How to Choose Between Chase Ink Business Cash and Ink Unlimited

Summary

• Chase offers two no-annual-fee Ink business cards with an identical welcome bonus: 100,000 points after $8,000 spent in 4 months (a $1,000 value).
• Ink Business Cash earns 5x points on the first $25,000/year combined in office supplies, internet, cable, and phone; 2x on restaurants and gas (also capped at $25,000/year); 1x on everything else.
• Ink Business Unlimited earns a flat 1.5x on every business purchase with no category caps.
• Both convert cash-back-style earnings into transferable Ultimate Rewards points if paired with a premium Chase card.
• You generally only qualify for one welcome bonus across Chase’s no-annual-fee Ink cards — you can’t just get both to double-dip.

Purpose

This decision only matters if you’re a business owner or side-hustler choosing your first (or next) no-annual-fee Chase business card — it’s a pure earn-rate optimization question, not a “which card is better” question, because the two cards are otherwise identical on fees, protections, and bonus size. Get the category match wrong and you leave real money on the table over a year of spending; get it right and the free card outearns cards that charge an annual fee.

Pre-requisites

• A business (even a sole proprietorship or side hustle) eligible for a Chase Ink card — these are business credit cards, not consumer cards.
• You haven’t already held this specific Ink card or received an Ink bonus recently — Chase’s bonus eligibility rules restrict you to one welcome bonus across Chase’s no-annual-fee Ink lineup, so check your Chase business card history before applying for either.
• A rough sense of your actual monthly spending by category — you need real numbers on office supplies, internet/phone/cable, restaurants, and gas spend to make this decision correctly, not a guess.
• Ideally, a premium Chase card (like Sapphire Preferred or Reserve) already in your wallet, since that’s what unlocks converting Ink earnings into transferable Ultimate Rewards points instead of flat cash back.

Steps

1. Total your last 3 months of business spending by category. Specifically isolate spend on internet, cable, phone, and office supplies (Ink Cash’s 5x categories) and restaurants/gas (its 2x categories).

2. Calculate what Ink Cash would earn you. At 5x on the first $25,000/year in bonus categories, maxing that cap alone is worth roughly $2,125 in value at a reasonable per-point valuation — but only if your actual spend fills that category, not aspirationally.

3. Calculate what Ink Unlimited would earn on the same spending. At a flat 1.5x on everything, with no caps, model your total annual spend times 1.5x and compare directly against the Ink Cash calculation from step 2.

4. Pick Ink Cash if your spending is concentrated in the specific 5x/2x categories — the concentrated bonus categories beat the flat rate as long as you’re actually hitting them, not just could theoretically hit them.

5. Pick Ink Unlimited if your spending is spread across many categories with no single dominant bucket — the unlimited 1.5x with zero caps wins once your spend outgrows what a category-capped card can capture.

6. Confirm your bonus eligibility before applying. Check whether you’ve held this card or another no-annual-fee Ink card in the recent past; Chase’s eligibility rules can block a second welcome bonus even on a different Ink product.

7. Meet the $8,000 minimum spend within 4 months to earn the 100,000-point ($1,000 value) welcome bonus on whichever card you choose.

The Trap

The mistake is picking Ink Cash for its higher headline multiplier without checking whether your spending actually fills the 5x categories — office supplies, internet, cable, and phone. If your business spend is spread across categories Ink Cash doesn’t reward at a bonus rate, you’ll earn the base 1x on most of your spending and end up worse off than if you’d just taken Ink Unlimited’s flat 1.5x on everything. The second trap is assuming you can apply for both cards back-to-back for two separate bonuses — Chase’s Ink bonus eligibility rules typically block a second welcome bonus if you’ve already held a no-annual-fee Ink card recently, so check your application history first rather than finding out at approval time.

Cited References

• Ink Cash Vs. Ink Unlimited: How I’d Choose Between Chase’s No Annual Fee Business Cards — One Mile at a Time
• Ink Business Cash Credit Card — Chase
• Ink Business Unlimited Credit Card — Chase

Source: One Mile at a Time

Content created with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy.