Business Financing Guides
Longer reads on how offers are priced, what underwriting reads and which structure fits your need.
Soft credit pull only, no obligation
- Same-day decisions
- from some providers
- Subject to provider approval and document turnaround.
- 700+
- industries served
- Reviews
Which guide answers your question?
If you have never applied
If you compare structures
If you are reading an offer
If you are getting the file ready
If credit is the obstacle
What no guide can tell you: your rate, your fees and your term. Rates, factor rates, fees and terms are set by the funding provider that makes your offer and are disclosed in that provider's agreement.
Guides by topic
Getting a loan
how to get a business loanEvery step from working out the amount to signing. 10 steps.
Guide · What underwriting reads, and which products never read a plan.
Rates and terms
Guide · What sets the ceiling, and why asking for more can backfire.
SBA
Capital Gurus is not an SBA lender; SBA loans are made by SBA-participating lenders.
Lines of credit
Guide · What a provider checks before opening a limit, including for an LLC.
Working capital
List · Ranked factoring companies, with stated criteria and dated sources.
Business credit
Guide · What is realistic at a lower score, and what it costs.
Frequently asked questions
In short
Longer reads for the questions a product page cannot answer in a paragraph: how offers are priced, what underwriting reads, which structure fits which need and how to build a file worth funding. Honest about what only an offer can tell you.
Will a guide tell me what rate I will pay?
No, and be wary of any page that says it will. A rate is set by the funding provider after it reads your file. The guides explain what moves a rate, how to compare offers written in different units, and what to ask before you sign, which is the part you can prepare for.
Do I need to read these before applying?
No. An application takes about 5 minutes and is a soft credit pull only, so you can see options first and read afterwards. The guides are most useful when you are choosing between structures or reading an offer you have already been given.
Which guide should I read first?
If you have never applied, start with how to get a business loan: it walks the process in the order it happens and links to the deeper guide at each step. If you already hold an offer, business loan terms explained defines every word in it, and the interest-rates guide shows how to compare offers written in different units.
Are the guides written by a lender?
No. Capital Gurus is not a lender: it makes no credit decision, sets no rate or fee and funds no transaction. Each guide shows who wrote it and the date it was last reviewed, and follows the published editorial policy. Where a guide describes an offer, the terms it describes are always the provider's, disclosed in that provider's agreement.
Do the guides name specific lenders?
The guides explain how products work and do not name the funding providers in Capital Gurus' network. The two ranked lists, the SBA lenders list and the invoice factoring list, do compare named companies, using criteria stated at the top of the page and a dated public source for each entry. Neither list is an endorsement.
Still have a question?
talk to a funding advisorDecisions from some providers the same day, depending on the provider.
Reading first is optional; it just tends to make the conversation shorter.
about 5 minutes, soft credit pull only · talk to a funding advisor