KOHO Review: Is This Prepaid Visa Right For You?

Have you ever looked at your debit card and thought, “You know, I wish this thing was more like a credit card, but without the debt.”?

If you have, well, it turns out you're not alone. There are a handful of companies now looking to fill this exact gap in the market, and one of the big players in Canada is called KOHO.

In this in-depth KOHO review, I'm going to break down what Koho is all about, how it works, who it's made for, and more.

If you've been debating getting a Koho card for a while now, read through this review before diving in.

What is Koho?

Koho is a financial app thought up by Daniel Eberhard, who launched Koho in 2014. His goal? To challenge traditional banking by making things simpler and more affordable.

To put it simply (and weirdly), Koho is almost like if a credit card and a debit card had a baby, and then that baby had a baby with Mylo, Acorns, or some similar personal finance app. 

In less weird terms, Koho is essentially just a reloadable pre-paid Visa card with an app and extra features on top — like cashback, savings goals, insights, roundups, and more.

Related: 20 Apps That Pay You to Shop

Is Koho Safe?

Good question. Moving your money somewhere new can be a bit nervewracking but I can assure you that Koho is safe. They've taken measures to ensure your money is protected and insured even if something were to happen to them.

In fact, Koho never even touches your money at all. Here's how they explain it in their own words:

“Koho holds no funds, all funds are held by Peoples Trust, which is a CDIC-insured bank. This means if Koho were to cease to exist, your money would be safe and accessible through Peoples Trust.”

On top of that, your Koho Visa card is insured under Visa’s Zero Liability Purchase Protection Plan, meaning you’re protected against fraudulent transactions and unauthorized use of your card or account information.

Who Can Open a Koho Account?

Before you read this Koho review any further, I'll let you know right now that Koho is currently only available in Canada. You'll need to be the age of majority in your province (18-19) to open an account.

I believe they have plans to expand into the United States and other countries in the future, but I haven't heard a set date for that yet.

Support Quality

Customer support is super important for any product or service, but it's especially important when it comes to something that deals with your money.

So, how does Koho's customer support stack up?

Well, I've had nothing but good experiences using Koho's in-app support service/chat. One time, in particular, was especially nice — Koho had trouble sending my Joint card when I created a new joint account with my S/O so they gave us both $5 just for the inconvenience. I love free money!

That said, Koho's support can be slow to respond at times.

How Does Koho Work?

Koho bundles a reloadable prepaid visa card with extra functionality, including budgeting, saving, cashback, and more (see ‘Koho features' below).

On the surface, Koho works exactly like a debit card. You load it with cash first, and then you have that amount to spend however you like using your Koho credit card.

Once you run out of money on your card, that's it. You can't spend more until you reload it. If you try to spend more than what's on your card, the transaction will just get declined. There are no insufficient fund charges, or any fees at all really (more on fees later).

Reloading your card is easy and can be done in two ways:

1. Interac e-transfer from another bank account; or
2. Direct deposit from an employer (you can have your entire paycheck or just a part of it deposited)

Now, even though Koho functions similarly to a debit card, it does have some differences. Koho is technically a prepaid visa card, so you can use it anywhere Visa is accepted (e.g. online). Your Koho card also comes with perks a regular debit card doesn't, like cashback rewards.

On top of all that, the Koho app adds even more functionality to your card. Within the app, you can:

• Access your online chequing account balance
• Set up savings goals
• Configure automatic roundups
• Send unlimited e-transfers; and more.

Koho Features

I've been with Koho for a long time now, and in the beginning, their app was pretty simple. Not a ton of features, but enough to support the basic goal they were going for (easy budgeting and spending with no fees).

Over time, they've added a lot of new features and they continue to add more and more. To see their roadmap (future features) go here.

For now, here's a list of some current Koho features:

Virtual and Physical Cards

When you sign up for Koho, not only do you get to choose a cool physical card (they offer a ton of different looks and colors you can choose from) but you also get a virtual card right off the bat.

Your virtual card can be used for online purchases and it comes in handy more often than you may think.

0.5% Cash Back

This is easily one of the top reasons to use Koho as your choice of prepaid Visa. It's the only reloadable card in Canada I know of that offers cashback, and while 0.5% isn't a TON, it's not bad for a reloadable card.

Also, this cashback amount can be increased by referring users to Koho or subscribing to Koho's premium plan (more on both of these below).

