Tide vs ANNA Money

Start with protection, not features

Neither Tide nor ANNA is a bank. Both are FCA-authorised, and both hold your money separately from their own — but the similarity ends there.

Newer Tide business accounts are provided by ClearBank, which is a licensed UK bank, so eligible balances carry FSCS protection up to £120,000. Older Tide accounts, issued through an e-money institution, are safeguarded only. Your sort code tells you which you hold, and it is worth checking in the app.

ANNA has no such route. The everyday balance is safeguarded in segregated accounts at partner banks. ANNA's separate savings product is operated by a licensed bank and is FSCS-protected, but that cover applies only to money moved into savings — not to the account you actually trade from.

If you are choosing where your working capital and tax reserve will sit, that difference outranks every feature below it.

Where ANNA is genuinely better

The tax tooling is the best in this comparison and arguably in the whole market. A live estimate of what you owe HMRC, updating as money moves, removes the single biggest source of anxiety for a self-employed person who files their own return. Receipt capture and matching is more automated than Tide's.

For a sole trader with no bookkeeper, that combination is what you are paying for — and on the pay-as-you-go tier, you are not paying anything to hold it.

Where Tide is genuinely better

Invoicing is more capable. The integration list is longer, and it includes a direct Sage feed on the free plan, which matters if your accountant works in Sage. Acceptance is broad across business types. And the ClearBank route to FSCS protection is a structural advantage ANNA cannot match.

The charge that catches people out

Both providers give a small free transfer allowance and then charge per item. Tide's is around 20p per transfer beyond a handful each month. That sounds trivial until you are paying fifteen suppliers and running payroll, at which point a "free" account is costing real money every month.

Before choosing either free tier, count your actual monthly payments in and out. If the number is above about twenty, price the paid tiers — or look at Starling, where transfers are free with no allowance at all.

The answer most people should hear

If your only criterion is tooling for a self-filing sole trader, ANNA wins and it is not particularly close.

If you are choosing a single account to hold your business's money, we would take Tide on a ClearBank sort code — or step outside this comparison entirely and take Starling or Mettle, both of which are free, unambiguously FSCS-protected, and better on transfer costs.

There is also a third option that plenty of people use: hold a licensed bank account for the money, and ANNA alongside it for the tax tooling. Both free tiers cost nothing, and you get the protection and the features.