Pros
- Funding up to $3 million available
- No minimum credit score required
- Excellent support & guidance for borrowers
- Quick & easy application process
Cons
- Limited fee & rate information provided
- Funding can potentially take awhile to disburse
What Is BusinessLoans.com?
BusinessLoans.com is a marketplace lender for business financing. While not a lender itself, BusinessLoans.com connects applicants to loan products from within its marketplace lending network. The service is free to use, you can get loan offers without undergoing a hard credit pull, and there is no minimum credit score required to use the service. If you have a low credit score, though, BusinessLoans.com is on our list of the best startup business lenders for bad credit.
Despite only being in operation since 2020, BusinessLoans.com has helped over 100,000 businesses receive funding and has managed to get numerous positive reviews from both reviewers and borrowers alike.
Let’s take a closer look at this alternative lending service.
Services Offered By BusinessLoans.com
BusinessLoans.com’s business loan platform connects you to a large variety of business loan options to meet many business funding needs. The various lenders have good term lengths and borrowing ranges as well. The only option you won’t find with BusinessLoans.com is SBA loans, resulting in a cumulative 4.0/5 star rating for this section.
BusinessLoans.com’s loan options include the following:
- Short-Term Loans: These installment loans usually sport terms of less than a year. Borrowers typically pay a flat fee instead of an interest rate, with repayments being required weekly or even daily.
- Term Loans: This common loan type involves a lump sum of funds being sent to the borrower, who must then repay the amount borrowed plus interest. Term lengths vary from one year to, in certain circumstances (such as real estate loans), 20 years or more. Payments are required on a monthly, weekly, or daily basis, depending on the lender and your business/personal details.
- Lines Of Credit: Functioning similarly to a credit card, a line of credit gives you a credit limit that you can borrow against. You can pull from your available funds so long as you don’t exceed your credit limit.
- Merchant Cash Advances: Technically, a merchant cash advance isn’t a loan — the funder buys a percentage of your future revenue for a lump sum. The funder then withholds a percentage of your daily card-based sales until the advance — plus a fixed fee — is repaid. These advances tend to be more expensive than most loan products and are much less thoroughly regulated than actual loans, but the eligibility requirements tend to be low and collateral is rarely required.
BusinessLoans.com Borrower Qualifications
BusinessLoans.com is unique in that it does not require applicants to meet a credit score threshold to use the service. Generally, to receive a loan through BusinessLoans.com’s lending network, you’ll need at least $100,000/year in annual income and at least 6 months in business, but the company will still try to find a funding solution for you if you don’t meet these benchmarks (though nothing is guaranteed). This flexibility scores BusinessLoans.com high marks in terms of eligibility.
The main downside that brings BusinessLoans.com’s section rating down slightly to 4.1/5 stars is that the company is not always very transparent about certain borrower requirements. While this isn’t uncommon for marketplace lenders, other marketplace lenders do a better job at giving at least a general range for eligibility criteria.
For example, the company’s exact stance on bankruptcy is a bit ambiguous. BusinessLoans.com likely requires a year of recovery after bankruptcy before granting business funding.
BusinessLoans.com’s lending network is available to borrowers in all 50 US states + DC.
BusinessLoans.com Rates & Fees
BusinessLoans.com doesn’t charge a fee to use its service, which is a plus for a marketplace lender.
However, BusinessLoans.com offers little in the way of information on the terms, rates, and fees of its partner lending products. Being a lending marketplace, the company can’t give precise figures on the loans you might get, as it works with a wide array of lenders. Nonetheless, many other lending marketplaces, such as Lendio, do offer some general guidelines regarding the sort of terms and rates you can expect from its various lenders. We have to ding BusinessLoans.com slightly for not providing this kind of information, resulting in a 4.6/5 star rating for this section.
The most we can say is that BusinessLoans.com’s lending amounts range from $5,000 - $3 million and its term lengths for installment loans range from 3 months - 5 years. Regarding the merchant cash advances available through the network, BusinessLoans.com estimates that payback fees will equal 20%- 40% of your total advance amount.
With some loans available through BusinessLoans.com, you may be required to post collateral or sign a personal guarantee.
Here are some of the charges you’re likely to face with a BusinessLoans.com loan:
- Interest
- Fixed fees
- Origination fee
- Administration fees
- Prepayment penalties
- Payment processing fees
Read our article about common fees charged during the lending process for a more in-depth examination of the fees often charged by lenders.
BusinessLoans.com Application Process
BusinessLoans.com’s application process is quick, convenient, and forward-thinking. The online application asks you some basic questions about your business and personal finances — this process should be over in a matter of minutes. BusinessLoans.com then uses this information to match you to the lending options that best suit your business and your funding needs. However, the application process loses points for, again, lack of transparency.
Thankfully, if you don’t want to rely entirely on the company’s algorithm, you can always speak to a BusinessLoans.com representative for personalized guidance. There are many glowing reviews of the company’s guidance from BusinessLoans.com users on Trustpilot, with numerous users mentioning company reps by name and praising their communication skills and attention to detail.
