Novo gives you up to 20 reserves. With Relay, you get up to 20 checking accounts on the Starter and Grow plans, and up to 50 on Scale. Both lean on the number 20, but they describe completely different things.
Novo's reserves are sub-balances inside a single checking account. They share one routing and account number with your main checking balance. To customers and payment systems, they're invisible: one account with internal divisions.
Relay's are real, separate accounts. Each carries its own routing and account number, and ACH systems and accounting software recognize each one as distinct. For some businesses, that difference doesn't matter. For others—Profit First practitioners, businesses routing customer payments to specific accounts, owners working with accountants on per-account ledgers—it's the whole point.
A broader Novo and Relay comparison covers pricing, features, and support. This piece is about the one structural difference that usually decides things.
What's the structural difference between Relay accounts and Novo reserves?
Feature | Relay Accounts | Novo Reserves |
|---|---|---|
Account model | Up to 20 distinct checking accounts (50 on the Scale plan) | Sub-balances inside one checking account |
Account number | Unique per account | Shared across all reserves |
Visible to ACH/payment systems | Yes, each routable independently | No, invisible to senders |
Visible in QuickBooks/Xero | Each as a separate ledger line | Typically one consolidated account |
Routing incoming payments | To specific accounts | Not possible |
Fund separation | Each account treated distinctly | Single account |
Practical usable limit | 20, full functionality | ~5–10 before the UI gets unwieldy |
Best for | Profit First, AP/AR routing, accountant work | Solo budgeting visibility |
When is Novo's reserves model enough?
If your banking needs look like this:
One checking account for receivables and bill pay
Two or three internal buckets for budgeting visibility (taxes, profit, operating)
No need to route payments to specific accounts
No accountant doing per-account ledger work
You're a true solo operator (under ~$250K revenue)
…then Novo's reserves give you budgeting visibility without complexity. It's the simpler model, and simpler is sometimes the right answer.
For solo freelancers and 1099 contractors, Novo's no-monthly-fee single-account-plus-reserves model fits cleanly. The platform is mobile-first and integrates with Stripe, QuickBooks, Xero, Wise, and Shopify.
When do Relay accounts matter more than Novo reserves?
There are four patterns where Novo's reserves model breaks down.
1. Routing payments to specific accounts
If you want vendors to pay invoices into a specific account—say, a tax-holding account that only receives sales tax remittances—Novo can't do it. The account number is shared across all reserves, so everything lands in the main checking balance.
Relay's accounts each have their own routing and account number. You can hand out a separate routing and account combo for each use case: one for customer payments, one for sales tax remittances, one for project escrow. ACH and wire senders direct payments to the right account from the start.
For contractors and trade businesses, this is the difference between manually moving sales tax to a holding account every Friday and having it land there automatically.
2. Accountant visibility
Novo's reserves show up in the app but usually appear as a single account in QuickBooks or Xero bank feeds. Relay's accounts come through as distinct ledger lines. If your accountant is reconciling tax allocations, running Profit First categorization, or managing several clients, that's hours saved every month.
It matters more than most owners expect. 47% of small business owners take banking advice from their accountant—against just 6% for other decisions, per the ABA Banking Journal in October 2025. The people most likely to shape your banking choice are the same people who benefit most from per-account ledger separation.
3. True fund separation for Profit First
Novo's reserves are accounting fictions: the money sits in one pool, allocated by app rules. Relay's accounts are real, and the money is structurally separated. Profit First runs on the psychology of seeing money sit in its own account. Virtual buckets don't deliver that; separate accounts do.
Relay is the official banking platform of the Profit First Professionals network (partnership announced March 2023). Mike Michalowicz, who wrote Profit First, recommends Relay specifically: "Running Profit First with Relay will make profit a habit in your business and keep you accountable. It's the perfect banking platform for small businesses that want complete cash flow clarity." The 500+ certified PFPs worldwide recommend Relay because the architecture matches the method.
For new Profit First implementations, Novo's reserves create friction. The method's discipline depends on visibly separate accounts, not reserves you mentally label.
