It's not a free account, but you've basically just named two of the very few fees; this makes it significantly cheaper than a Chase Total Checking account ($12/mo for those who do not meet balance requirements, not even counting massive overdraft fees).

Bee makes it (nearly) impossible to put the account into a negative balance, and has no concept of an overdraft fee.

Another big win is mobile check deposit. Customers can deposit checks with instant availability for a 1% fee or use standard clearing for free; this is substantially cheaper than check cashers.

Interesting - yeah the big differentiater seems to be that with Bee you can get instant access to your check for 1%.

Simple has ATMs you can use for free which are pretty common which covers that and also has no overdraft fees (or concept of overdraft really).

Simple has no monthly fee though which is a point in its favor - it also lets you do most of the same thing (lock cards, mail a check etc.).

One difference that immediately jumped out at me is with bee you can send a paper check. My landlord for instance will only take a paper check or money order and with simple it isn't possible to easily pay my rent without a fairly significant inconvenience. I'm sure many poor people are in similar situations.

Simple allows you to mail a paper check too.