Which funding products does this apply to?

Merchant Cash Advance, Working Capital, Term Loan, Business Line of Credit, Revenue-Based Financing. 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 A market average assembled from lenders who do not publish prices is a guess with a decimal point on it.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.

Comparing funders without shotgunning your file

How to shop several funders without shotgunning your own file

Comparing offers is sensible. Having the same file arrive at eleven desks from four sources in one afternoon is not, and it costs you money.

By Find Me Funders research desk Updated 14 September 2026 903 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.

You should get more than one offer. You should not get more than one offer the way it usually happens, which is by handing your documents to two or three intermediaries who each blast them to everyone they know.

What shotgunning does to you

Shotgunning is the practice of submitting the same file to a long list of funders at once. It is efficient for whoever is paid on volume. For you it produces four specific problems.

Duplicate credit inquiries.Several funders pulling in the same window, some of them hard. Business credit files and personal ones both record inquiries, and a cluster of them reads as a business urgently seeking money in multiple places.

Your file arriving from two sources.Funders track which office submitted a deal, and a deal received from two intermediaries triggers a conflict over who owns it. The common outcomes are that one submission is killed, both are held while it is sorted out, or the deal is passed on entirely. You have not gained a second opinion; you have created an administrative dispute about your own application.

A distress signal.Underwriters talk, and some funders can see that a file has been widely shopped. A business that appears to be at eleven doors at once gets read as a business that has been declined at ten of them, whatever the truth is.

Loss of control over your documents.Your bank statements, your ID and your Social Security number are now in the hands of an unknown number of parties, none of whom you selected, several of whom will call you for the next two years, and some of whom may resell your details as a lead.

The disciplined version

1. Decide what you are actually shopping.Price, size, term, structure, speed, or whether the funder will take your industry at all. These lead to different lists. Shopping "who says yes fastest" is how people end up with the most expensive product available to them.

2. Shortlist three or four, not eleven.Choose on published criteria: minimum time in business, minimum revenue, product type, states served, industries excluded. Where a lender publishes rates, terms or eligibility rules, that is a real filter you can apply before anyone sees your documents. Most do not publish, which is itself a datapoint.

3. Control the authorisation.Every application you sign contains a consent to submit and to pull credit. Strike out or refuse open-ended language authorising submission to unlimited "partners" or "affiliates". Write in the named parties instead. If an intermediary will not accept a named-party authorisation, that tells you what their process is.

4. Ask for a soft pull at the first stage.Many funders can indicate interest and even pre-qualify on a soft pull. Save the hard pulls for the one or two you intend to complete with.

5. Sequence sensibly, in a short window.Two at a time rather than four, but all of them inside a couple of weeks so the offers overlap and are comparable. Offers expire, statement packages go stale, and a decision made in week six is being made on week-one information.

6. Ask each for a written term sheet with an expiry date.A verbal indication is not comparable to anything. Get amount, all fees, payment, frequency, term or expected term, total repayment, security and conditions on paper.

7. Compare on the same basis.Two offers with different structures cannot be ranked by the headline number. Total cost per dollar received, and payment as a share of deposits, are the two comparisons that work — see how to compare two offers with different structures.

8. Tell each one the truth about the process."I am comparing two other offers and expect to decide by Friday" is normal commercial behaviour and generally improves your terms. It is also a great deal better than being discovered.

If you are using intermediaries

Use one at a time, with a defined submission list, in writing. If you want a second, tell the first, and give them a clear cut-off. Do not run two people on the same file simultaneously without both knowing; that is the fastest route to the ownership conflict described above, and it can also leave you owing a fee to someone whose funder you did not use.

Ask any intermediary, before documents change hands: which funders will you submit to, and will you confirm with me before each one? Then hold them to it.

Where the same instinct becomes something worse

Shopping several funders before you take money is prudent. Taking money from several funders at once is stacking, and it is a different act with different consequences — it usually breaches the anti-stacking clause in the first agreement, it compounds the daily debits, and it is the most common route into a spiral that ends in consolidation offers. Compare, then choose one.

A note on what a first conversation should require

You should be able to find out who a funder is, what they fund, whom they lend to and whether they publish their terms without handing anyone a Social Security number, bank credentials or six months of statements. Find Me Funders' own inquiry form asks for none of those, because none of them are needed to work out who is worth an application. Documents are for the parties you have selected, after you know who they are.