Pros
- Suited for small businesses
- Relaxed borrower qualifications
- No credit score requirements (for some products)
- Excellent customer support
Cons
- Potentially high rates
- Rates, terms, & fees aren’t fully disclosed
- No long-term funding options
What Is Breakout Finance?
Breakout Finance (formerly Breakout Capital) is a business funder that offers short-term business financing solutions to eligible merchants.
Along with supplying its own financial products, Breakout Finance will evaluate your business to determine if you are better suited for products the company doesn’t provide; if so, they will hook you up with a lender that offers the right product.
If you need business funding but don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, Breakout Finance may be a good fit for your business. Because the company emphasizes educating merchants, offers flexible financing products, and is willing to refer businesses to other lenders when necessary, Breakout Finance is certainly worth including in your comparisons.
Services Offered
Breakout Finance offers several short-term funding products, including:
- Short-term loans
- Invoice factoring
- Asset-based loans
- Purchase order financing
As your business grows, Breakout Finance will work with you to find the right product and terms for your current business needs.
While Breakout Finance offers plenty of short-term options, it doesn’t offer long-term funding. It also lacks a mobile app that allows you to apply for funding, make payments, or perform other functions on the go. For these reasons, we’ve rated Breakout Finance 3/5 for its offerings.
Borrower Qualifications
The requirements for Breakout Finance’s term loans are as follows:
Time In Business: |
1 year |
Personal Credit Score: |
600 |
Revenue:
|
$25,000/month |
There are no listed time in business, credit score, or revenue requirements for Breakout’s other products. For invoice financing, you must have invoices for delivered work. For purchase order financing, you must have contracts for orders. To receive Breakout Finance’s asset-based loans, the lender requires an assessment and verification or field exam of collateral value.
Because Breakout has very flexible requirements based on the product you choose — with some options that don’t consider your credit score, revenue, or time in business — and is transparent about these requirements, we’ve rated it a perfect 5/5 in this category.
Rates & Fees
For its term loans, Breakout Finance discloses the following rates and fees:
Borrowing Amount: |
Up to $1 million |
Term Length: |
Up to 24 months |
Fixed Fee: |
Starting at 1.24% per month |
Origination Fee: |
2.5% |
Collateral: |
UCC-1 blanket lien, personal guarantee |
For its remaining products, Breakout offers very little in terms of terms, fees, and rates. It does disclose that credit lines of up to $10 million are available through its invoice factoring program. It also states that lines up to $5 million are available through purchase order financing.
Unfortunately, this lack of transparency did impact our rating for Breakout’s rates and fees, which sits at 3.6/5.
Application Process
To get started with Breakout Finance, you can fill out a loan or factoring application on the website. You will be required to submit basic information and documents about yourself, your business, and what you’re looking for in a loan.
If you fill out the online form, Breakout’s proprietary software can provide you with a fast funding decision. If approved, you’ll speak to a representative to explore the best funding options for your business.
Once you’ve discussed your options with a representative and have provided the necessary information and documentation, you may receive funding as quickly as the same day. This fast and easy process is why we’ve rated Breakout Finance a 4.8/5.
Sales & Advertising Transparency
Breakout Finances’s website provides a fair amount of information about its products. However, there are some gaps when it comes to disclosing rates, fees, and terms. Customer service reps are also willing to disclose information and educate potential customers on the products. This lack of information contributed to our rating of 4.2/5.
It is worth noting that Breakout Finance is a member of the Innovative Lending Platform Association, a group that claims to be “dedicated to advancing best practices and standards that support responsible innovation and access to capital for small businesses.”
Breakout also has social media profiles that provide useful information, even though these profiles aren’t updated frequently.
Customer Service & Technical Support
Customer service is available via phone, email, or a contact form on Breakout’s website. Unfortunately, phone numbers and support email addresses are not listed prominently on the website, as it appears Breakout would rather prospective borrowers reach out through the online form or by filling out an application.
