You probably know why you need tradelines on your business credit reports. That being said, choosing tradelines can be tricky. There are many that come with application fees, annual fees, and other hidden costs.
Previously, we featured companies like Summa Office Supplies, Strategic Network Solutions, Newegg Business, and Grainger Industrial.
We took care to research every company on this list (and others listed online) to verify that they are fee-free and help you build business credit.
This included reaching out to customer support through email and chat, speaking to representatives over the phone, and combing through their website to understand terms and clarify account information.
This research revealed that, contrary to what other websites are reporting, Summa Office Supplies and Strategic Network Solutions don’t offer net 30 accounts as they’re no longer in business.
We’ve removed Newegg Business because they do not report to any business credit bureaus. While you may be able to get net 30 terms, it won’t benefit your business.
Grainger Industrial is also no longer featured due to previous applicants experiencing issues trying to get a net 30 account, as well as the fact that we received conflicting information about net 30 terms. One representative told us that they’re not allowed to talk about reporting practices, while another effectively said that transactions aren’t automatically reported to D&B.
We replaced these four with four new business tradelines that are verified to be free and report to major business credit bureaus. Our two paid business tradelines are still relevant and have also been verified before publishing.
5 Business Tradelines You Don’t Have to Pay For
1. Quill
Quill
- What They Sell: Office supplies, including cleaning supplies, breakroom goods, office furniture, electronics, and more
- Credit Terms: Net 30 Terms
- Credit Limit: Varies
- Reports to: Dun & Bradstreet. Verified April 2025 with Michael from customer service
- Where to Apply: Online
- What’s Needed for Their Application:
- Must spend $100 on your first order to qualify
- Basic business details
- EIN
- Approval Timeline: Instant
Quill is your traditional office supplies store that sells everything from electronics to breakroom supplies.
They boast a fast application process and quick approval. Once approved, your payments will be reported to one business credit bureau: Dun & Bradstreet.
All you have to do to make sure that you can take advantage of their net 30 terms is to spend at least $100 on your first order. This is the minimum order amount needed to qualify for net 30.
2. NAMYNOT
NAMYNOT
- What They Sell: Digital marketing services such as social media management, website design, and organic lead generation
- Credit Terms: Net 30
- Credit Limit: Up to $10,000
- Reports to: Dun & Bradstreet and Experian Business. Verified April 2025 on their website’s net 30 page
- Where to Apply: Online
- What’s Needed for Their Application:
- A Qualifying Business: Must be U.S.-based, have been in business for at least 90 days, have a professional website (or a coming soon web page), and have no negative credit history with business credit bureaus
- EIN
- DUNS Number
- Be the Authorized Officer (Most tradelines will only interact with an authorized officer, so you need one dedicated applicant for an authorized user tradeline, likely yourself)
- Basic business and contact information
- NOTE: You will be required to pay half of the cost of a service for your first purchase, then half after the project is delivered. After that, you can begin using net 30 terms.
- Approval Timeline: Approximately two to five days for processing, longer if they have any questions they need to ask you
Most business tradelines help you build credit when you purchase physical items. NAMYNOT helps you build credit and your business by offering net 30 terms for business services.
Because NAMYNOT’s services run a bit higher than the average products sold by a vendor, you can expect a higher credit limit with your net 30 account.
The one thing you need to know upfront is that you will be subject to their traditional payment plan before you can tap into net 30 terms. This means paying 50% upfront and the other half two days after project completion.
Once you’ve proven you can pay and you qualify for net 30 terms, you can circumvent this traditional payment option and build your credit by reporting to D&B and Experian.
3. JJ Gold International
JJ Gold International
- What They Sell: JJ Gold sells an eclectic array of products, including hair and beauty products, candles and decor, jewelry, apparel, and more
- Credit Terms: Net 30
- Credit Limit: Up to $5,000
- Reports to: D&B, Equifax, and FairFigure. Verified April 2025 with Johnathan from customer service
- Where to Apply: Online
- What’s Needed for Their Application:
- Qualifying Business: You need to have a business that is U.S.-based, has existed for at least 30 days, and has a clean business history with no late payments
- Basic business information
- Contact information
- EIN
- NOTE: You will have to pay a 20% deposit at first as a new buyer. After which, you’ll be able to enjoy true net 30 terms.
