Top Prepaid Credit and Debit Card Picks for 2018

There’s nothing like the ease and convenience of having a credit card. It’s often needed for things like booking a hotel and renting a car. Luckily these days, you don’t need to have a checking account in order to have a credit card. In recent years, prepaid debit cards have risen in popularity, but the fees for these types of cards can be too high for many to make them an affordable choice.

The Simple Dollar — a personal finance blog that rates a number of consumer financial products–recently released their ratings for the 9 best prepaid cards for 2018.  They rated the cards based on a number of characteristics including monthly fees, retail and online connections, how widely the cards were accepted, card loading convenience and the ability to send money to others online or by smartphones.

Below is a brief look at their ratings.

Activation Fee Max Monthly Fee ATM Fees Foreign Currency Fee Max Balance
24k Prepaid Visa® RushCard $0 $0 $2.50 with out-of-network ATMs 3% $10,000
AccountNow® Gold Visa® Prepaid Card $0 $9.95 $2.50 3% $10,000
PayPal™ Prepaid MasterCard® $0 $4.95 $1.95 2.5% $15,000
Fifth Third Access 360° Reloadable Prepaid Card $0 $4 $0 with in-network ATMs 3% $25,000
MOVO Virtual Prepaid Visa Card $0 $0 $0 with in-network ATMs 3% $10,000
Western Union® NetSpend® Prepaid MasterCard® $0 $9.95 $2.50 3.5% $5,000
NetSpend® Visa® Prepaid Card $0 $9.95 $2.50 3.5% $15,000
American Express Serve® (currently unavailable) $0 $1 $0 at MoneyPass ATMs 2.7% $5,000
READYdebit® Visa Prepaid Card (Select) (currently unavailable) $0 $9.95 $2.50 3% $10,000

You can get the full review of these prepaid cards at thesimpledollar.com