & High Acessibility

There are three main areas you need to look at when you’re choosing a prepaid card:

Card Fees: How do ALL of the card’s fees affect you when using your card?
Card Services: How good is customer service when you have a problem with your card?
Card Accessibility & Limits: Where can you go reload your prepaid card? How late are these places open? How many are there?

Prepaid Debit Card Fees: The Best Fee Structures Minimize Your Charges

Most people only pay attention to three prepaid card fees: The activation fee, the ATM fee and the monthly management fee. But did you know that there’s a huge amount of hidden fees that are charged other than those three?

You can view a full list of these hidden prepaid card fees here.

These hidden fees are where prepaid debit card companies make most of their money, and can end up costing you a small fortune monthly when added up. So the best prepaid debit cards are those that (for the most part) minimize these fees for you.

Prepaid Debit Card Service: Top Notch Service Is Worth A Little More!

Customer service should not be an “afterthought” when comparing prepaid debit cards. In fact, it’s one of the most important aspects of choosing a card.

Imagine if your card gets “blocked” for whatever reason when you try to use it. Imagine you go to the grocery store after a hard day’s work on a Saturday afternoon and your card gets declined for whatever reason – and you have no food at home. If you’ve picked a card with customer service that’s open from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Monday to Friday, you’re completely screwed! You won’t be able to buy anything with it – or go to the ATM to withdraw cash!

The top prepaid card companies that provide the best prepaid debit cards offer 24 hour customer service, 7 days a week.

In addition, the best cards offer more services that simply being able to “buy stuff” or “go to the ATM”. Top prepaid card providers offer additional services that add convenience to your life; such as bill payment, fraud protection, purchase insurance, mobile balance checks, interest rate on your deposits and direct deposit from your bank account to the prepaid card.

Prepaid Debit Card Accessibility: Many Reload Points Are Much Better

I can’t stress this point enough. It doesn’t help you to have a prepaid debit card that has ULTRA-LOW FEES if you have to drive 20 miles to load money on it.

You want to choose a prepaid card that you can load money onto almost anywhere – and more specifically in locations that OPEN EARLY and CLOSE LATE. Think of 7/11′s and gas stations.

Why is this important? Because if you need to load money on your card FAST in case of emergency, that’s when you’ll thank me.

Two years ago, my brother called me from Haiti and said that our mother needed to get an emergency surgery that would cost over 600$ to get done quickly. I had the cash in-hand for it – but Western Union wanted almost 100$ to send the money over. Instead, I drove to the closest gas station, loaded the money on my prepaid debit card and transferred it to his card for almost no fee at all. My brother went to an ATM in Port-Au-Prince and withdrew the money. It was that simple!

In our analysis of the best prepaid debit cards available, one major factor is how easy it is to find a reload point for your card, and how many reload points there are in the USA.

Best & Top Prepaid Debit Card Companies Respect The Fair Debit Act

The Fair Debit Act was put in place by Congress to cub bad practices in the debit card business. Basically, it’s a law that’s supposed to keep the prepaid debit card companies honest.

But prepaid card companies always find ways to get around the law. So the best prepaid debit card companies I chose are VERY CLEAR about what fees they charge you and when those fees are charged to your prepaid card account.

You won’t find any “free prepaid cards” – they don’t exist. But you can make sure you use a card from a company that’s honest and does good business.