Breakout Finance Customer Service |
Availability |
Phone Support |
|
Email Support |
|
Support Tickets |
|
Live Chat |
|
Dedicated Support Representative |
|
Knowledge Base or Help Center |
|
Videos & Tutorials |
|
Company Blog |
|
Social Media |
|
A live chat feature was available in the past but is no longer an option. These factors negatively impacted our rating of Breakout’s customer service and tech support, with our rating landing at 3.3/5.
Online customer reviews cite customer service as a positive aspect of Breakout Finance, claiming that representatives are responsive, transparent, and not pushy. All my experiences with Breakout Finance’s staff have been similarly positive.
The website also includes several other resources, including informative blog articles aimed at helping merchants understand business financing and loan concepts, an APR calculator, and an explanation of double dipping.
User Reviews
Breakout Finance is accredited by the Better Business Bureau with an A+ rating. Currently, the company has no negative reviews or complaints on this platform. The company also has a presence on TrustPilot, boasting a 4.6 out of 5-star rating across 170+ reviews. Based on the quality and quantity of reviews, we rated Breakout 4.9/5 for user reviews.
Negative Reviews & Complaints
Although Breakout Finance’s reviews are generally positive, here are a few complaints worth noting:
- No Long-Term Funding: Breakout Finances’s business loans currently cap at a maximum term length of 24 months (though the term lengths can be extended if you borrow additional capital). If you’re looking for something with a longer term, a loan from Breakout Finance may not be the right fit.
- Expensive Fees: Compared to other forms of business financing, such as bank/SBA loans, Breakout Finance’s products can be expensive.
Keep in mind that Breakout is interested in helping merchants improve their creditworthiness and graduate to less-expensive or longer-term products. Even if you are not eligible for these products yet, you may be in the future.
Positive Reviews & Testimonials
Here are some common praises of Breakout Finance’s products:
- Transparent, helpful customer service
- Fast time from application to funding
- Little documentation required
- Flexible financing options
Customers also like Breakout Finance’s renewal process, which is expedited (because they have most of your information) and cheaper than usual (because the lender doesn’t double dip, a practice that is essentially paying interest on interest).
Final Verdict
Breakout Finance’s funding products may be helpful for merchants in need of short-term financing. Between the flexible loan terms, the prepayment discounts (and no double dipping policy), and the easy renewal process, it’s apparent that the company is interested in offering fair, helpful products to its customers.
In addition, because Breakout Finance’s borrower qualifications are relatively low, this funder will be able to work with businesses that might not qualify for loans from other places.
For these reasons, Breakout Finance has earned an overall score of 4.1/5 and our recommendation for businesses that need short-term funding.
However, if you want long-term funding or more transparency surrounding fees and terms, you may want to look elsewhere, starting with our picks for the best small business loans.
Business Loan & Funding Products Review Methodology
Merchant Maverick has been researching and reviewing business lenders since 2015. Our writers have tested over a hundred different funding products, including traditional term loans, online loans, lines of credit, start-up loans, merchant cash advances, and equipment financing. In each review, we evaluate rates and fees, services, eligibility requirements, application process, sales and advertising transparency, customer service, and user reviews.
Weighted Rating Breakdown
Rates & Fees 20%
Services 20%
Eligibility Requirements 20%
Application 15%
Sales & Advertising Transparency 10%
Customer Service 10%
User Reviews 5%
Read more about how we rate business loans and funding products.
When comparing different lenders and loan products, we consider many data points, including the ease and transparency of the application process, interest rates, repayment structure, sales ethics, time to funding, revenue and time in business qualifications, and credit score requirements. Our lists of the best funding products include only those we’ve deemed worthwhile from multiple vantage points, and often share qualities such as widespread accessibility across fifty states, low rates, flexible requirements, and competitive borrowing amounts.
We spend an average of 10-15 hours researching and updating each one of our lists, making sure the loans and funding products included meet our internal standards for quality and reputation.
To learn more about how we score our reviews, see our