PowerUps

The 0.5% cash back offered by Koho is the main PowerUp, but they also have other ones with stores they partner with. For example, at the time of writing this, if I use my Koho card at Frank and Oak (online or in-store), I'll earn an extra 5% bonus cashback. Cool.

That's not the only offer either. They have a list of stores with similar offers like this, which you can find under the ‘PowerUps' section in your Koho account. Offers are added and removed all the time. 

RoundUps

If you've used Mylo, Acorns, Wealthsimple, or another app that offers RoundUps before, Koho does it the exact same way. You can set it up to round up every purchase to $1, $2, $5, or $10. As you make purchases, you'll automatically save money.

This is a really nice way to save a bit of spare change here and there, but I wouldn't rely on it as your only source of savings as it's not very consistent.

Savings goals 

Koho's mission is to help you save, and this was one of the main features on the app when it was first released. You can input a goal name into the app (or multiple), the desired amount you want to save, and the date by which you want to accomplish your goal. 

You can then set up a recurring contribution to your goal, which can be daily, weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, or monthly.

Once you're fully set up, Koho will automatically calculate your recurring contribution amount to make sure you hit your goal in time. For example, if I set up a goal in Koho to save $1,500 in, let's say, 365 days, it would automatically calculate that I need to save at least $4.11 every day to hit that goal.

Note that if you miss a contribution or have extra cash in your account, Koho notices that too. If that happens, you can choose to either have Koho move the end date up or push it back while keeping contribution amount the same, or you can have Koho automatically increase or decrease the contribution amount while keeping the goal end date the same.

This savings goal feature is great for saving up for fun things, but it can also be used to build an emergency fund or to automatically contribute to sinking funds.

Spending Tracking

Have you ever looked at your monthly credit card statement only to find weird transactions that make no sense (e.g. SFWYGRNVL12)? Sometimes I have to Google certain transactions just to remember what they were actually for (maybe that's just me).

Anyway, that problem doesn't really happen with Koho. I find their purchase detection to work extremely well. If you make a purchase at Safeway, it will be reported as Safeway, simple as that.

Within the Koho app, you can go to the “Activity” section to see your recent transactions (pictured above), and you can tap a transaction to see more info and to add custom tags:

Your purchases are automatically categorized by Koho as well, but you can update categories if they're wrong. This also feeds into the next feature…

Spending and Savings Insights

To help you keep track of your finances and goal progression, Koho breaks down your monthly, weekly, and daily spending and savings.

For spending, they'll show you where your money went (based on categories or tags):

And they'll compare your current spending to past months with a spending breakdown:

For savings, they'll show you which goals you contributed to and give you a comparison month-over-month as well, similar to the spending insights above.

Thanks to my girlfriend for kindly sharing her insights with me for this Koho review 🙂

Withdraw Cash from ATMs

Koho is partnered with Visa so you can withdraw money from any Visa Plus ATM. Just look for their logo:

Keep in mind, you may be charged a $2-$3 fee for using an ATM with your Koho card. Still, this is better than the cash advance fees you'd typically be charged using a credit card at an ATM.

To find a Visa Plus ATM near you, use the Visa ATM locator or Google Maps.

Pay Bills

You can use your Koho account to pay bills like your credit cards, cell, internet, hydro, utilities, etc. Just add the payee through the app. Learn more here.

Exclusive Offers

On the home page of the app, you may notice some “exclusive offers”. These are basically just ads, but some of the offers end up being pretty useful anyways.

This is one of the main ways Koho makes money – they partner with other brands (sometimes they'll advertise their own stuff here too).

Lock Your Card Anytime

Koho allows you to lock your cards whenever you want, which is pretty handy. You could use this feature to protect your funds if you lose/misplace your card or to restrict your spending to stop yourself from wasting money.

E-Transfer Reimbursement

If your bank doesn't already offer free e-transfers, KOHO will reimburse you the e-transfer fee for any transfers over $20.

Note that you can only be reimbursed for up to 30 transfer fees in any given calendar month, and the max reimbursement amount can only be $3.

Investing

Koho doesn't directly offer automated investing, but they do work with Wealthsimple (my favorite robo-advisor). Learn how to fund your Wealthsimple account with Koho here.

Koho Save

Speaking of investing, if you want to get a BIT more out of your savings than you would with a regular savings account, Koho Save is something you may be interested in.

Koho save is completely free, with no extra fees, and offers 1.2% interest on all your savings.