- Approval Timeline: Within three days
JJ Gold features an eclectic mix of products that you may need for your business.
This helps them stand out as a strong choice for nearly any business, regardless of whether they’re looking to add some variety to their inventory or stock up on promotional products or team-based gifts.
They’re easy to qualify for, and they actually report to both D&B and Equifax as well as FairFigure.
As with many vendors, this net 30 account does come with the caveat of needing to adhere to a special payment plan at first. You will need to pay a 20% deposit at first.
However, once you’ve proven you can make payments on your account, you’ll be able to use your net 30 account as normal.
4. Coast to Coast Office Supply
Coast to Coast Office Supply
- What They Sell: Office supplies, digital downloads, and e-books
- Credit Terms: Net 30
- Credit Limit: An average of $1000, but potentially higher
- Reports to: They report to Experian monthly, and state that you can self-report to D&B after the second month. Verified April 2025 on their website
- Where to Apply: Online
- What’s Needed for Their Application:
- $90 minimum initial purchase
- EIN
- Basic business information
- Authorized Officer contact information
- Approval Timeline: Approval is almost instant, unless they need more information from you
Coast to Coast Office Supply has a relatively limited inventory, but it’s still a tradeline that’s easy to qualify for if you’re looking to build business credit fast.
You’ll need to spend $90 initially to qualify for net 30 terms, and they’ll begin reporting to Experian monthly once you’re approved for your account.
They also state that you can self-report to Dun & Bradstreet after the first month of having an active account. To learn more about what this looks like, you can reach out to them at 661-215-4954.
5. Uline
Uline
- What They Sell: Shipping supplies and cleaning supplies
- Credit Terms: Net 30
- Credit Limit: Varies
- Reports to: D&B and Experian. Verified April 2025 by Michael from customer service
- Where to Apply: Online
- What’s Needed for Their Application:
- Uline account
- Basic business information
- Authorized Officer contact information
- EIN
- Approval Timeline: Almost instant, although they may ask for more information
Uline sells a lot of things, but they specialize in packing and shipping equipment and janitorial supplies. You’ll need to place an initial order, and they do ask for a bank reference and two other references.
They report to Dun & Bradstreet, so you’ll of course need a DUNS number too. They report to Experian as well.
If you get approval for a net 30 account with each of these, you could have between $5,000 and $10,000 in accounts reporting to a credit reporting agency pretty quickly.
Make your payments consistently, and that seed you planted with these easy approval business lines will sprout to the point you will be ready for the next step in building your business credit score before you know it.
Two Paid Business Tradelines for Extra Support
1. Bonus: eCredable
eCredable
- What They Sell: Business tradeline in the form of a monthly subscription payment and more tradelines with third-party reporting services. Additional financial support with their Business Lift+ subscription.
- Credit Terms: N/A
- Credit Limit: N/A
- Reports to: D&B, Experian, and Equifax for their subscription payment. Equifax for third-party reporting. Verified April 2025 on their website.
- Where to Apply: Online
- What’s Needed for Their Application:
- EIN
- Established Business
- $19.95/month for Business Lift and $39.95/month for Business Lift+
- Note: More involvement on your behalf may be required for third-party bill reporting.
- Approval Timeline: Instant
When you run out of free tradeline options, a cheap tradeline from a tradeline company or tradeline broker is a viable alternative. A purchased tradeline is just as good as a free one, typically with added benefits, as we’ll see below.
eCredable offers a business tradeline that functions a bit differently from other vendors.
eCredable reports your Business Lift or Business Lift+ subscription to D&B, Experian, and Equifax. This is the first tradeline that helps you build business credit.
By taking advantage of their third-party reporting services, which report to Equifax, you can establish many other tradelines that allow you to take advantage of the many bills you have to pay to keep your business running.
It’s reported that their Business Lift subscription can increase your business credit score “by up to 40% in the first three months.”
Their Business Lift+ subscription offers additional business insights through financial metrics and forecasting.
The former is only $19.95 a month, while the latter only costs $39.95 a month.
If you want to build credit with a seamless monthly payment, eCredable is an excellent choice to help you get started.