Once approved, time to funding can take from 24 hours to one week. To help speed up your application process, try having all of the loan documentation you are likely to need prepared and on hand. Learn more about what to expect from the loan application process.
BusinessLoans.com Sales & Advertising Transparency
BusinessLoans.com’s website contains some helpful information, such as guides to each of the loan types offered through the service and explanations of general lending terms and concepts.
However, the lack of term, rate, and fee information provided by the company about the various loan types on offer is disappointing, resulting in a 3.6/5 star rating for this section. While I don’t expect a loan marketplace to fully disclose this information (it’d be impossible to list the rates and fees of every single lender they work with), most competing loan marketplaces still often manage to provide at least some information on this front, which I would like to see here.
BusinessLoans.com Customer Service & Technical Support
Judging by the almost universally positive reception BusinessLoans.com’s phone support gets from borrowers, the company’s attention to customer service should be commended.
BusinessLoans.com Customer Service |
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Given the convenience of the company’s automated loan matching service, it would have been easy for BusinessLoans.com to skimp on the live support. However, customers appreciate that loan specialists stand ready to help them find the right lender and provide the right documentation.
The only downside is that finding BusinessLoan.com’s contact information on its website is nearly impossible (at least before filling out your application).
BusinessLoans.com User Reviews
BusinessLoans.com may be new on the scene, but it has already garnered considerable praise from reviewers and consumers alike. The company currently gets an A rating from the BBB with no complaints lodged, and the company has an aggregate third-party review site rating of 4.6/5 stars, resulting in a 4.4/5 star rating overall for this section.
Negative BusinessLoans.com Reviews & Complaints
Customers noted a few primary flaws with BusinessLoans.com:
- Funds can take up to a week to disburse (though some users said they received funding within 24 hours- 2 days)
- BusinessLoans.com gives very little rate, fee, and term information regarding the loans in its network
- Alleged personal information sharing
As for user reviews, I found one poor review on the BBB from a user who could not secure the total amount of funding they were seeking and who was unable to find someone to contact (although there are dozens of positive reviews saying the exact opposite about the company’s customer support).
The other three reviews were from users complaining that BusinessLoans.com shared their information with other lenders resulting in multiple phone calls from prospective lenders. One reviewer said that their information was distributed “without my consent or knowledge.” I don’t hold this against BusinessLoans.com and theorize that this user did not fully understand BusinessLoans.com’s nature as a loan marketplace whose primary job is to share your information with its selection of lenders to help you find the best funding option for your business.
Positive BusinessLoans.com Reviews & Testimonials
Customers praise BusinessLoans.com for the following:
- Stellar customer support
- No credit score requirement
- No origination fee
- The loan-matching service is convenient
- The quality of user support is high
- The initial application is easy, free, and will not trigger a hard credit check
Final Verdict: Is BusinessLoans.com Worth It?
BusinessLoans.com is a new player on the alternative lending scene, but it has already made a positive impression among reviewers and borrowers. The automated loan finder is free, quick, easy to use, and can direct you to the funding you need without ever talking to anybody — and if you do need personalized assistance (or if you simply prefer the personal touch), BusinessLoans.com offers that in spades.
Overall, BusinessLoans.com gets a Merchant Maverick 4/5 star rating. We like BusinessLoans.com’s breadth of services, borrowing amounts, customer support, and lack of marketplace service fees.
We would appreciate it if BusinessLoans provided some kind of guide to the lending amounts and rate ranges you can expect with the different loan products on offer, as Lendio does. However, judging by the trail of happy borrowers BusinessLoans.com has left in its wake, the company’s network of lenders can deliver the funding small business owners need to grow and thrive.
If you want to see more small business lender options, check out our list of small business loan reviews.
Business Loan & Funding Products Review Methodology
We spend hours researching and evaluating each business loan and funding product that we review at Merchant Maverick, placing special emphasis on key characteristics to generate our ratings.
Weighted Rating Breakdown
Services 30%
Rates & Fees 15%
Eligibility Requirements 15%
Application 15%
Sales & Advertising Transparency 10%
Customer Service 10%
User Reviews 5%
When rating lenders and funding providers, we use a 31-point rubric that looks at rates and fees, services, eligibility requirements, application, sales and advertising transparency, customer service, and user reviews. We weigh each section differently to calculate the total star rating. This rubric is applied to traditional term loans, as well as short-term loans, start-up loans, lines of credit, online lending products, merchant cash advances, and equipment financing products.
- Rates & Fees: 20% of the total star rating
- Services: 20% of the total star rating
- Eligibility Requirements: 20% of the total star rating
- Application: 15% of the total star rating
- Sales & Advertising Transparency: 10% of the total star rating
- Customer Support: 5% of the total star rating
- User Reviews: 5% of the total star rating
Each section is further broken down into granular, weighted subsections, in which we examine specific attributes like terms lengths, conditions of repayment, credit score and revenue requirements, ease of application, length of time to funding, the ethics involved in promoting the lending product, customer support, and the overall reputation of the lender or funding provider.
Read more about how we rate small business lenders.
To learn more about how we score our reviews, see our