FREE MCA CALCULATOR
Merchant cash advances are priced with a factor rate, not an interest rate, which makes offers hard to compare with a loan. Enter your advance amount, factor rate and term to see the estimated APR, total payback and payment size. Then compare real offers from 100+ lenders with one application.
| Total you repay | – |
| Cost of the advance | – |
| Daily payment | – |
| Number of payments | – |
Multiply the advance by the factor rate to get your total payback. The difference between the two is the cost of the advance.
APR also depends on how fast you repay. The calculator spreads the payback into equal daily or weekly payments and finds the annual rate that matches that schedule.
The shorter the term, the higher the APR for the same factor rate.
A $20,000 advance at a factor rate of 1.15 costs $3,000, for a total payback of $23,000.
Repaid daily over 6 months, that is 126 payments of $182.54 and an estimated APR of about 57%.
Repaid over 12 months, the same factor rate works out to about 28.5%.
One of my major vendors was slow to pay and I was having a hard time making payroll. Clear was able to quickly get me approved for a merchant cash advance. The terms were much better than I found elsewhere and I had funds in my account the very next day. Thank you Clear!
Related: Merchant cash advance · What is a merchant cash advance? · Working capital loans
A factor rate is the total cost of a merchant cash advance, written as a multiplier. For example, if you receive $20,000 at a factor rate of 1.15, you repay $23,000, so your cost of money is $3,000.
Work out the total payback (advance × factor rate), divide it into the payments you will actually make, then find the annual rate at which those payments repay the amount you received. That is what this calculator does. Fees deducted from the advance raise the APR because you receive less money but repay the same amount.
The factor rate is charged on the full advance, but you pay the balance down every day or week, so on average you only use about half the money over the term. Short terms magnify this: the same 1.15 factor rate is about 57% APR over 6 months and about 28.5% over 12 months.
Factor rates commonly fall between about 1.10 and 1.50. The rate you are offered depends mainly on your revenue, time in business, credit and industry. Clear’s merchant cash advances start at a factor rate of 1.14, and comparing offers from several funders is the best way to get a lower one.
Some states require it. New York and California, for example, require providers of many commercial financing offers, including merchant cash advances, to disclose an estimated APR. Where it is not required, ask for it or use this calculator to compare offers.
There is usually no prepayment penalty, and many funders offer an early payoff discount. Without a discount, the total payback stays the same, so paying early does not reduce the dollar cost and raises the effective APR.
No, it is an estimate. It assumes equal fixed payments over the full term. If your payments are a percentage of your sales, they rise and fall with revenue, which changes how long repayment takes and therefore the effective APR.
A short term loan offers up to $5 million over 6 to 36 months with interest from 11%, and generally needs a 600+ FICO score. A merchant cash advance is our easiest product to get approved for (500+ FICO) and offers up to $2 million over 3 to 24 months, priced with a factor rate from 1.14. Your Clear loan advisor can compare offers side by side so you can choose.
Clear is a business loan marketplace with 100+ lenders. One application lets you compare merchant cash advance and loan offers side by side, and a dedicated loan advisor helps you understand the true cost of each, including the APR.
