Independent · Not a lender · Not a broker
Business loans, explained by someone who is not selling you one.
Eighteen ways to borrow, what each actually costs, and the profile that gets approved for each — computed from the SBA’s own loan-level records, not from rate cards.
- 7.00%Prime rate, November 2026
- 10.00%SBA 7(a) cap over $350k
- $0We take from lenders
Which loan actually fits?
Three questions. No email, nothing stored.
A starting point, not a recommendation. Every real answer depends on your numbers.
Start with the product, not the lender
Choosing the wrong type of financing costs more than getting a mediocre rate on the right one. These are the ones most businesses end up choosing between.
SBA 7(a) loan
The workhorse. Up to $5 million, 10 to 25 year terms, the lowest rates most small businesses can realistically get.
Most flexibleBusiness line of credit
Revolving credit you draw and repay as needed. You pay interest only on what is outstanding.
For uneven cash flowEquipment financing
The equipment secures the loan, so underwriting leans on the asset. Often available when nothing else is.
Asset-backedSBA 504 loan
Three-part structure for real estate and heavy equipment. Fixed for up to 25 years, and usually the lowest cost of anything you can get.
Cheapest fixed rateInvoice factoring
Sell unpaid invoices for cash now. Underwriting looks at your customers' credit, not yours.
Not a loanBusiness term loan
Lump sum, fixed payments, defined end date. Simple structure — but the cost swings enormously between a bank and an online lender.
The default
The three questions that decide almost every application
Underwriting is less mysterious than it looks. It is mostly one ratio, one score, and one date.
Does the cash flow cover it?
Lenders divide your cash flow by your total debt payments. Below 1.15x is usually a decline; 1.25x is comfortable. This decides more files than credit score does, and it is the factor borrowers are least prepared to discuss. Run yours →
What is your personal credit?
680 opens most doors. 640 to 679 narrows them. Below 600 the question changes from what rate to which product — and the honest answer list is shorter than the advertised one. See thresholds by product →
How long have you been trading?
Two filed tax returns is the single most common hard requirement in commercial lending. If you are at twenty months, waiting four can be worth several points and a decade of term. What unlocks when →
The pages people arrive here for
Mostly written for the moment after something has gone wrong.
Why applications get denied
The nine common reasons, how long each takes to fix, and the notice you are legally owed.
Most readGetting out of a merchant cash advance
What to do when the daily debits are threatening payroll — and what not to do.
UrgentBusiness loans with bad credit
The realistic options below 600, ranked by cost, including the two nobody mentions.
How to qualify
The five factors that decide almost every application, in the order they actually matter.
The document checklist
Everything a lender will ask for, grouped by stage, with the ones that cause delays flagged.
APR vs. factor rate
The arithmetic that makes two offers comparable — and why one of them is quoted the way it is.
Run the numbers before anyone runs them on you
No sign-up, no email gate. They run in your browser and nothing is sent anywhere.
Why this site exists
Most content about business loans is compensated, and the compensation varies enormously by product. The products that pay publishers the most are, with grim reliability, the ones that cost borrowers the most. That is why merchant cash advances turn up near the top of “best business loans” lists, and why CDFIs — which lend at a fraction of the cost to exactly the borrowers who need it — turn up almost nowhere.
Business Lending Bureau takes no money from lenders, brokers, or networks. Nothing here is ranked or recommended because of what it pays. Our disclosure page sets out exactly how that works, and what we would do if it ever changed.
We sell nothing, we take no advertising, and there is no form on this site. What we publish instead is the underlying data: which lenders actually funded businesses like yours, at what size, on what terms, and how often those loans went bad.