2. Bonus: FairFigure
FairFigure
- What They Sell: Business credit monitoring services, with the added bonus (at no cost) of the FairFigure Capital Card that helps you build credit with two tradelines
- Credit Terms: For FairFigure Capital Card, a choice between four-week or eight-week payback terms
- Credit Limit: For FairFigure Capital Card, based on recurring monthly revenue
- Reports to: Equifax, CreditSafe, the Small Business Financial Exchange (SBFE), and the FairFigure Foundation Report
- Where to Apply: Online
- What’s Needed for Their Application:
- Established business
- EIN
- For the FairFigure Capital Card and business funding, a business that is at least three months old and is generating $2,500 a month in recurring revenue
- Approval Timeline: Instant
FairFigure is similar in nature to eCredable.
However, you’re paying for business credit monitoring services when you sign up with them. You’re not just getting your subscription reported as a business tradeline.
FairFigure’s business credit monitoring services only cost $30 a month and come with the business credit corrector, comprehensive business credit monitoring, and access to the FairFigure Capital Card.
The FairFigure Capital Card offers business funding that’s tied to your monthly revenue. The more you make, the more funding you can tap into.
FairFigure reports your subscription payments and card activity to CreditSafe, Equifax Commercial, and the SBFE. They also report to their own Foundation report.
This is quite comprehensive, allowing you to build credit and establish credit history with ease.
What Are Business Tradelines?
The term in question, business tradelines, or trade line, simply refers to accounts that report your payments to the business credit reporting agencies, or CRAs.
That could be vendor accounts, a business credit card, a secured credit card that reports, or a select few other things. Most often, the term refers to a vendor tradeline.
You buy stuff from these vendors using the business line, and they allow you to pay them at a later date. We call this net terms.
It is different from revolving credit, like a business credit card, because you have to pay the whole balance by a certain date.
That means they will bill you for the goods or services you buy from them, with the understanding that you will pay within a certain amount of time.
Most often, these are net 30 accounts, meaning you have 30 days to pay in full. Occasionally, they will extend net 60 or net 90 terms.
Why is it important to have business tradelines?
Help Establish Business Credit Score
Your business credit score is separate from your personal credit score. Your personal credit builds passively as you make credit transactions.
You have to be intentional about building a strong business credit score. Having no business credit score is the same as your business having bad credit.
Also, while virtually all credit providers will report both positive and negative payment history to your personal credit report, not all vendors practice positive credit reporting to your business credit report.
That means you need to add financial tradelines that do report. You’ll likely need help with this from a business credit expert, as most vendors do not make publicly known whether they report or not.
You need primary business tradelines on your business credit report to establish a PAYDEX with Dun & Bradstreet, which is their main credit score.
They are the largest and most commonly used business credit company.
Having a PAYDEX is important. D&B says you only need two tradelines to get one. However, many say that in their experience, it took 3 tradelines reporting to establish a PAYDEX.
Raise Your Business Credit Score
Remember, this only works if you pay on time. However, if you do, the more the merrier.
When you add tradelines to your credit report and handle them responsibly, you are only helping your business credit score grow.
Some tradelines break the vicious cycle of “you have to have credit to get credit.” These typically do not take credit into account for approval.
Rather, they look at other things to determine creditworthiness, like time in business, business revenue, and business bank account balance.
Things You Should Know About Business Tradelines
Knowing what a tradeline is and how to get one isn’t enough.
Not all Business Tradelines are Good for Building Business Credit
Tradelines are only good for building credit if they report your payments to the business CRAs.
That includes Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax Business. There are a few others as well, but these are the big three.
The thing is, not all of them report payments. They are not required to do so, and many do not.
You have to find those vendors that will report your payments if you are going to use them to build business credit.
Buying Shelf Corporations is a Bad Idea
It can seem almost impossible to get business tradelines without credit. You can’t build credit without a payment history.
As a result, someone had the idea to create companies, use them to obtain tradelines, and then sell the tradelines to anyone with a small business who wanted fast business credit.
Essentially, these are shelf companies that have years’ worth of seasoned tradelines. They market to new business owners as a fast way to build business credit.
It sounds great. You pay a lot, but you get the potential access to so much more.
The truth is, however, that lenders are not dumb. There is no shortcut to business credit building. They caught on to this ruse quickly, and though it is not technically illegal, it is very much frowned upon.
