Best merchant cash advance companies for your numbers (2026)

No single merchant cash advance company is best for every business. Each one sets its own minimum credit score, time in business and revenue, some publish none of them, and most price one file at a time. The question that narrows the field is which companies' published minimums your numbers meet.

This page compares 10 funding companies on what each one publishes on its own website, read on November 10, 2026. The fit finder takes your credit range, months in business and monthly revenue and marks every requirement at every company one of four ways: meets the published minimum, below the published minimum, not published, or not compared. Not compared is for a requirement where the company's own pages give more than one figure.

8 of 10

companies publish a minimum credit score, from 450 to 625. Company websites, read November 10, 2026.

9 of 10

publish a minimum time in business: 6 at 6 months and 3 at 12 months. Same websites, same date.

8 of 10

publish a minimum revenue: 4 per month, 2 per year and 2 as more than one figure. Same websites, same date.

5 of 10

publish no factor rate range, starting rate or average APR on their own websites. Same websites, same date.

The 10 companies, in this page's order, are Clearwater Capital Group, Expansion Capital Group, Credibly, Forward Financing, Fora Financial, National Funding, OnDeck, Rapid Finance, Fundbox and Kapitus. Clearwater Capital Group, a business funding broker, publishes this page and ranks itself first. Its reasons are stated under the table, and how the page was put together is in the last section.

A published minimum is where a company's review starts, not an offer, and requirements change. Confirm the current ones with the company before you apply.

Enter three numbers and the finder compares them with the credit, time-in-business and revenue minimums each of the 10 companies publishes. Every requirement gets one of four results: meets the published minimum, below the published minimum, not published, or not compared. It runs in your browser and uses only the figures in the comparison table further down and the second figures listed under it.

How the finder reads the table

• Credit score. The ranges break at the minimums the companies publish (450, 500, 550, 570, 600, 625), so each range sits wholly above or below every one of them. A range meets a minimum when its lowest score is at or above it.
• Time in business. Your months are compared with the months each company publishes. 9 of the 10 publish a figure.
• Revenue. A minimum published per month is compared with your monthly figure, and a minimum published per year with twelve times it.
• Not compared. Where a company's own pages give more than one figure for a requirement, or the published text is not one figure with one period, the finder prints what is published and picks no number. That applies to 2 of the 8 published revenue minimums and 1 of the 9 time-in-business minimums.
• Not published. The company's own website, as read on November 10, 2026, states no minimum for that requirement. It does not mean the company has none.
• Order. The rows never re-sort. They stay in this page's ranking order, which the publisher sets and explains under the table.

A worked example

The finder opens on an example, not a typical file: a credit score in the 600 to 624 range, 24 months in business and $25,000 a month in revenue. Against the 10 rows, those numbers meet every published minimum the finder could compare at 7 companies, fall below at least one at 2, and at 1 there is nothing published to compare. Across the 10 rows, 3 requirements are marked not compared.

The revenue step in numbers: $25,000 a month is $300,000 over twelve months, which meets a minimum published as $100K per year and is below one published as $325K per year.

An illustration with round numbers. It is not an offer, and it says nothing about what any company would decide on a real file.

Clearwater Capital Group publishes this page and ranks itself first. Its reasons are stated below in plain numbers. Some companies listed here may fund deals Clearwater brokers and pay it a commission when they do. No company paid to appear. Every figure in the table was read from the company's own site, or from a dated review where noted, on November 10, 2026. Requirements and pricing change, so confirm with the company before you sign anything.

Each figure is the company's own published figure, or a dated review where the cell says so. The "Best for" line under each name is Clearwater's wording, not the company's, and the factor rate cell is Clearwater's short summary of what the company publishes about price. The finder above reads the credit, time-in-business and revenue columns.

The finder also reads a second figure where a row's write-up records that the company's own pages give one. Fora Financial, revenue: $240K per year (its own pages also say $17,000 a month). Kapitus, time in business: 12 months (its own pages also say two years). For those it prints both and compares neither.

The reasons Clearwater gives for first place

Clearwater puts itself first on figures a reader can check in the table. Its published credit minimum is 450, self-reported, and no other row publishes a lower one. Its time-in-business minimum is 6 months, which no other row goes under. Its factor rates run 1.05 to 1.44, and the only other full factor range in the table ends higher.