If you choose to opt-in, Koho will open an account for you with Canadian ShareOwner, a federally regulated and CIPF insured broker. ShareOwner will then deposit your money for you in a trust account with a Schedule 1 Canadian bank.

This basically means your money is protected and insured, and if anything were to happen to Koho, you'd be able to receive your money from ShareOwner.

Other than that, your money and account will look the same in the Koho app, you'll just receive a higher interest rate on your savings. Everything else stays the same.

Credit Building

This is a new feature from Koho that offers to help you build your credit, pretty much risk free. It costs $7/month and builds your credit over a 6-month period.

If you don't have access to proper credit due to a low credit score or something else, this is a great service.

On the other hand, if you can access something like a credit card to build your credit score, you can pass on this service. Just make sure to pay off the credit card debt you incur by doing this every month to build good credit history and avoid interest charges.

Referrals

Koho has a pretty sweet referral program. Once you sign up, you can find your custom Koho referral code in the Koho app.

Simply send that code/link to your friends or family members and if they sign up for Koho through your unique code, you'll both get an extra 1% in PowerUps (aka cashback) for 90 days. The 90 days kicks in when your referral makes their first purchase.

The only thing I don't like about the Koho referral program is that they limit you to a maximum of 10 referrals.

If you want to sign up with my Koho Referral code, it's IAUF0VGB.

Koho Card Limits

Now that you know the features, let's talk about the limits of your Koho card/account. I won't go over all of them, but here are the ones you should know about:

• Max card balance – $20,000
• Spending limit – $3,000 daily, $30,000 monthly
• Max transactions/day – 15
• Daily ATM limit – $600 (max withdraw of $300 at a time) (max of 5 withdrawals/day)
• Monthly ATM limit – $3,000
• Max loads/deposits – 20/day, 60/month (includes both direct deposit and e-transfer)
• Max deposit amount – $10,000/day, $40,000/month (includes both direct deposit and e-transfer)
• e-Transfer sending limit – up to $3,000/transfer, $3,000 max/day
• Koho to Koho sending limits – up to $1,000/transfer, $2,000 max/day, $20,000 max/month
• Koho to Koho transaction limits – 10 transfers max/day, 60/month
• Pre-Authorized debit limits – 20/month

If you're using Koho pretty casually, none of these limits should affect you very much, but it's good to be aware of them. Learn more here.

Koho Joint Account

Along with personal accounts, you can also open a Koho Joint account with a friend, sibling, significant other, or whoever. Upon creation, you'll both get your own joint card in the mail and you'll each have access to the account through the Koho app.

The joint account works just like a personal account, meaning you can have joint savings goals, roundups, and cashback.

Another neat feature is that when one person makes a purchase with a joint card, both account owners are notified. For example, when I make a purchase with my joint card, the app notifies both me and my girlfriend with a “Dylan spent X amount at X place”.

The best part about having a joint account though? Easy purchase splitting. No dealing with bank transfers, cash, or anything like that.

One thing to keep in mind that I found a bit weird at first with joint accounts is transferring money into them. You can't directly do an Interac e-transfer into your joint account. Instead, you need to e-transfer money into your personal account, and then use the app to transfer that cash to your joint account. Just one extra step.

That being said, direct deposits CAN go directly to your joint account, so no worries there.

Joint Account Limits

Koho Joint accounts have almost the same limits as free accounts. The only differences are the max card balance, and the Koho to Koho sending limits:

• Joint accounts can have a max balance of $40,000 (versus $20,000) and
• You can send up to $1,500/transfer with Koho-2-Koho (versus $1,000) and up to $2,500/day (versus $2,000)

Koho Premium

Along with the regular free Koho accounts and Koho Joint accounts, there are also Koho Premium accounts. Koho Premium is for anyone who wants to get even more out of their Koho card.

It's a paid subscription, so it's definitely not for everyone, but having it as an option is nice. To get started, Koho Premium will cost you either $9/month on the monthly plan or $7/month if you pay annually ($84/year).

So, is it worth it?

Well, take a look at the extra perks and features and decide for yourself:

• More cash back – Premium Koho users get 2% cashback (versus the 0.5% regular users get) on these categories:
  • Eating & drinking
  • Groceries; and
  • Transportation.
• No foreign transaction fees – Free users are charged a 1.5% FX fee.
• Financial coaching – Premium users get free access to a financial coach in the Koho app. Just tag your message #coach through the in-app chat to get started.
• Price matching – Snap a picture of your receipt from supported merchants and Koho will look for price match opportunities. This is similar to Paribus.
• More PowerUps – Koho premium users get access to more PowerUps, which means more cashback.
• Higher card limits – Premium cardholders can carry a higher balance, have higher transaction limits, can withdraw more from ATMs, have higher load limits, and more.
• One free international ATM withdrawal per month.
• Special Koho Premium Card

So, back to the question: Is Koho Premium worth it? That really all depends on how much you plan on using your card. Here's the math:

Koho Premium users get 1.5% more cashback than free users, so in order to earn back the $7/month, you'll have to spend about $467 every month.

