Credicated - Keep Your Cards Active!
 

Introducing.... Credicated! - The easy way to keep your credit (and debit) cards open and active to help build credit, avoid account closure, and easily nail min transaction requirements!

Let me back up a bit.

I opened my 1st credit card (Bank Of America) a few days after I turned 18.
After having that beginner card for a few months I was able to get approved for an AmEx card, followed by Chase, CapOne and all the rest.

One fine day, a few years later, I received a letter in the mail from BOA stating that they would be closing my card due to inactivity!

Immediately, my credit score dropped by about 50 points since:
A) I lost my oldest line of credit, bringing my average credit age down by a few years,
B) I lost a chunk of my total credit allowance, which also effectively raises my credit utilization, and
C) ALL the on time payment history from that credit card disappeared from my credit report.

I was super annoyed, but there was nothing I could do... I knew that I was supposed to use all my cards on a monthly basis to prevent this from happening, but I don't have an endless number of subscriptions that I could put on separate cards, and I don't have the headspace to actually go to the dollar store every month and check out a few dozen times.

Now fast forward a few years, and I get married (:)).... To a Canadian (:().
At least she's an American citizen, but she had ZERO USA credit history under her name.

I made her an additional user one of my Chase cards, and eventually was able to get her approved for the CapOne "Platinum" card.

Now all we needed to do, was swipe that card once a month for a few dollars, and pay it off on time, to build her credit history (and then go on to more premium cards).
Simple? Not Quite. We literally forgot every other month for a year until I eventually made myself monthly Google calendar reminders to use the card for one transaction a month.

Another issue that I became aware of only more recently, is the difficulty in reaching 15 (or 12, etc) debit card transactions a month in order to be eligible for an increased APY rate on a savings account.
For example, Doctor of Credit has a great roundup of all these types of bank accounts, one of which is the OnPath High Yield Checking account which offers a 7% APY only if you make 15 transactions a month on the account debit card.

If I have 3 or 4 such accounts (since they all have limits - usually 10k-20k), how am I going to make 45 - 60 debit card transaction every single month (and still use my credit cards to earn points on purchases)?

I figured there had to be a better way. That's when I had the idea to build a website specifically for this purpose, that would automate a super small monthly (or quarterly, or yearly, etc. etc.) subscription charge to put on your credit card. The user adds his card to the micro-subscription, and I keep the profits.

The site would have the following subscription options to choose from:

• Platinum - 99¢ / month
• Gold - $1.25 / quarter (every 3 months)
• Silver - $1.25 / year
• MULTI - 59¢ every 1, 2, 3, 4 or 14 days (for the high-interest-accounts)

+ an easy way to pause, manage or cancel any subscriptions.

In practice, the user would easily keep his/her cards active (boosting credit AND preventing inactivity closure), and hit min transaction thresholds - at a minimal cost.

I felt that less than $12 a year (or $1.25 a year with the Silver plan) is a small price to pay for some peace of mind.

I bought the domain https://credicated.com, (like dedicated to keeping your credit card active - type of thing), but didn't do much with it until more recently.

I decided to build the website and learn along the way. I had never built a website before, but figured I could do it (with lots of help from ChatGPT ;))

Surprisingly, one of the most difficult parts was finding a payment processor that wouldn't charge me so much in flat fees (typically 30+ cents) per transaction. Add that to the Shopify transaction fees, and the subscription plugin transaction fees, and I would be losing money on a 99 cent purchases!

Luckily I was able to find a way around that problem by utilizing a special type of PayPal account.

Another issue was graphics (front-end). I built the whole infrastructure of the website, but it looked horrid.
Thank God, I was also able to find a super cheap (like $5/hour cheap) web designer who took care of that for me (although, I did have to do a lot of it myself - I guess you get what you pay for! :))

Soon later Credicated.com was ready to go and here I am!

I also added bulk discounts for users with lots of cards (5+ cards/subscriptions = 15% off, 15+ cards/subscriptions = 25% off, and 45+ cards/subscriptions = 40% off!).

As a gesture of goodwill, I decided that the first 6 months of profits would be donated to charity! (helping sick folks with basic goods and support.)

Please check it out, use it, enjoy it, share it, question it, etc.