On revenue and on amounts the first row does not lead. Put on a monthly scale, 2 of the other rows the finder could compare publish a smaller revenue minimum. Clearwater's amounts run from $10,000 to $2,000,000: 1 other row goes higher and 7 start lower. The last reason is not a number: one application to Clearwater is read by a person and can be matched to an advance, a line of credit or a term loan, whichever the deposits support.

Clearwater does not fund deals itself. It is a broker: it arranges funding, is paid out of the funded deal and charges nothing before funding, and an owner who never takes an offer owes it nothing. If your numbers meet the published minimums of a company that funds directly, applying to that company yourself is a reasonable route. The longer write-up of every company, with its pricing notes and review links, is Clearwater's full comparison.

Sources for the table, read November 10, 2026

• Clearwater Capital Group. clearwatercapitalgrp.com (how we work and how we get paid); clearwatercapitalgrp.com (amount range, minimums, pricing ranges).
• Expansion Capital Group. ecg.com (requirements and states); ecg.com (amounts, speed disclaimer, terms); ecg.com (pricing statement, repayment cadence). Reviews: BBB A+; Trustpilot 4.4 of 5, about 1,800 reviews.
• Credibly. credibly.com (requirements, amounts, speed, terms, discount); credibly.com (founded 2010, direct and partner products, partner tier); credibly.com (rate footnotes, fees, credit score by product). Reviews: BBB A+; Trustpilot 4.8 of 5, about 2,800 reviews.
• Forward Financing. forwardfinancing.com (requirements, amounts, speed, terms); forwardfinancing.com (pricing, prepayment, same-day cutoff); forwardfinancing.com (founded 2012, headquarters). Reviews: BBB A+; Trustpilot 4.6 of 5, about 4,200 reviews.
• Fora Financial. forafinancial.com (requirements, amounts, speed, terms); forafinancial.com (rate range, fees, prepayment, lender statement); forafinancial.com (headquarters). Reviews: BBB A+; Trustpilot 4.8 of 5, about 1,100 reviews.
• National Funding. nationalfunding.com (amounts, terms, pricing example, prepayment); nationalfunding.com (six months in business, no hard credit minimum); nationalfunding.com (founded 1999, lender status); nationalfunding.com (XPRS fee example). Reviews: BBB A+; Trustpilot 4.6 of 5, about 2,200 reviews.
• OnDeck. ondeck.com (requirements, APR averages, states); ondeck.com (amounts, terms, cadence, speed, prepayment benefit and 75% clause); ondeck.com (origination fee, lender statement); ondeck.com (line of credit terms, fees, draw speed). Reviews: BBB A+; Trustpilot 4.6 of 5, about 6,100 reviews.
• Rapid Finance. rapidfinance.com (amounts, speed, terms, documents); rapidfinance.com (entities and licenses); nerdwallet.com (unverified minimums and rates (May 2026)); rapidfinance.com ("Funding as fast as 24 hours"); rapidfinance.com (headquarters). Reviews: BBB A+; Trustpilot 4.5 of 5, about 2,300 reviews.
• Fundbox. fundbox.com (requirements (older guide)); help.fundbox.com (requirements (help center, 2023)); help.fundbox.com (starting rate, early payoff); fundbox.com (draw terms, early payoff); fundbox.com (term loan terms and cadence); fundbox.com (speed, checking account history); fundbox.com (bank partners, state availability). Reviews: BBB A+; Trustpilot 4.7 of 5, about 4,600 reviews.
• Kapitus. kapitus.com (requirements, amounts, speed, pricing example); kapitus.com (direct lender and network statement); kapitus.com (loan maximum, loan credit score, early payment); kapitus.com (founded 2006); kapitus.com (headquarters). Reviews: BBB rating F, not accredited (as of 2026-11-10); Trustpilot 4.4 of 5, about 800 reviews.

Most publish a credit minimum and a time-in-business minimum. Fewer publish a price. Of the 10 companies in the table, 8 publish a minimum credit score, 9 a minimum time in business and 8 a minimum revenue. 5 publish no factor rate range, starting rate or average APR on their own websites.

Counted in code from the comparison data, read November 10, 2026. The publisher's own row is included.

