Two different bets on business spend
Chase Ink Business Preferred ($95/year) and Amex Business Gold ($375/year) sit $280 apart in annual fee, but their bonus mechanics and eligible categories are different.
Ink Preferred earns a fixed 3x on travel, shipping, social media and search-engine advertising, and internet, cable, and phone services. Those categories share a combined first $150,000 per account anniversary year; streaming is not an eligible Ink Preferred category. There is no category selection to manage, and the card's Ultimate Rewards points transfer directly to Chase travel partners.
Business Gold auto-selects the top two categories each month from six eligible families: advertising media, electronics/software/cloud providers, restaurants, gas, transit, and monthly wireless phone service. Those top two categories earn 4x on a combined first $150,000 per calendar year, and flights and prepaid hotels booked on AmexTravel.com earn 3x. Its $375 fee also comes with up to $240 in Grubhub, UPS.com shipping, and office-supply credits, which the optimizer values conservatively at $120 per year.
Updated October 2, 2026: Amex replaced FedEx with shipments at UPS.com in that credit effective October 1, 2026. The $20-per-month amount is unchanged, so the $120 conservative value is too. The comparison table's credit row now also lists Ink Business Preferred's DashPass credit and Business Gold's ChatGPT, Squarespace, and Walmart+ credits, which the optimizer counts at $0.
Updated October 7, 2026: Business Gold also earns 3x on flights and prepaid hotels booked on AmexTravel.com. The card summary and the table above now include it.
| Ink Business Preferred | Amex Business Gold | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual fee | $95 | $375 |
| Bonus rate | 3x, fixed categories | 4x, auto top-2 monthly |
| Bonus categories | Travel (including local transit), shipping, social/search advertising, internet/cable/phone | Advertising media, electronics/software/cloud, restaurants, gas, transit, wireless phone; plus 3x on Amex Travel flights and prepaid hotels |
| Category cap | $150,000/yr combined | $150,000/yr combined |
| Credit | DashPass ($120/yr, modeled at $0) | $240/yr flexible credit (modeled at $120/yr), plus ChatGPT, Squarespace, and Walmart+ credits, and The Hotel Collection ($100 per qualifying stay), modeled at $0 |
| Transfer partners | Chase Ultimate Rewards | Amex Membership Rewards |
Who actually wins
- Travel- and shipping-heavy spenders: Ink Preferred's lower fee and fixed categories are the safer default when the spend does not concentrate in Business Gold's six monthly families.
- Consistent monthly advertising, electronics/software/cloud, restaurant, gas, transit, or wireless-phone spend: Business Gold's automatic top-two selection can pull ahead if the extra 1x and usable credits justify the $280 fee gap.
- Businesses running both: the cards can complement one another when Ink Preferred handles its fixed 3x categories and Business Gold handles qualifying top-two monthly spend.
Run the optimizer with your business's real category totals to see how these two actually stack up for your spend.
Data verified as of October 7, 2026.
Want the live numbers side by side? See the Amex Business Gold vs. Chase Ink Business Preferred comparison page — it renders current rates and fees straight from our verified card data.