How Mercury, Brex and Relay evaluate your online presence

Mercury, Brex, and Relay are among the most widely used banking and financial services platforms for US LLCs. All three are fintech-first institutions operating under banking partner arrangements, which means their compliance posture is shaped by both their own risk policies and the requirements of the regulated institutions behind them.

Each platform runs a Know Your Business review before activating an account. The KYB process includes automated checks and, in many cases, manual review. Your website and digital presence are part of what that process evaluates.

This article covers what each platform's public documentation says about online presence requirements, what their KYB layer typically checks, and what you should have in place before submitting an application.

Why neobanks check your website

The underlying reason is identical across all three platforms: the website is the cheapest, fastest proxy for operational existence.

A legal entity can be registered, have an EIN, and have a valid registered agent, and still not be an operating business. A website that describes the business, names its principals, shows a corporate email, contains legal pages, and presents a coherent account of what the company does is evidence that someone has been running the company, not just forming it on paper.

Mercury, Brex, and Relay all use third-party business verification vendors — the category that TrueBiz, Parcha, Middesk, Persona, and AiPrise occupy — to automate portions of their KYB. Those vendors have web check modules that run before a human ever opens the application. The score from those automated checks influences whether the application clears the automated layer or enters a manual review queue.

Mercury

Mercury is a banking-as-a-service platform built on top of Evolve Bank and Trust and Choice Financial Group. It targets technology startups and online businesses, and its onboarding is designed to handle high volumes of LLC and C-corp applications.

Mercury's public documentation on account eligibility states that applications are reviewed for evidence of a legitimate operating business. Their support articles note that the review process looks at the company's online presence as part of establishing that the business is real and active.

Mercury commonly reviews the following as part of their digital presence check:

• A business website that is live and reachable. Mercury's onboarding form asks for the company URL. If the URL returns an error, a parked domain page, or a site under construction, the automated system cannot validate the web presence. Applications without a functioning website are more likely to enter manual review or be declined at the automated stage.
• Business description on the website. Mercury's product is built for startups and online businesses. Their review layer expects to see a description of what the company does that matches the description provided in the application.
• Domain email address. Mercury's support documentation specifically notes that a business email address (not a personal email provider) is the expected contact method for operating businesses. Applications listing a Gmail or Outlook address for the primary contact raise a flag in their review process.
• Legal pages. Privacy policy and terms of service are expected for any business that has a customer-facing website. Their help center has noted in multiple articles that businesses without basic legal documentation may receive additional scrutiny.

Mercury does not publish a checklist of website requirements. The above reflects patterns consistently observed in their public documentation and the experience of applicants who have disclosed their rejections publicly. Mercury's decisions are made by their risk team, and individual outcomes vary.

Brex

Brex is a corporate card and banking platform originally built for venture-backed startups, now serving a broader range of businesses including bootstrapped and early-stage LLCs. It operates under a partnership with Emigrant Bank (for banking) and is a licensed money transmitter in multiple states.

Brex's KYB process is more stringent than Mercury's for businesses without institutional backing, because their product has historically been calibrated for companies with verifiable capitalization and traction. That means the web presence bar for a solo LLC applying for a Brex account is meaningful.

Brex's onboarding documentation states that they review the company's online presence and business activity as part of their account review. Their help articles note that having a business website that clearly describes the company's products or services is an important part of establishing business legitimacy.

What Brex's review layer typically evaluates:

• An active, content-rich website. Brex's documentation is clear that the website should describe the business's products or services. A sparse or incomplete website — a home page with a tagline and a contact form, but no About section, no service description, and no legal pages — is treated as an incomplete business presence.
• Consistency between the website and the application. The business category selected in the Brex application should match what is described on the website. A mismatch between a software company application and a website describing marketing services will generate questions.
• Domain email address. Brex's application form asks for the business email. Their compliance team treats a personal email domain as an indicator that the business is not yet fully operational.
• Named leadership. Brex's review looks for the business to have identifiable principals. An About page with named founders or operators — with LinkedIn profiles or other verifiable public presence — supports the application. An anonymous corporate presence with no named individuals creates friction.
• Legal pages and compliance documentation. Brex serves businesses that will be processing corporate spend. Their review expects to see privacy and terms documentation, particularly for businesses that have a digital product or platform.