I am new here on FlyerTalk, but I'm quite active on other CC & Travel forums (hence the low post count :) here)

I am open to any and all constructive criticism or feedback, so that I can make this site a win-win for everyone! Leave a comment below, PM me, or email me at [email protected].

Once you sign up (you can only do one card at a time per order - meaning, for each card, you need to checkout, pay, and then start again with the next card), be sure the credit card is set to autopay so you don't miss a payment! Forgetting to do so can defeat the whole purpose!

Thanks for giving me this opportunity to present this to you, and I hope it can help some people here (myself included ;))

https://credicated.com/

I just use Patreon to give a buck or two every month to some podcast creators who produce content I use regularly.

Interesting idea and thanks for the feedback. If that works for you, awesome!

Just a few value adds that I offer:

• Seems like the cheapest plans you can do is $1/month. No bulk discounts like Credicated offers (which can make it as cheap as 60 cents/transaction).
• No options for quarterly / yearly etc.
• No way to get multiple charges a month. If for example you want to earn 7% APY rate on the OnPath Bank account, you would need 15 transactions/month on ur debit card. With Credicated, you can automate that easily for 59 Cents a swipe.
• Haven't tried Patreon personally, but is it as easy to view, pause, cancel, resume, or modify all of your various plans/cards in one simple and clear portal like Credicated is? (I've got 22 credit cards that need to be kept active! It can get hard to keep track, which is why I created what I hoped would be a more streamlined option)
• All my profits are going to charity for the first 6 months of business (and I might extend it if I feel it's working :))

for a $10 transaction, i may lose out on about 30 points (3x), which if valued at 1.5cpp is only $0.45. this is less than the $0.6 that you are charging, so one will be better off putting <$10 spend on the cards that need spend than pay you. note that $0.45 is likely an overestimation, as you can divert spend with smaller multiplier than 3x and we have not factored in the points that we would still earn

what is the merchant code? will it cause any issues?

Thx for that.
Assuming I understand ur post correctly....

I'm not targeting users who would rather spend $10 for goods or services that they actually need, on every single one of their cards, on a regular basis.
If that works for u, it's def a better option.

Credicated is for ppl who don't want that headache, and would rather it be automated for them so they can keep their sock drawer cards active with a set & forget service.
The cost would be minimal bec of the low price plans.

Again, maybe I'm misunderstanding you...?

you are not misunderstanding me, but $10 means one does have a lot of options instead of just paying you. notquiteaff gave you one. paying a creator is different from simply paying you for the convenience; the creator is creating something of value to me, and the money is appreciation of that. not because i want to prevent my card from being closed

personally, i have quite a few subscriptions that are lower than $10, such as nyt, wsj, apple icloud+, and some newsletter. popular services like streaming and music are also only slightly more than $10, and likely costs less overall than your services. for these subscriptions, your service can cost more without bringing much to the table

i also dont feel any inconvenience to use my sock-drawered card on purchases. they are in my apple wallet all the time, so i will just use them whenever the opportunity arises, which is when i have a very small transaction, e.g. when i get a drink, a loaf of bread, ice cream, a gum, parking, etc. so i do think im better off than paying you $0.6 or $1

im not saying your idea cant work, but i feel the pricing is a potential problem. fortunately, it seems this is a very low cost venture, so it is worth a shot. i am concerned about what banks think about such transactions though

Got it, makes sense.

The truth is that if it works for you, I'll be the last person to try to convince you to use Credicated instead.

Just I know that for me, and for many others, it's just too big of a headache to remember to constantly use all their cards on a regular basis. Those are the people I'm targeting.

There is also the 59¢ MULTI Plan which is great for hitting for example - 15 transactions on the previously mentioned On Path 7% APY account. Try getting 15 transactions / month on bread and ice cream! :)

The concern about the bank is a concern of mine too.

Interesting idea, and I wish you success in your venture. I suspect this forum's audience is more credit/money savvy, so probably not many will use your service. However, you will get some ideas.
FWIW, here is mine. Make a deal with Amazon where every transaction adds a gift card balance to the user's Amazon account. Collect a small percentage to make a profit.

I think this would be useful in theory, similar to awardwallet which I find fantastic for tracking all of my family accounts.