If you're on the monthly plan, you'll have to spend about $600/month to earn back that $9/month.

Koho Fees

Koho is all about reducing fees and being as affordable as possible, but there ARE still a couple of fees to be aware of as a Koho user:

• Foreign transaction fee – Free Koho users are charged a 1.5% FX fee but premium users get this waived. 
• Inactivity fee – If after 13 months of card activation your card goes unused for 90 days, there will be a $1/month inactivity fee

How Does Koho Make Money?

Is all of this sounding too good to be true? Don't worry, Koho is pretty transparent about how they make money:

• Interchange fees – This is the one most people are unaware of, but it's one of the biggest revenue sources for Koho. Whenever you make a purchase with your Koho card, the merchant pays a fee in order to accept your payment. Koho splits this fee with Visa, and then gives you a bit of it through the PowerUp feature. It's sort of a win-win for Koho users and Koho.
• Premium – This is a pretty obvious one. Premium users pay a monthly/yearly subscription.
• Affiliate marketing – Each time you take advantage of an exclusive offer through Koho, they make some money. 
• Exclusive cards – Koho offers some limited edition cards for a fee for users who are interested. They recently offered a fancy metal card for a $159 one time fee.

FAQ

Koho Review and Rating Summary

Koho Pros and Cons

Is Koho Worth It?

I think Koho is an awesome service and definitely worth using. It's free to get started with and it provides a lot of great features.

That said, for me, Koho is not a complete credit card replacement. Instead, it's more of an extra tool in my personal finance toolkit.

For example, I love using it to budget out my fun-money spending. Also, I LOVE my Koho Joint Account. It's awesome being able to share an account so easily with my girlfriend for things like groceries.

Who Should Use Koho?

• Anyone who can't get a credit card or doesn't want a credit card but wants similar features
• Overspenders – My girlfriend, for ages, would build up a huge credit card bill, pay it off, and then repeat the cycle. It didn't seem like there was a fix. She's now a Koho Premium user and she's loving it. It's helped her budget and control her spending a ton.
• Budgeters – Your Koho card can be a bit like a virtual cash envelope budget. For example, you could keep money in your Koho account for fun spending. 
• Anyone looking for a simple joint account – Start an account with your S/O for a date fund, or start one with a sibling or friend. It's easy and convenient.

Related: How to Start a Budget in 6 Simple Steps

How to Open a Koho Account with a 1% Cashback Bonus

Opening a Koho account and receiving your card is as simple as downloading the app and creating an account. Once you set everything up your card will come in the mail within 10 business days and you'll just have to activate it by following the steps they send you.

Click here to download Koho and get started – once you make your first purchase, you'll get a bonus 1% cashback for 90 days!

Koho Alternatives

Koho has many unique features, but it's not the only reloadable card on the Canadian market! Here are some alternatives:

1. Stack Mastercard

The Stack Mastercard is one of Koho's top competitors, and the services are both very similar. So which one is better? Well, let's break down the big differences:

1. Stack is a Mastercard, not a Visa. Mastercard is slightly more widely accepted than Visa so that's a plus for Stack.
2. Stack has NO FX FEES for all users. This is pretty huge if you're looking for a travel card.
3. Stack does not offer 0.5% cashback as Koho does

I still have yet to user Stack myself, so keep an eye out for my Stack review which will be coming soon.

2. MOGO

MOGO is another pre-paid Visa card offering very similar features to Koho. What sets it apart is that it offers it's cashback in Bitcoin. I have not tried this card.

Final Thoughts

Koho is great. Their mission to create a simpler, more transparent and more affordable banking service is awesome, and I think they're doing a great job with it so far. I'm excited to see how they continue to grow and innovate over the coming years.

If you enjoyed this Koho review:

Sign up for KOHO here and get an extra 1% cashback for 90 days! (I'll get a bonus too, so thanks for the support!)

What are your thoughts on Koho? Leave your own mini Koho review in the comments below!