The comparison table
Typical U.S. ranges for established small businesses. Individual quotes vary with credit, revenue, time in business, and collateral:
| Product | Effective APR | Funding speed | Paperwork | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SBA 7(a) loan | 10.5–14.5% | 3–8 weeks | Heavy | Expansion, acquisitions, refinancing expensive debt |
| Bank term loan | 8–13% | 2–6 weeks | Heavy | Equipment, buildouts, planned investments |
| Line of credit | 10–35% | Days–weeks | Moderate | Working-capital swings — opened before you need it |
| Online term loan | 15–45% | 1–5 days | Light | Fast, mid-sized needs when banks say no or too slowly |
| Invoice factoring | 15–40% | Days | Light | Receivables timing gaps — you have the revenue, just not yet |
| Merchant cash advance | 40–200%+ | 24–72 hours | Minimal | Short, certain bridges when nothing cheaper is possible in time |
The pattern is not subtle: price and paperwork trade off almost perfectly. Every rung down the paperwork ladder costs roughly double the rung above it.
What that pattern means in practice
Expensive lenders aren't charging for risk alone — they're charging for your deadline. The businesses that borrow cheaply are the ones that assembled the boring documents (financial statements, tax returns, debt schedule, projections) before the need arrived, and opened the line of credit in a good quarter. The single highest-ROI financial task for a small business is making itself bankable while it doesn't need money.
Three matching rules
- Match the term to the life of the thing financed. Five-year money for a five-year machine; season-length money for seasonal inventory. Nine-month money for a permanent working-capital gap is a mismatch that repeats forever.
- Match the payment to your worst month, not your average. Daily debits are the stress test most borrowers fail. Compute the payment and lay it against your slowest recent month.
- Match urgency honestly. "I need it this week" is sometimes true and sometimes an avoidance of paperwork. The difference is worth 50+ points of APR.
Whatever you're quoted, compute the same number
Every product above — however it's packaged — reduces to net funds, a payment stream, and an effective APR. Compute it before signing and the table stops being abstract: it becomes your offer's row. That's what the free calculator is for.
Compare your actual offers, not the averages
The $29 workbook puts up to five real offers side by side — effective APR, total cost, amortization, cash-flow impact — plus the lender-package checklist that unlocks the cheaper rows of this table.
Free True Cost Calculator Full Workbook — $29Educational content — not financial advice. Ranges are broad market norms, not quotes; verify against actual offers and disclosures.