Found vs. Novo: built-in financial admin, or a clean account connected to your stack?

Eligibility and opening requirements

Found is for U.S.-based businesses and requires an SSN. It supports sole proprietors, single- and multi-member LLCs, corporations, partnerships, and some nonprofits. All owners provide identity and residential information; incorporated entities need an EIN, legal business name, and a physical principal place of business. Found says the business must be active, in good standing, and registered in the same state as that principal place of business; P.O. boxes and virtual mailboxes are not accepted as the operating address.

Novo supports eligible U.S. independent businesses, including sole proprietors that can apply with an SSN. Formed entities should prepare EIN and formation details, ownership information, a physical address, business description, and expected activity. Approval and transfer features remain subject to eligibility; domestic outgoing wires, for example, may appear only for selected eligible accounts. Neither provider performs a consumer-credit check merely to open standard business checking, but identity and business verification are not optional.

Found and Novo side by side

Terms checked August 19, 2026. Verify the Found plan page, Found fee schedule, and Novo account page before applying.

Choose the workflow, then inspect the limits

Found fits the owner who wants fewer systems

Found’s appeal is not merely banking. A Schedule C owner can categorize a purchase when it happens, watch a tax estimate change, move money into a tax Pocket, invoice a client, collect a W-9, and prepare contractor records without maintaining several subscriptions. That can be genuinely cheaper than buying separate tools—if the business is simple enough for Found’s bookkeeping and tax model.

Limits deserve attention. Found publishes no stated limit for inbound ACH or wires, but deposits can be reviewed. New accounts have $5,000 daily card/payment-app limits versus $20,000 for established accounts; ATM withdrawals start at $550 daily and may rise to $1,550. Check deposits are $3,000 weekly. Request higher limits before a known large event rather than after a payment fails.

Novo fits the owner whose operating tools already exist

Novo is strongest for digital service and ecommerce businesses that want Stripe, Shopify, Square, marketplace, and accounting connections close to the account. Standard ACH and incoming wires are free, invoices and Reserves are included, and no monthly fee punishes a slow season.

The constraints are equally clear: no direct cash deposits, no checking APY, no branch, and some outgoing payment methods are eligibility-based or priced only at the moment of use. Reserves are bookkeeping partitions inside one checking account, so they do not create separate account numbers or institutional redundancy. For an ecommerce owner already using Xero or QuickBooks, that simplicity can be a virtue.

First- and second-year cost: free core versus paid financial cockpit

Compare the paid Found plan against the software it replaces, not against Novo’s bank fee alone. If Plus saves a $30 monthly bookkeeping subscription and two hours of admin, $315 may be cheap. If the owner already has Xero, a tax professional, and a good invoicing system, bundling can duplicate costs.

For weekly cash deposits, Found may be workable: if twelve deposits are free during the year and the remaining forty cost $2, the annual deposit fee is about $80, subject to the currently inconsistent cash-fee wording and location limits. Novo cannot accept the cash directly, so the cost is the second account plus the time and transfer delay. That is a workflow cost even when the second account is nominally free.

Support, account reviews, permissions, closure, and backups

Found provides 24/7 automated chat, ticket escalation, email, and weekday phone support from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. PT; Plus and Pro receive priority phone support, and Pro includes a dedicated account manager. Novo routes support through in-app tickets/chat and provides email when the owner cannot log in. A paid support tier can improve access, but it is not an exemption from compliance reviews.

Reddit reports for both platforms focus on account holds, document requests, and slow resolution. Treat the anecdotes as scenario research, not a score. Before a large first deposit, keep the signed invoice or contract, client identity, payment memo, source-of-funds evidence, and formation records. If restricted, use the official app or published email, ask for a case number, keep a timeline, and preserve every response outside the account.

Found closure is self-service in Settings and happens at the business level; other businesses on the same login remain. Novo warns that closure immediately cancels cards, scheduled and pending ACH, integrations, login access, transaction history, and Reserves. Download PDF/CSV statements, move the balance, wait for pending transactions, redirect processor payouts and subscriptions, then close. Novo says a closed account cannot be reopened, though a former customer may reapply.