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Powerful Plastic: The 10 Best Credit Cards of 2013 Most small-business owners rely on plastic at some point in the process of launching or growing their businesses. If you're in that crowd, be sure you're making the most of it.

By Catherine Clifford

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

A personal finance expert will always advise against running up a credit-card balance. But as a small-business owner trying to launch or grow your company, that may not always be a reality.

If you do have to turn to plastic, be reminded that some cards are better than others. Credit-card comparison site CardRatings.com today released its list of the 10 best credit cards for 2013 thus far. The cards were chosen based on the quality of their customer service and their value for people with good to excellent credit.

Credit-card issuers are having to work extra hard these days to win over consumers, many of whom are working to pay down debt, says CardRatings.com Editor-in-Chief Curtis Arnold. "This puts consumers in the driver's seat and I would encourage folks, particularly those with good credit, to be very discriminating when shopping for a new card," he says in a statement.

Here's a look at the full list:

Discover It

Barclaycard Ring

Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card

PenFed Platinum Rewards Visa Signature Card

Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Premier Credit Card

Citi Simplicity MasterCard

Chase Sapphire Preferred

American Express Blue Cash Preferred

American Express Platinum Card

Citi Forward Card for College Students

Catherine Clifford

Senior Entrepreneurship Writer at CNBC

Catherine Clifford is senior entrepreneurship writer at CNBC. She was formerly a senior writer at Entrepreneur.com, the small business reporter at CNNMoney and an assistant in the New York bureau for CNN. Clifford attended Columbia University where she earned a bachelor's degree. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. You can follow her on Twitter at @CatClifford.

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