4. Volume
Novo's reserves cap at 20, but the practical limit on what stays manageable is around 5–10. Relay supports 20 distinct accounts, each fully functional. Owners running mature Profit First setups (drip accounts, vault accounts, quarterly distributions, equipment reserves) often use 12–18, comfortably within Relay's ceiling and beyond what Novo's UI handles cleanly.
Relay vs Novo: which is right for your business?
Choose Novo if:
You're a solo business owner or freelancer
Your budgeting needs are 2–4 buckets, not 10+
You don't need to route payments to specific accounts
You're not running Profit First or any system requiring true fund separation
You want the simplest possible setup
You're comfortable with email and in-app chat support only
Choose Relay if:
You're running Profit First, envelope budgeting, or any multi-account method
You need accounts that customers and accounting software see as distinct
You want to route specific payment types to specific accounts
You're growing past the point where a single checking account with internal buckets works
Your accountant needs per-account ledger separation
You handle cash deposits (Relay supports Allpoint; Novo requires a money-order workaround)
Novo's 20 reserves and Relay's 20 accounts can sound equivalent. They aren't. Novo's reserves are virtual budget buckets inside a single checking account—one routing number, one ledger. Relay's 20 are real accounts, each with its own routing number, each visible to ACH systems and accounting software as distinct. For the full side-by-side, see the Relay vs Novo comparison.
The bottom line
For solo freelancers with simple budgeting needs, Novo's reserves model works. The single account with internal buckets is intentionally simpler, and for businesses that genuinely need simple over multi-account, it's the better fit.
For everyone else—Profit First practitioners, businesses routing customer payments to specific accounts, accountant-managed businesses, and growing operators—the difference between sub-balances and real separate accounts is the difference between labeling your money and actually moving it.
When you open a Relay account, the separate accounts aren't a feature bolted on top; they're the structure. You get up to 20 checking accounts, each with its own routing and account number, each showing up as a separate ledger in QuickBooks and Xero. Set automated percentage-based transfers on every deposit, and the allocation happens on its own instead of by hand. Twenty reserves and twenty real accounts describe different products. Only one gives your money a routing number of its own.
Frequently asked questions
Can Novo's reserves be used like Relay's accounts in practice?
Partially. You can name reserves, fund them, and watch the balances—useful for budgeting visibility. What you can't do: route incoming payments to a specific reserve, give a vendor a unique account number for their payments, or get clean per-account ledger separation in QuickBooks or Xero. For pure visibility within one account, reserves work. For functional account separation, they don't.
Are Relay's 20 accounts all FDIC-insured?
Yes, through pass-through insurance via Thread Bank's deposit sweep program² (Member FDIC) and its partner banks. Coverage reaches up to $3M total across the program banks in the sweep, not a flat $250,000 per account.
²Your deposits qualify for up to $3,000,000 in FDIC insurance coverage when Thread Bank places them at program banks in its deposit sweep program. Your deposits at each program bank become eligible for FDIC insurance up to $250,000, inclusive of any other deposits you may already hold at the bank in the same ownership capacity. You can access the terms and conditions of the sweep program at https://thread.bank/sweep-disclosure/ and a list of program banks at https://thread.bank/program-banks/. Please contact customerservice@thread.bank with questions on the sweep program. Certain conditions must be satisfied for pass-through deposit insurance coverage to apply.
Can I use multiple Novo reserves for tax allocations?
You can label a reserve "Quarterly Taxes" and move money into it. What you can't do is route incoming sales tax remittances directly into that reserve—they'll hit the main checking balance first. For pure tax set-asides where you transfer the money yourself, reserves work. For automated routing, they don't.
What if I'm running Profit First—can I do it on Novo at all?
Technically yes, by treating each Novo reserve as an "account" in the Profit First sense. But you'll be working around the product's structure. Profit First Professionals recommend Relay specifically because the multi-account model maps directly to the method. For new Profit First implementations, Relay is the cleaner choice.
Can my accountant access my Novo or Relay account?
Relay gives your accountant their own role-based login on every plan. They sign in with their own credentials and see per-account ledger separation. Novo allows shared logins but has no equivalent role-based accountant access. For accountant-managed businesses, Relay's setup is significantly cleaner.
