Axis Bank ACE Credit Card

Quick verdict: Axis has closed the ACE to new applicants, so this is a review for holders, and for them the card is still hard to beat: 5% back on Google Pay utility bills, 4% on Swiggy, Zomato and Ola, and an uncapped 1.5% on everything else, for a ₹499 annual fee that waives at ₹2 lakh of spend. It sailed through 2026's Axis devaluations untouched. Two catches: the 5%/4% share a ₹500 monthly cap, and you need an Android phone to unlock the 5%.

Ask anyone for a single first-cashback-card recommendation and the answer keeps coming back to the Axis ACE. The reason is simple: it pays 4–5% on the exact categories urban Indians spend on every month — utility bills, food delivery, cabs — with cashback that lands automatically, no portal, no points to redeem. And in a year when Axis took the knife to much of its portfolio, the ACE came out the other side unscathed, which only sharpens its claim to the entry-tier crown.

The cashback that maps to real life

The genius of the ACE isn't a single high rate — it's a category mix built around bills everyone pays:

• 5% cashback on bill payments — electricity, water, gas, LPG and broadband, plus **DTH and mobile

recharges** — paid via Google Pay. The recharges are easy to overlook and they're a high-frequency spend.

• 4% on dining and food delivery (Swiggy, Zomato) and cabs (Ola), on their websites and their apps.
• 1.5% on everything else — uncapped.

It carries a modest ₹499 annual fee, waived when you spend ₹2 lakh in the preceding card year. (Axis's fee schedule also lists a ₹499 joining fee, but with applications closed that no longer concerns anyone who holds the card.) It also bundles up to 4 complimentary domestic airport lounge visits a year (on ₹50,000 of spend in the prior three months) plus a 1% fuel surcharge waiver. For a household covering electricity, broadband and gas bills, ordering dinner, and taking cabs, the ACE quietly out-returns almost every other near-free card on the actual monthly basket.

Two footnotes worth knowing. The waiver counts spend, but not all of it — Axis strips rent (MCC 6513) and wallet loads (MCC 6540) out of the total used to assess the ₹2 lakh bar, so you can't route rent through the card to get there. And since 20 December 2024 Axis charges 1% on cumulative utility spends of ₹25,000 or more per statement cycle, which lands squarely on the category this card rewards at 5% — heavy bill payers should net the two against each other rather than reading the 5% alone.

Two things to know if you hold one

Axis has closed the ACE to new applicants, so this is for the many readers who already carry it. The card is refreshingly simple, but two details decide how well it works for you:

• The ₹500 monthly cap is shared. The 5% (Google Pay bills) and 4% (Swiggy/Zomato/Ola) categories

draw from one combined ₹500 ceiling each month. Spending ₹3,000–₹6,000 on bills and food? You'll never see it. Push your bill-plus-food spend much higher and the bonus stops at ₹500, after which the marginal rate drops to the base. The 1.5% base, importantly, has no cap.

• The 5% is Android-only — but only the 5%. That headline utility cashback runs through Google Pay's

"pay with card" feature, which exists only on Android. iPhone users can hold and use the card, but the 5% category is simply unavailable to them — the single biggest limitation, and a dealbreaker for some. The 4% on Swiggy, Zomato and Ola carries no such condition: Axis's terms attach the Google Pay requirement to the utility tier alone, and footnote the 4% as valid on those merchants' own websites and apps. If you're on an iPhone you lose one category, not two.

Kavya's receipt

Kavya, 26, school teacher, Delhi. Android phone user. ₹12,500/month total spend — pays utility bills via Google Pay, orders food on Swiggy and Zomato weekly.

The ₹500 shared monthly cap on the 5%/4% categories isn't binding here — Kavya's ₹320/month of accelerated cashback sits comfortably under it. One catch does bite, though: at ₹1.5 lakh of annual spend she falls just short of the ₹2 lakh fee-waiver bar, so the ₹499 fee stands. Push annual spend past ₹2 lakh and it disappears, lifting the card back toward effectively free.

Versus the ENTRY market

The average ENTRY-tier card in our catalogue earns around 0.5% on general spend. At Kavya's ₹12,500/month (₹1.5 lakh/year), a generic entry card returns ~₹750/year.

The Axis ACE nets ~₹4,331/year after its ₹499 fee — nearly 6× the entry-tier average on the same basket, and more still once her spend clears the ₹2 lakh waiver. The gap exists because the ACE's 5%/4% bonus categories map directly onto Kavya's heaviest spend (bills and food), while a generic 0.5% card earns the same on everything. For any Android household that pays utilities digitally and orders food regularly, the ACE is structurally superior to almost every other near-free entry card in the market.

Why it matters that the ACE survived 2026

Worth dwelling on in a year defined by cuts: while Axis stripped partners and lounge access from its Airtel, Flipkart, Magnus and Atlas cards, the ACE wasn't touched. As of early 2026 the 5% bills, 4% food and cabs, uncapped base and lounge access all remain in place. The honest caveat is that Axis has trimmed the ACE in earlier years (grocery exclusions, cap tweaks), so today's rates aren't a permanent guarantee — but right now, it's holding firm while its stablemates got cut, which is its own quiet endorsement.

The right person for this card

The ACE fits almost any cashback user on Android who pays utility bills digitally, orders food and takes cabs, and wants the best return on those categories at little to no cost. It earned its reputation as the default "your first real card" pick precisely because there's no cheaper way to earn 4–5% on everyday essentials — but with applications closed, that now describes who should keep one, not who should apply.

It's a poor fit for iPhone users (you lose the 5% utility category outright), for very heavy bill-and-food spenders who'd blow through the shared ₹500 cap, and for anyone wanting bonus categories beyond bills, food and cabs — where a different card may suit the basket better.

The bottom line

The Axis ACE is still the benchmark first cashback card in India, and 2026 reinforced rather than weakened that. It held its 5% on Google Pay bills, 4% on Swiggy/Zomato/Ola, an uncapped 1.5% base and lounge access — at just a ₹499 fee that waives on ₹2 lakh of spend — while much of the Axis lineup was devalued around it. The two real constraints are the shared ₹500 monthly cap (rarely a problem for normal spenders) and the Android requirement for the 5% (a genuine dealbreaker on iPhone). If you're on Android and already hold one, it stays the card to route your bills, food and cab spend through. If you don't, applications are closed — the benchmark it set is now a yardstick for judging alternatives rather than a card you can go and get.