Brex has also been known to review the LinkedIn profiles of the beneficial owners and controlling persons named in the application. A LinkedIn profile that does not mention the company, or a founder whose stated professional history does not support the business described in the application, can trigger a manual hold.

Relay

Relay is a business banking platform built on Thread Bank. It is designed for small business owners, service providers, and online business operators. Its KYB process is somewhat less stringent than Mercury or Brex for straightforward LLC applications, but it still runs a digital presence check.

Relay's support documentation notes that their account review includes a review of the business's online presence to confirm the business is active and legitimate. They note that having a business website is strongly recommended, particularly for businesses that operate online or provide services remotely.

What Relay's review layer typically evaluates:

• A reachable business website. Relay's application asks for the company website. If the site is unreachable, the application proceeds with a manual flag. Their review team will typically ask for a live URL if one is not provided.
• Business activity description. The website should describe what the business does in a way that matches the application. Relay's onboarding documentation emphasizes that the business activity should be clearly stated.
• Corporate email address. Relay's review process treats a domain email address as a signal of operational seriousness. Their help documentation encourages applicants to use a business email on their company domain.
• Contact information and address. Relay checks address consistency. The address on the application should match what is shown on the website and what is registered with the state.

Relay also has a relatively transparent review process: if an application enters manual review, their team typically communicates specifically what information they need rather than issuing a generic decline. This makes it easier to address gaps, but it also means the review takes longer when those gaps exist.

What all three platforms have in common

Despite their different target markets and different product structures, Mercury, Brex, and Relay evaluate the same core signals:

Operational consistency. The legal entity name, the business address, the business activity description, and the contact information should tell the same story across the application form, the website, and the public record. Any inconsistency will trigger scrutiny.

Corporate email. All three platforms treat a domain email address as a baseline expectation for an operating business. A personal email domain is a risk flag regardless of how legitimate the underlying business is.

Legal pages. Privacy policy and terms of service are minimum expectations. Their presence signals that the business has thought through its obligations to users and to regulatory requirements.

Named individuals. The beneficial owners and controlling persons named in the application should have a verifiable presence that supports the business. This does not require a large following or extensive press coverage. It requires that a search for the named individual returns results consistent with the application.

Domain age and content depth. A domain registered 48 hours before the application, hosting a four-page website with 200 words per page, is a higher-risk signal than a domain with six months of age and substantive content. This does not mean you cannot open a business account with a new domain — but it means the automated check will score it lower and the probability of manual review increases.

Preparing before you apply

The practical preparation checklist for any of these three platforms is the same:

1. Register a domain that reflects your legal entity name and make sure it has been live for at least a few days before submitting.
2. Set up corporate email on that domain. Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Zoho are all acceptable. Make sure MX, SPF, and DKIM are configured correctly.
3. Publish a business website with a home page that describes what the business does, an About page that names the operators, a Contact page with a domain email and address, and Privacy and Terms pages with real content.
4. Audit for consistency before submitting. Legal name, business address, business activity description, and contact email should match across the application, the website, and your state registration.
5. Prepare your entity documents. Articles of organization, EIN letter, operating agreement, and beneficial owner IDs. You will not need all of these at the automated stage, but you will need them when manual review asks.

PresenceReady delivers steps two and three: the corporate email infrastructure and the business website built against the web presence signals that automated KYB systems check. The goal is to clear the automated layer so that the review, if it escalates to manual, is focused on entity documents rather than a website that was not built before the application was submitted.

We do not promise that any application will be approved. We build the layer of digital presence that the automated and human review layers expect to find, so that your application is evaluated on its merits rather than rejected on a preventable technicality.