Which funding products does this apply to?

Merchant Cash Advance. Each has its own page listing the funders in this directory that offer it and what each one publishes about its terms.

Are the figures here quotes?

No. Every worked example is labelled illustrative and exists to show the arithmetic. What a particular lender charges is on that lender's page, where it publishes it at all.

The Find Me Funders research desk. Some drafting is AI-assisted, and every page that is says so at the top, including whether a person has checked its claims yet.

How do I know a figure here is right?

Where a page carries the green notice, its claims were checked against the sources listed at the end and a reviewer is named. Where it carries the amber one, nobody has verified it yet and you should confirm anything you plan to act on.

Are the examples real deals?

No. Every worked example is labelled illustrative and exists to show the arithmetic. What any particular lender charges is on that lender's page, where it publishes it.

Why do you never say what a typical rate is?

Because we cannot source it. A market average assembled from lenders who do not publish prices is a guess with a decimal point on it. Where a lender publishes a figure, we show that figure and say where it came from.

Is this financial or legal advice?

No. It is general information about how these products work. Outcomes depend on your contract and your state, and a lawyer or accountant licensed where you are is the person to ask about your situation.

Can I reuse this content?

Quote a paragraph with a link back. Do not republish whole articles.

MCA fees that sit outside the factor rate

The fees that sit outside the factor rate

The factor covers the difference between two numbers on the contract. Everything charged around it is separate, and some of it recurs every single business day.

By Find Me Funders research desk Updated 14 September 2026 956 words 4 min read

Drafted with AI assistance. Not yet independently checked. Nobody has verified the claims on this page against a source, so treat the figures and legal points as a starting point rather than as settled, and confirm anything you are about to act on. How we check things.

The factor rate describes one thing: the gap between what the funder pays you and what the funder collects. It says nothing about what is deducted before the wire leaves, or charged while the deal runs, or added if something goes wrong. Those charges are where two offers with the same factor stop being the same deal.

Charged at closing, usually withheld from the wire

Origination fee.A percentage of the funded amount or a flat sum, taken off the top. It is the most common one, and because it is withheld rather than billed, plenty of owners never register paying it — the wire is simply smaller than the number they were told.

Underwriting or processing fee.Sometimes a separate line, sometimes the same charge under a different name. If you see both, ask what each covers; the answer is occasionally that one of them is the broker's.

Risk assessment or due diligence fee.Same shape. A fixed charge for work done before funding.

UCC filing fee.Reimbursement for filing the financing statement with the Secretary of State. Small, legitimate, and worth confirming it is the actual filing cost rather than a marked-up "documentation" charge.

Wire or disbursement fee.For sending you your own money. Small.

Broker or ISO fee.Sometimes disclosed as a line item you pay, sometimes paid by the funder out of its own margin, sometimes both in different proportions. Ask directly whether a broker fee is being deducted from your wire.

Charged while the deal runs

Per-debit ACH or transaction fee.A few dollars on every remittance. Trivial per event and not trivial in aggregate. Illustrative only — a $25 charge on each of 105 daily debits is $2,625, which on a $50,000 advance is a further 5% of the money you received, and it appears nowhere in the factor.

Program, service or administrative fee.A recurring monthly or weekly charge for maintaining the account.

Reconciliation or adjustment fee.Some agreements charge for processing the true-up you are contractually entitled to request. Find out before you need it.

Charged when something goes wrong

NSF or rejected payment fee.Charged by the funder on a failed debit, on top of whatever your bank charges. Both sides bill you for the same event.

Default fee.A flat charge, or a percentage of the outstanding purchased amount, triggered by an enumerated event of default — which, as the default clause usually reveals, includes considerably more than missing payments.

Collection and attorney fees.Most agreements make you responsible for the funder's costs of enforcement. This is open-ended by nature and is the fee that gets large.

Blocked account or stop-payment fee.A specific charge for interfering with the debit, separate from the default consequences.

What this does to the arithmetic

Fees withheld at closing shrink the denominator. Fees charged during the deal enlarge the numerator. Both push the real cost above the factor, and they compound in opposite directions.

Illustrative only — a $50,000 advance with a $67,500 purchased amount looks like $17,500 of cost. Withhold $1,500 at closing and charge $25 on each of 105 debits and you received $48,500, delivered $70,125, and paid $21,625. The stated cost rose by nearly a quarter and the factor never moved.

Put a time dimension on it and the gap widens again. Those 105 daily debits are about 21 weeks, so the $70,125 comes back over roughly five months. Solving for the rate that makes 105 payments of $667.86 equal the $48,500 you received gives an annualised figure near 188% — against a 1.35 factor that a rate sheet describes as 35 cents on the dollar. Illustrative only, and the point is not the number. The point is that 35 and 188 are both accurate descriptions of the same contract, and only one of them is comparable to anything else on your desk.

When the net wire is smaller than you were told

This happens often enough to plan for. The wire lands, it is short, and you have already committed the money.

Do three things before you spend any of it. Reconcile the deposit against the contract's fee schedule line by line and identify every deduction by name. Ask, in writing and the same day, for a written breakdown of each one. And check whether the purchased amount was reduced in proportion — if underwriting cut the advance but the purchased amount stayed where it was, the deal you signed is not the deal that was priced.

Most agreements have a short window in which a funding can be unwound or corrected, and it closes quickly. If the shortfall is material, raising it on day one is a different conversation from raising it in week six.

How to get a straight answer

Ask for two things in writing before you sign anything:

The net wire amount, as a dollar figure. Not a percentage, not "approximately". The number that will hit the account.
A complete list of every fee that can be charged during the life of the agreement, with the amount and the trigger for each — including NSF, default, reconciliation and collection charges.

Then read the fee schedule in the contract itself and confirm nothing appears there that was not on the list. The schedule governs, not the email.

The one that is hardest to price

Attorney and collection fees cannot be quantified in advance, which is exactly why they matter. They convert a fixed-cost product into an open-ended one the moment a dispute starts. That is a reason to take the default clause seriously long before you take the factor seriously, and a reason to keep every debit clearing while you sort out anything else.