Merchant Fund Express: our funding partner, held to the same test

Disclosure first, because it decides how you should read the rest. Merchant Fund Express is a commercial partner of The Company Chronicle. It is the funder on the card that appears throughout this section. We applied exactly the same two questions to it that we applied to Lendio, OnDeck, LendingTree, Fundbox, Bluevine, Kapitus, Credibly, Fora Financial, Rapid Finance and National Funding: does it lend, and does it tell you the price.

Lender or marketplace

A direct funder. One company, one file, one set of phone calls. That matters more than almost anything else on this page, because a marketplace forwards your application to a network and your phone does not stop for a fortnight. Four of the ten companies we looked at are marketplaces or hybrids that broker some products without making it obvious which.

What it publishes about price

This is where the comparison gets interesting, and we are not going to dress it up.

Merchant Fund Express publishes a complete factor range on its merchant cash advance page: 1.35 to 1.50. A complete range means a ceiling, and a ceiling is the number that actually protects you. Of the ten companies we researched, only Fora Financial also published one. Credibly published a floor with no ceiling. Rapid Finance, National Funding and Fundbox published nothing at all, and Fundbox took its pricing page down entirely.

And the honest part: 1.35 is not a low floor. Fora publishes 1.13 to 1.50 and Credibly advertises from 1.11. If you qualify for the best pricing in this market, the bottom of those ranges is cheaper than the bottom of this one. What Merchant Fund Express does is tell you the worst case before you apply, which most of this industry will not do.

A 1.35 factor means $100,000 costs $135,000 back. At 1.50 it is $150,000. Over a 12 month term that is an annualised cost far above any bank product, which is true of every advance on this page and is the reason we keep publishing how a factor rate converts to an APR.

The stated terms

	What the site states
Amounts	$5,000 to $5,000,000
Term	3 to 18 months on working capital and advances; 3 to 24 months on revenue-based financing
Credit	500+ FICO accepted
Speed	Decisions in 2 to 4 hours, funding as fast as the same business day
Factor rate	1.35 to 1.50 on merchant cash advances
Products	Working capital, business line of credit, merchant cash advance, equipment financing, invoice factoring, revenue-based financing

A 500 credit floor is at the permissive end of this market. OnDeck requires 625 and a year in business, Kapitus requires two years, and Bluevine will not take sole proprietors at all. That is not generosity, it is a different risk appetite, and it is priced accordingly.

What it does not offer

No SBA loans, no equity, no grants, no crowdfunding, no business credit cards. If you want any of those, this is the wrong door and we have written about them separately without a partner card attached, because we do not arrange them.

How to judge it against the others

Put it through the same four numbers we tell you to use on every offer: total dollars back, net cash after fees, the payment amount and frequency, and the term in months. Then do it again with a second offer from somewhere else. Why the same business gets three completely different offers explains what you will see.

We would rather you got a better offer elsewhere and trusted this section than took a worse one because we flattered our own partner. That is the entire reason this page exists.

Terms above are quoted from merchantfundexpress.com as published on 24 September 2026 and may change. Competitor figures are from our research published 21 September 2026. Merchant Fund Express is a commercial partner of The Company Chronicle and we are not the funder.

Questions owners ask

Is Merchant Fund Express a direct lender?

Yes, a direct funder rather than a marketplace, so your application is not distributed to a network of other companies.

What does it cost?

Its merchant cash advance page publishes a factor range of 1.35 to 1.50. That is a complete range including a ceiling, which most of this industry does not publish. It is not the lowest floor available.

Do you get paid if I apply?

It is a commercial partner of ours and that relationship is disclosed on every page it appears on. We are not paid per application, and nothing on this site was written to make a funder look better than it is.

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General information, not financial or legal advice. Terms vary by lender and business.