Revolut's Ultra bank account costs £55 per month and comes with '£9,000 of perks' - is it worth opening?

There are plenty of major banks offering pay monthly current accounts which come with a range of perks, including insurance and preferential product rates.

On top of that, there has also been a race to attract 'wealthier' customers, with premier accounts on offer from Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds available to those who earn big salaries, or have significant savings pots.

But one bank offers a current account that costs £660 per year, which comes with a platinum-plated debit card.

Revolut's Ultra account costs £55 a month, and claims to come with £9,000 worth of perks.

It is significantly more expensive than other paid-for bank accounts such as the Santander Edge Explorer, which costs £17 a month and Nationwide's FlexPlus at £18 a month.

Revolut Ultra's cost puts it in the same bracket as Amex's Platinum credit card - which costs £650 a year - although Revolut is offering a bank account rather than a credit card.

But despite the generous perks, can you really get value from the account, or is it a platinum-plated waste of money?

Insurance

Like most other pay monthly bank accounts, Revolut offers travel insurance for things such as emergency medical and dental costs up to £10million a year.

It also includes winter sports cover and car hire excess.

But Ultra also lets you cancel trains, flights, hotels and events for no reason and receive up to 70 per cent of the cost back.

But that's only if you use the Revolut card to pay for the booking at least 72 hours before departure time.

Airport Lounges

While not as glamorous as airline lounges - often reserved for first-class and business-class passengers of specific carriers - airport lounges can be a more relaxing way to spend the two hours before take-off.

Revolut Ultra offers unlimited access to over a thousand airport lounges across the world.

But unless you are a frequent flier, this benefit may not be as useful as it sounds.

Airport lounges can cost between £30 and £60 – so if you only fly once or twice a year the benefit may be fairly limited.

Subscriptions

A big chunk of the '£9,000' worth of benefits that Ultra offers is through its subscriptions.

Revolut offers you subscriptions to various services, ranging from the Financial Times and NordVPN to Tinder Gold.

Revolut says the package alone is worth £4,000 a year and it could be useful if you already subscribe to a lot of the services it provides - for example the FT costs £59 a month regularly.

It means you can get a lot of subscriptions for cheaper than if you were to get them individually.

But because the package covers such a wide range of services you might feel that you don't need the vast majority of the subscriptions it offers - such as Chess.com or the dating app Tinder Gold – so check if you actually need the services it offers.

If there are subscriptions you would use regularly anywhere, it could be worthwhile.

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Global mobile data

Revolut Ultra includes up to 3GB of mobile data across 100 countries by allowing you to download eSIMs onto your phone.

While this is much cheaper than just roaming on your data plan – getting your own eSIM is relatively cheap for short trips, and you can usually bag more than 3GB of data.

If you regularly go to 'expensive' data destinations such as the US, this may be worth it but if you travel to the EU – it's probably not worth it.

Transfers and withdrawals

If you already use Revolut to exchange currencies and to withdraw cash abroad, Ultra raises your limits quite significantly.

It lets you exchange currency with no extra charges and lets you withdraw up to £2,000 a month from ATMs globally.

The regular Revolut account charges you for currency exchange and only lets you withdraw £200 a month in cash for free.

You also earn more 'RevPoints' on an Ultra card – earning one point per pound spent, rather than the 1 point you earn for every £10 you spend on the regular account.

These points can be used similarly to Amex points – for free flights or hotel bookings.

Unless you are a regular traveller who uses a lot of the subscriptions Revolut Ultra has to offer, probably not.

The bulk of the value provided is through the subscriptions and it is unlikely you need them all.

Most of the benefits, such as the global mobile data, can be bought on their own for better value.

But it can be a lot more convenient than managing your own insurances and subscriptions.

And if you do travel a lot, you can rack up a lot of value in the airport lounges quite quickly.

It does, however, offer an alternative to the credit card Amex Platinum. Coming in at around the same yearly fee, it is a product aimed at the same type of premium customer.

Unlike the Amex, it is free to use your Revolut card abroad and you can withdraw cash with no penalty.

But the Amex offers cash dining credits and elite status at major hotel brands as well as car rental discounts.

If you are looking for luxury benefits, the Amex probably works out better - but regular travellers who just want one simple debit card could find more use from Revolut Ultra.

James Blower, from The Savings Guru, says: 'It's a huge monthly subscription fee and is unlike anything we've seen before from a bank.

'There's a huge amount of benefits with it which Revolut are calculating could be worth £9,000 but I think to really gain that kind of benefit a customer will need to be travelling very regularly and taking advantage of benefits such as lounge access, WeWork, insurance and mobile data abroad.

'I think otherwise, if you're largely based in one place in the UK then unless you're needing things like WeWork, FT access etc then it's a significant cost which will struggle to get the £660 annual cost back in benefits.

'I'm sure there will be customers who this will appeal to but they're likely to be very niche and travelling very regularly.'

Revolut received a full banking licence in March 2026 and has its headquarters in London.

It was founded in 2015 and has seen seismic growth, claiming to now have 70million customers worldwide.