Choosing an eCommerce Funding Provider: What to Demand in Writing

The usual version of this page lists features to look for. That is the wrong shape, because the features are not the problem. Disclosure is. Reading every provider's own website, most publish no fee, no term and no revenue minimum, so a feature checklist is unanswerable from the outside.

What follows is a due-diligence list instead: eight things to get in writing before you sign, and what each provider already discloses so you know which questions are already answered. Read from each company's own site on 6 August 2026.

The eight questions

Ask who the lender actually is

This one catches people out and it is easy to check. In the United States all Shopify Capital funding is issued by WebBank. Bluevine publishes that it is a financial technology company rather than a bank, with its line of credit issued by Celtic Bank. Amazon Lending arranges financing through third-party providers rather than lending directly.

None of that is a problem. It does mean the terms, the servicing and the recourse sit with an entity you did not evaluate, so read the agreement rather than the marketing page.

Ask what happens to you personally

Bluevine requires a 625+ personal FICO score alongside $10,000 in monthly revenue and 12+ months in business. Clearco takes no collateral and asks for no personal guarantees, with capped weekly payments, and publishes no blanket liens. Wayflyer does not ask for personal guarantees or take equity. Onramp Funds runs no personal credit check.

Four different positions on the same question, none of which you would learn from a feature list.

Ask whether approval means funding

Shopify Capital states directly that an invitation to apply does not guarantee funding. Kickfurther states plainly that it does not fund every deal it reviews. Both are unusually honest disclosures, and both mean an eligibility check is not a commitment.

If a provider does not publish this, ask what proportion of approved applications actually fund, and at what amount relative to the request.

Ask what a bad month does

Shopify Capital repays as a fixed percentage of daily sales with a maximum term of 18 months and 2 minimum payments applying. Kickfurther publishes what happens if inventory sells slowly: the timeline can be extended, which may adjust costs. Onramp Funds' variable option repays as a share of sales that moves with revenue, while its fixed option repays weekly or every two weeks over one to twelve months.

Almost nobody else publishes an answer. Ask for it in writing, because it is the term you will care about most if the quarter goes wrong.

Ask about the fees that are not the fee

Payability discloses that its daily payout program carries daily fees for advancing sales, plus optional fees for transferring advanced funds to a bank account. That second one is the kind of charge that never appears in a comparison table.

Fundbox publishes no early repayment fees. Clearco publishes early payment without penalty. Wayflyer publishes that it charges one fixed fee remitted over a timeframe aligned with business cycles, without stating the fee itself.

The two that publish a fee at all

This is the shortest list on the page. Outside the SBA programmes, Onramp Funds is the only provider here that puts a number on its own cost: you repay the funded amount along with a flat fee, typically ranging between 2 and 8%, remitted as a percentage of daily sales as low as 1%, with no monthly minimums or fixed payments.

That is a range rather than your price, and a flat fee is not a rate. It is applied once to the amount funded, so it does not shrink if you repay quickly. But it is a published number, and on this page's own standard that counts for a great deal, because you can walk into the conversation already knowing the band.

Where Onramp Funds stands on the eight

Onramp Funds publishes: a legal US business entity, at least $10,000 in monthly sales and at least 6 months of selling history, no personal credit check, nine supported platforms, three structures, one transparent fee with no hidden costs, and the fee band itself. No equity is taken.

What it does not publish is a funding speed or a maximum amount. On this page's own logic those are two of the eight to ask about, and this page is not going to pretend otherwise. An earlier version of this page also listed the fee as undisclosed. That was wrong, and it has been corrected rather than left to stand.

Applying to SellersFi carries no impact to credit score and no commitment, and Payability runs no credit checks but does perform a standard background check of public records. Both are worth knowing if you plan to ask several providers the same eight questions at once, which is the right way to do this.

Frequently asked questions

What is the single most important thing to ask?

The total amount repayable on a specific funding amount over a specific period. No provider on this page publishes it, and it is the only figure that is comparable across a factor rate, a flat fee and a bank margin.

Does any provider publish what it charges?

Very few. The SBA publishes rate caps on its programmes, and Onramp Funds publishes a flat fee typically ranging between 2 and 8% with remittance as low as 1% of daily sales. Every other provider on this page publishes a structure at best and nothing at worst.

Can I shop around without damaging my credit?

Several providers publish that you can. Bluevine states applying does not impact your credit score, SellersFi states no impact to credit score and no commitment, Amazon states applying does not impact personal credit, and Onramp Funds runs no personal credit check. Confirm the current position before applying to several at once.

Is a provider that publishes less necessarily worse?

Not necessarily, but it shifts the work to you. Underwriting genuinely is individual, which is a real reason for silence on pricing. It is not a reason to sign without the numbers.

Should I take the first offer?

Only after you have the eight answers for it. Approval speed is the most heavily marketed attribute and the least decision-relevant, because a fast offer on the wrong structure is still the wrong structure.

What if a provider will not put it in writing?

Treat that as the answer. Every term on this page came from something a company published about itself, and any provider can restate its own terms in an email.

See the funding structures or read how underwriting works.

Disclosures were read from each provider's own website on 6 August 2026. They change without notice, so confirm before applying.