Take the publisher's row out and the same data gives the Clearwater Published Requirements Check, which Clearwater reports on its statistics page. The Clearwater Published Requirements Check (November 2026) found that 7 of 9 national funding companies publish a minimum credit score, from 500 to 625 with a median of 550. The Clearwater Published Requirements Check (November 2026) found that 8 of 9 national funding companies publish a minimum time in business, most often 6 months. The Clearwater Published Requirements Check (November 2026) found that 5 of 9 national funding companies publish no factor rate range, starting rate or APR on their own websites.

Thin price information is not new. A Federal Reserve Board report dated December 2019, Uncertain Terms: What Small Business Borrowers Find When Browsing Online Lender Websites, reviewed the websites of 10 online lenders and found that four gave no rates or costs for any of their products, and that descriptions of merchant cash advances carried little or no information about actual costs and repayment terms. That report and this page cover different sets of companies in different years, so the two counts are not a trend.

Of the 9 companies other than the publisher, 6 list an advance or a revenue-based financing product and 3 do not. National Funding, OnDeck and Fundbox list no advance among their products. What they list is loans, lines of credit and equipment financing, so this page groups them as lenders. In sixteen states National Funding's product is limited to sales-based financing, the term those states' disclosure laws use for a merchant cash advance.

The difference matters when you compare offers. A merchant cash advance is a purchase of future receivables: the company pays a lump sum and collects a fixed total, the amount advanced multiplied by a factor rate, usually through daily or weekly debits. A loan charges interest on a balance. A line of credit lets a business draw, repay and draw again inside a limit.

The published minimums differ by type. The 5 advance companies that publish a credit minimum set it between 500 and 570. The 2 lenders that publish one set it at 600 and 625.

The lenders are on the list because an owner whose numbers meet a lender's published minimums can put a loan offer next to an advance offer. The two are priced in different units, a factor rate on one side and an interest rate or APR on the other, so compare them in dollars: the amount that reaches your account, the total you pay back, the payment and how long it runs.

Use it to narrow the field, then confirm every figure with the company. A list can show which companies' published minimums your numbers meet. It cannot show what a company will put in writing for your business.

What to confirm with a company before you sign

1. The minimums for the product in front of you. Some rows carry a second figure from the company's own pages, and a company with several products can set a different minimum for each. Ask which one applies.
2. Who is funding it, and what it is. Get the name of the company that will fund the deal and whether the product is an advance, a loan or a line of credit.
3. The dollars. The amount that reaches your account after fees, the total you will pay back, and the payment with its schedule. 5 of the 10 companies publish no rate range, starting rate or average APR, so for those the written offer is the first place a price appears.
4. Early payoff. Whether paying the balance early changes the total, and where the contract says so.
5. Fees before funding. Whether anything is due before money reaches your account. Clearwater charges nothing before funding.
6. Your state. Whether the company serves your state, and whether your state requires a written disclosure with the offer. As of November 2026, at least 12 states have enacted commercial financing disclosure laws that reach merchant cash advances, and 3 of them require an annual rate to be disclosed. The count is Clearwater's, from the statutes listed on its statistics page.

Why a ranking that includes its own publisher deserves a second look

Because the publisher has a stake in the order. Clearwater is paid when a business it helps is funded, and it put itself first. Some companies listed here may fund deals Clearwater brokers and pay it a commission when they do. No company paid to appear.

This page is not an independent review site. That distinction is the subject of a federal rule. Section 465.6 of the Federal Trade Commission's rule on consumer reviews (16 CFR Part 465, in effect since October 21, 2024), headed "Company-controlled review websites or entities", makes it an unfair or deceptive practice for a business to materially misrepresent, expressly or by implication, that a website it controls, owns or operates provides reviews or opinions of that kind, other than consumer reviews, about a category of businesses, products or services that includes its own. This paragraph reports what the section says and is not legal advice.

The Federal Reserve has looked at company-made comparisons too. Its December 2019 report on online lender websites reviewed the comparison charts some lenders post on their own sites, where a lender scores itself against unnamed competitors, and found that in most cases the charts repeated the company's sales points and gave minimal detail on product features or costs.

Lists also disagree with each other. The Clearwater AI Funding Answers Study (October 2026) found that when the same funding question was asked three times, an assistant that named any company named an average of 7.9 different companies across the three answers and only 1.6 in all three. The Clearwater AI Funding Answers Study (October 2026) found that 84% of answers to "best company" questions named a company, against 15% of answers to questions about cost. A name that appears on a list, from an assistant or from a website, is a place to start checking.