If a lender catches wind of the idea that you may be using business credit that you did not build yourself, you could be blackballed.
That means, not only would you not be able to get funding for your small business based on the credit you purchased, but it would also block you every time you try to build credit on your own.
This sounds like great credit repair, but it is really not a good idea. In the end, you trade credit for the ability to get credit, and that doesn’t typically work out well.
You Can Get Business Tradelines without Already Having Business Credit
It is possible to get trade credit without first having good credit.
If you begin with starter vendors, you can get trade credit without having business credit at all. Even poor credit on your report will not matter.
When they start reporting the CRAs, your credit will start to grow on its own without you having to spend a dime other than what you buy from the tradeline vendors that your business needs anyway.
Once you have enough tradelines reporting from these starter vendors, your credit should be strong enough to start applying for credit cards. As you gather more accounts in each tier, you will be able to move on to the next tier.
You Need to Get Business Tradelines in a Specific Order
If you are using business tradelines to build business credit, you can’t just start applying for business credit cards right away. A credit card company will deny you every single time.
You have to start with establishing tradelines with starter vendors like those listed above.
Too Many or Too Few Tradelines Reporting Can Affect Your Business Credit Score
The problem with this is that pretty much any business credit bureau is going to be tight-lipped on where the sweet spot is. That said, your best bet is to open only as many accounts as you need to move on to the next.
Then, only close accounts if you absolutely must.
One thing we do know is that Dun & Bradstreet requires at least three tradelines reporting before it will even calculate a Paydex, which is the score lenders most commonly use. It is most like the personal FICO score.
As explained by us here at Credit Suite, you can begin qualifying for vendor credit almost immediately once you launch your business. FairFigure recommends having five to 10 trade credit accounts to see real business credit progress.
What Types of Tradelines Should You Avoid?
Vendor credit and even a business credit card can be great. However, avoid using illegal shortcuts to add tradelines to your credit report. The top three “shortcuts” to building credit are:
- Buying authorized user credit card tradelines (for personal credit)
- CPNs (credit privacy/profile numbers) (for personal credit)
- Buying shelf corporations (for business credit)
For many, purchasing tradelines seems like the easiest and least risky shortcut. It’s a fast and easy way to get a seasoned tradeline, meaning one that has been in use for a while. However, this type of tradeline business might end up causing more problems than it’s worth.
CPN (Credit Privacy Number)
Do not use a CPN to get a credit tradeline or credit cards. It’s not designed to be a business credit builder.
This is a number that you can use instead of your Social Security Number or your EIN. While there are legitimate reasons to use one, faking a good credit score is not one of those.
In addition, it is free to get a legitimate CPN, so there is no need to pay for one. Other than that, you may have to pay attorney fees, of course.
Shelf Corporations
The idea behind shelf corporations is that a startup, by definition, has little to no time in business. Therefore, a startup often has few, if any, accounts on their credit report.
Instead of building corporate credit the old-fashioned way, a small business owner may be tempted to take a shortcut in the process by buying what’s called an “aged shelf corporation.”
Many business owners realize they’ll have to spend some money to get their business credit profile off the ground. Instead of giving their money to vendors, they give their money to companies selling shelf corps.
A shelf corporation is a corporation on paper only. It was administratively formed, then ‘put on a shelf’ for several years to age.
This is an expensive way to attempt to build credit for your business that may not even work in the end. Not to mention, it isn’t exactly on the up-and-up. A personal guarantee, if it is an option, is better than any of these three shortcuts.
Tradelines are necessary to build a strong business credit history. They are hard to get without already having a credit history, but not impossible.
If you set up your business to have Fundability™ and start applying for starter vendors like the ones listed above, you’ll be heading in the right direction, the right way. You’ll soon start to see your credit limit grow.
You can use the credit to manage cash flow, and you’ll be better able to qualify for a business loan as your score grows.
Build Business Credit the Right Way with Credit Suite
Knowing how to build credit and which resources are accessible to your business can be challenging. Streamline your credit-building and business funding activities with Credit Suite.
The Credit Suite Fundability System produces fast results with its step-by-step business credit-building insights, a comprehensive database of lenders, vendors, and credit issuers you will qualify for as you progress, and additional finance and advisor support you’ll be sure to appreciate. Get Started With Credit Suite now to support your business!