But you need to think a bit bigger than just keeping credit cards active (to be fair it sounds like you are).

For many of us with established histories, the issue is not keeping cards active but rather cancelling cards to avoid paying AFs. So a good tracker would cover expiration dates, last usage, etc. In addition I would recommend columns for last 4 digits, CVN and expiration dates. I often cross reference such info when prompted by a merchant where I have stored card info. I currently use a spreadsheet and a note to do this but it is highly manual and inefficient process.

Finally I would recommend an AF rather than a monthly fee, similar to awardwallet. Maybe start with a free trial that auto-converts to an AF if people don't cancel.

Thanks for the well wishes!

So I also had that idea (to give gift cards so the user is getting something in return aside for card activity).
The issue is that the profit margins on such small transactions are already quite slim. If I were to give away a majority chunk of the profit to purchasing gift cards, the business would not be profitable....

From a psychological aspect, I have considered trying to give something in return to the customer that would cost me very little, to incentivize users and to overcome the psychological barrier of just giving away money (despite the fact that there is a clear value proposition from keeping cards active - it's just psychologically difficult to do for whatever reason).

Interesting idea, but I don't know if that is really the market that I am targeting.
Definitely is such a market, I just don't think that's the one I am in.
If I were to charge annually would be defeating the whole purpose of the market that I am trying to target (keeping cards active on a constant basis).

Just out of curiosity... Do you have one of those super high apy bank accounts that have minimum transaction requirements that I mentioned in my original post like the OnPath CU account?
I feel like it's super underrated in general - Earn 7% APY on CASH + Use the the Credicated 59 cent plan to hit the monthly transaction requirements with no hassle. How else can you earn that much on cash these days??

I get it, you need to have the niche that is right for you. But I think your target market is too narrow, most people are not worried about inactive accounts closing, but rather about paying AFs they for cards they don't need. When you have 30 accounts it doesn't hurt your score much even if a couple close.

No I don't do cards or bank accounts with minimum transaction requirements. I am sure it is lucrative but I already have too many things to track. Maybe when I retire.

well i googled and that 7% is only for the first 10k. that is like 300-400 after taxes, while a normal high yield savings gives you about 100-200 after taxes. you are only earning an extra ~$200, and since your fees will be 15*12*0.6=$108, it is simply not worth it

How is 7% APY on 10k = 300 after taxes?
It's 700 minus taxes...

Are you suggesting a smaller APY rate is better because then u pay less in taxes? U may as well aim for 0% to pay 0 taxes :).

Also, you can open an account for ur spouse if you want 20k.
There are also a few of such accounts with varying maximum amounts , some of which are over 10K.
You can do the same thing with multiple different Banks and different accounts if you want to do say 50k.

I just picked it as an example.

Gotcha, valid point.

1) 7% APY includes the effect of compound interest. if you already have 10k in the account, any interests earned during the year is above the 10k, which do not enjoy the higher interest rate. hence it is impossible for you to earn $700 per year. at best, it is 6.785% or $678.5

2) US median income is about 50k, which correspond to the 22% tax bracket. you add in state and local taxes (it varies, but let's say 10% total*) and 7.65% for FICA. this brings your total taxes to 39.65%. i will just round this off to 40%, so the interests after taxes is $407. for people who earn more and hit another income bracket, this number is going to be smaller

of course, the numbers would be better for some and worse for others depending in income and where you live

*the lowest state and local taxes per capita is $4,722 (State and Local Tax Collections Per Capita by State, 2025)

if i open an account for my wife, the costs to me also double, so no benefit there. unless you are hoping that the wife doesnt work. but i think most family are dual income nowadays. similarly, every additional account i have incur costs and hence give me marginal returns for my efforts

one can do what you suggest here, have the headache of maintaining many accounts, face decreasing interest rates, have their interests taxed and lost as payments to you, or one can just invest those money. as the interest rate falls, this is going to make less and less sense mathematically; even if the need for your services remain, they can no longer justify your services

also, many of these CUs have some requirements; they maybe geofenced or required some membership or donation or etc. the initial effort to set up these accounts also means the population is more niche. and for people who are willing to go through such lengths to set up these accounts, are they more likely to do 15 transaction themselves or will they pay $108 for the service? my bet is on the former