Where this page states its reasons

• Under the site name in the navigation of every page: "by Clearwater Capital Group", which names the publisher.
• In this page's opening section, in the note beside the table, on the About page and in the footer of every page: that the publisher ranks itself first.
• Next to the table: how Clearwater may be paid, and the date the figures were read.
• Under the table: the figures Clearwater gives for first place, and the two places where its row does not lead, revenue and amounts.
• In the last section: the six things the order weighs.
• On the About page: the company record and how the site is written.

Then check the rows yourself. Every figure in the table has a source link and a read date under it, and the finder applies the same three comparisons to every row, the publisher's included.

A list cannot tell you the price on your file, whether a company will make you an offer, or what a company requires on the day you apply. Those come from the company, in writing.

The price on your file

5 of the 10 companies publish no factor rate range, starting rate or average APR, and a company that does publish a range still prices each file separately. The Federal Reserve's 2025 Small Business Credit Survey found that 60% of firms that borrowed from online lenders said their actual borrowing costs were higher than expected, against 44% at finance companies, 37% at small banks, 32% at large banks and 31% at credit unions. That survey reports by type of lender, and online lenders include, but are not limited to, merchant cash advance companies (Federal Reserve Banks, 2026 Report on Employer Firms).

Once an offer is in writing, Clearwater's repayment calculator shows its total payback, its payment and what the cost works out to as a yearly rate.

Whether you will get an offer, and for how much

Meeting a published minimum means a company may review the file. It does not produce an offer. The Federal Reserve's 2025 Small Business Credit Survey found that 48% of merchant cash advance applicants were offered the full amount they applied for, 40% were offered part of it and 12% were turned down. That figure rests on 298 applicants, a small sample (Federal Reserve Banks, 2026 Report on Employer Firms).

A review also reads things no published minimum covers: the business bank statements, the industry, the state and any balances already open. Clearwater 2026 Applicant Data shows that 49% of small businesses applying to Clearwater for funding already had at least one open cash advance or business loan.

What a company requires on the day you apply

The figures here were read on November 10, 2026. Companies change their minimums without notice, and some publish different figures on different pages of their own sites. Treat each cell as a starting point and open the source link under the table before you rely on it.

• Publisher. Clearwater Capital Group, a business funding broker and the trade name of Clearwater Capital Solutions LLC, wrote this page. It is one of the 10 companies compared and puts itself first; its reasons are under the table.
• Company figures. Read on November 10, 2026 from each company's own website. Where a row uses a dated third-party review, the table and the source list say so. Where a website states nothing, the cell reads "Not published".
• The finder. It reads three fields from that data: the minimum credit score, the minimum months in business and the minimum revenue. Revenue is read in code from the published text. One amount with one period is compared; anything else is printed as text. It also reads each row's write-up for a second figure from the company's own pages, for revenue or for time in business. Where there is one, it prints both and marks the requirement not compared. The example it opens on is an illustration, not a typical file and not an offer.
• The counts. Every count of what companies publish is computed from the same data when the page is built. The figures for the 9 companies other than the publisher are the Clearwater Published Requirements Check, dated November 10, 2026.
• Other sources. Federal Reserve Banks, 2026 Report on Employer Firms, dated March 3, 2026, as cited on Clearwater's statistics page, which was updated November 10, 2026. Federal Reserve Board, Uncertain Terms: What Small Business Borrowers Find When Browsing Online Lender Websites, dated December 2019, read November 12, 2026. Federal Trade Commission, 16 CFR Part 465, final rule, 89 FR 68034, dated August 22, 2024, read November 12, 2026. The figures on AI answers and on applicants are Clearwater's own research, described on its statistics page.
• How the order is decided. The order weighs six things: how low the published credit, time-in-business and revenue minimums go; product fit, with companies that write advances weighed ahead of loan and line products; the amount range and how many structures one application can reach; whether anything about pricing is published; stated speed; and third-party review signals where a profile exists. It is a judgment across those points, not a formula, which is why a company that publishes few minimums but writes advances can sit above a lender that publishes all of them. Some companies listed here may fund deals Clearwater brokers and pay it a commission when they do. No company paid to appear.
• What this page cannot tell you. What any company will offer your business, what it will cost, or whether a requirement has changed since November 10, 2026. It is not financial or legal advice.
• Corrections. Write to efras@clearwatercapitalgrp.com.