The best cheap credit cards

Sometimes a credit card offering an interest-free period is not the best card for you. Perhaps you have a really large balance that needs paying off, and know that you would end up moving it between a series of 0% balance transfer cards – each time paying a balance transfer fee – before you could clear it.

Or perhaps you don’t have a single large purchase on the horizon and just want to know that if you don’t manage to pay off your full balance in a single go, you won’t be whacked with a really punishing interest rate.

If that sounds like you, then you might prefer to go for a low-rate credit card.

These offer much smaller rates of interest than the 18-20% you tend to get with a normal credit card on any outstanding balance you may have.

Let’s take a look at some of the cheapest.

The five cheapest credit cards

Card	Representative APR	Things to know
Sainsbury’s Bank Cashback Low Rate	7.8%	Earn 5% cashback on Sainsbury’s shopping in the first three months, then £5 cashback each month you spend £250 in Sainsbury’s and £250 elsewhere
Sainsbury’s Bank Nectar Low Rate	7.8%	Earn 10 Nectar points per £1 spent at Sainsbury’s in first three months, four Nectar points per £1 spent at Sainsbury’s after than and one Nectar point for every £5 spent elsewhere
Barclaycard Platinum Simplicity	7.9%
NatWest Low Rate Visa	9.9%	Charges 2.9% for first 12 months on balance transfers, then standard rate. 0% on purchases for six months
Royal Bank of Scotland Low Rate Visa	9.9%	Charges 2.9% for first 12 months on balance transfers, then standard rate. 0% on purchases for six months

Sainsbury’s recently launched two Low Rate cards, which have gone straight to the top of our Low APR best buy table, with a representative APR of just 7.8%. Both come with extras to bear in mind too, either cashback or extra Nectar points on your spending.

If you don’t shop at Sainsbury’s enough to make use of the added Nectar points or qualify for the cashback, you may prefer to go for the marginally higher rate of 7.9% on offer from Barclaycard with its Platinum Simplicity card.

After that comes a couple of very different cards from NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland. These Low Rate Visas actually offer a limited 0% period on purchases, for six months. They also offer an extra low rate of 2.9% on balance transfers for the first year, before the rate jumps a little.

[Related link: Missed some payments or have a poor credit rating? These cards can help you rebuild your credit status]

Why you may not get the representative APR

The selling point of these cards is how low the representative APR is. However, you may not actually get that rate.

The clue is in the word representative. Lenders only have to offer this rate to 51% of successful applicants. After that, they are allowed to charge whatever they like.

And the way they will decide what rate you get will be your credit rating. If you have a less than perfect credit rating, for whatever reason, then you may end up being offered a higher rate, at which point the deal may not seem quite so compelling.

You can check your credit record thanks to a free trial at Credit Expert. And if you want to improve it, read What really damages your credit rating

[Related link: Compare low-rate credit cards]