American Express Business Gold

Business Gold's appeal is that you do not have to pick categories: it earns 4x automatically on your top two spending categories each billing cycle from six eligible ones, including U.S. advertising, electronics and software or cloud providers, restaurants, gas, transit, and wireless service, on up to $150,000 of combined spending per year before dropping to 1x. The signup bonus was raised in May from 100,000 to as high as 200,000 Membership Rewards points after $15,000 in three months, though Amex words it as "as high as" and your actual offer may come in lower. The $375 annual fee is meant to be offset by credits rather than earnings: $240 a year at FedEx, Grubhub, and office supply stores at $20 a month, $300 in annual ChatGPT credits, $155 toward Walmart+, and $150 with Squarespace, nearly all requiring enrollment and most metered out monthly. That structure only works if your business genuinely uses those merchants, because unused monthly credits do not roll over and the fee is charged regardless. Cell phone protection up to $800 per claim and 3x on flights and prepaid hotels through AmexTravel.com are useful extras, but the math lives or dies on whether your top two categories are big enough to make the 4x rate meaningful.