Guide
How to choose the right third-party support for your business
The people who help you get funded are themselves a market, with their own incentives. Reading those incentives is part of the job.
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Very few owners approach a lender directly and unaided. Between you and your capital sits a whole industry — brokers, marketplaces, consultants, bookkeepers, advisory services — and that industry is itself a market with its own incentives.
Reading those incentives is not cynicism. It is a practical skill, and it is the difference between paying for genuine expertise and paying for an introduction you could have made yourself.
1. Who is actually in the middle
| Who | What they do | Typically paid by |
|---|---|---|
| Funding marketplace | Shows offers from several providers on one application | The providers listed |
| Loan broker | Places your file with lenders, often negotiates | Commission from the lender, sometimes a fee from you |
| Bookkeeper / accountant | Produces the financials underwriters read | You |
| Business consultant | Plan, projections, strategy | You |
| SBA resource partners | Counselling, plan review, access-to-capital help | Federally funded — free to you |
| CDFI | Lends directly, with support attached | Interest on the loan |
The third column is the one to read first. It does not tell you whether someone is good. It tells you what they are optimising for, which is different information and frequently more useful.
2. Follow the compensation
Anyone compensated by the lender has an interest in a deal closing. That is not disqualifying — it also gives them an interest in finding a deal you will accept, and a broker who never closes anything does not eat. But it means their incentive is aligned with a deal, not necessarily with the cheapest deal, and commission rates differ between products.
Anyone compensated by you has an interest in you valuing the work. That is a cleaner alignment on paper, and it comes with its own failure mode: work expanding to fill the fee.
We should be plain that this site sits in the first category. We are paid a referral fee by the companies we list, and that compensation affects which companies appear here and how they are ranked. That is disclosed at the top of every page, and it is exactly the kind of thing worth establishing about anyone advising you.
The question to ask, verbatim "How are you compensated on this, and does it differ between the products you are showing me?" A straight answer is a good sign. Deflection, or an insistence that it makes no difference, is worth noting. Anyone operating honestly has already thought about this question.
3. Brokers and marketplaces
Both solve a real problem. Applying to eight providers individually is slow, and it risks stacking hard inquiries — several in a short window compound and can lower your score at precisely the wrong moment. One application producing several offers is genuinely valuable, and worth the intermediation on its own.
What to establish before you engage:
- Whether they pre-qualify on a soft pull. Some run a hard inquiry before showing you a single number. That is a real cost imposed on someone who is only comparing.
- How many providers they actually reach. "Our network of lenders" can mean forty or four.
- Whether you are charged directly. Broker fees charged to the borrower exist and are legitimate when disclosed up front. They are not legitimate when they appear at closing.
- What happens to your data. Submitting one form can generate a great deal of unsolicited contact. Ask, and read the consent language.
A good broker earns their commission on a difficult file — an unusual industry, a complicated ownership structure, a business that has been declined and does not know why. On a clean, straightforward file with strong numbers, going direct to two or three lenders yourself is often just as effective.
4. The free help most owners skip
This is the most consistently underused resource in the entire landscape. SBA resource partners — Small Business Development Centers, Women's Business Centers, SCORE — provide counselling, plan review and access-to-capital guidance at no cost, because they are federally funded.
They will review your projections, tell you where your file is weak, and explain why a lender declined you. That is substantially the same work a paid consultant does at the early stage, and the quality is frequently high because the counsellors see enormous numbers of files.
The sensible sequence is to exhaust the free help before commissioning the paid kind. It also means that when you do pay someone, you are paying for something specific rather than for orientation.
5. What is genuinely worth paying for
Some things reliably repay their cost.
- BookkeepingThe highest-return spend in this entire list. Underwriters are looking for numbers they can rely on, and clean, reconciled statements from a properly separated business account do more for a marginal file than an extra few points of margin.
- An accountant who knows your sectorSector-specific knowledge shows up in how the accounts are presented, and presentation affects how a file reads to someone assessing dozens a week.
- Legal review of the agreementParticularly on personal guarantees, UCC filings and prepayment terms. An hour here is cheap against a clause you did not understand.
- Specialist advice on a genuinely complex dealAcquisitions, partner buyouts, multi-property structures. Complexity is where paid expertise earns out.
6. Red flags
These are consistent across the market and each one is sufficient on its own to walk away.
- Any fee required before funding. A legitimate provider does not require payment before the money arrives.
- Guaranteed approval. It does not exist. Every genuine offer is conditional on underwriting.
- Pressure to sign today. Real offers survive being read overnight.
- Reluctance to state the total dollar cost. Ask for the full cost over the full term, in dollars, with all fees included. Anyone who will not answer is telling you something.
- Encouragement to overstate revenue. This is fraud, the liability is yours, and anyone suggesting it is not on your side.
- Suggesting you stack advances. Multiple providers drawing from the same daily revenue is how manageable situations become insolvent ones. Many agreements prohibit it outright.
7. Common questions
Should I use a broker or apply directly?
Directly, if your file is clean and you have time to approach two or three lenders. Through a broker or marketplace, if your file is complicated, you have been declined before, or you need to compare widely without accumulating hard inquiries.
Are marketplace rankings objective?
Generally not purely, and reputable ones disclose it. Compensation affects which providers appear and in what order. Treat a ranking as a starting shortlist to verify, not as a finished answer — and read the disclosure.
Is it worth paying someone to write a business plan?
Only for audiences that read plans — microloan intermediaries and CDFIs, primarily. Mainstream revenue-based lenders read bank statements. Try an SBA resource partner free of charge before paying for this.
How do I check a provider is legitimate?
Confirm a physical address and state registration, check whether they are lending directly or brokering, ask how they are compensated, and insist on the total dollar cost in writing before signing. Our guide to getting a business loan covers the wider process.
Figures on this page describe each funding type generally, based on published market ranges. They are not offers, and they are not specific to any one company. Your own rate, amount and terms depend entirely on the provider’s underwriting and your qualifications. Nothing here is financial advice.