Merchant cash advances are priced with a factor rate — a multiplier, not an interest rate. Understanding the difference is the single most useful thing you can do before comparing offers.
Advance amount × factor rate = total remittance. A $50,000 advance at a 1.25 factor means you remit $62,500 in total. The cost — $12,500 — is fixed the moment you sign, regardless of how long remittance takes.
Factor rates are usually quoted between roughly 1.1 and 1.5. The distance between them is larger than it looks. On that same $50,000, a 1.15 factor costs $7,500 while a 1.4 factor costs $20,000 — a $12,500 swing hiding behind two numbers that differ by a quarter of a point. Always convert the factor to dollars before you compare anything, because the dollar figure is the only number that behaves consistently across offers.
Say a restaurant takes $50,000 at a 1.25 factor, remitting 10% of daily card sales. Total remittance is $62,500. At $4,000 of card sales a day, roughly $400 goes out daily, and the advance completes in about 156 selling days — a little over five months.
Now suppose the slow season arrives and daily sales fall to $2,500. The remittance drops to about $250 a day automatically. The business is not in default and has not missed anything; the term simply stretches. That self-adjusting quality is the actual product being sold, and it is why the arrangement is structured as a purchase of receivables rather than a loan.
Interest accrues over time; a factor rate does not. If sales are strong and you remit the full amount in six months, the dollar cost is the same as if it took fourteen. That is why converting a factor rate to an "equivalent APR" produces numbers that look dramatic but do not change the dollars — the faster you remit, the higher the implied APR, yet the cost in dollars is identical. Compare offers in total dollars repaid and in how the remittance schedule fits your cash flow.
This cuts in an uncomfortable direction too. Because the cost is fixed at signing, strong sales do not save you money — they just get you to the finish line sooner. On an interest-bearing loan, paying early genuinely reduces what you owe. On an advance, unless the agreement includes an explicit early-remittance discount, it does not. If you expect a strong stretch and want that upside, a term loan or line of credit may serve you better, and it is a fair question to put to whoever is quoting you.
The factor rate does not always capture the full cost. Fees are charged separately and can move the real number materially, so ask for them in writing:
A $50,000 advance with a 3% origination fee puts $48,500 in your account while you still remit against the full $50,000. Your effective cost rose without the factor rate changing at all. Ask for the net amount funded and the total remitted, then judge the gap between them.
If your agreement remits a percentage of sales but debits a fixed daily amount, look for the reconciliation clause. It is the mechanism that trues up the fixed debit against your actual sales when revenue falls — the thing that makes a percentage-of-sales product behave the way it was described to you.
Find out how reconciliation is requested, how often it can be requested, what documentation is required, and how quickly adjustments take effect. A product sold on flexibility with a burdensome or discretionary reconciliation process is not delivering the flexibility you are paying for.
Taking a second advance on top of an active one — stacking — means two remittances against the same daily sales, and it is the most common way a manageable advance turns unmanageable. Most agreements restrict it, and violating that clause can trigger a default.
Renewals deserve equal care. Being offered more capital partway through often means the existing balance is rolled into the new advance, with the unpaid cost carried forward. Ask specifically what portion of the new advance retires the old balance and what actually reaches your account.
Several states, including California, New York, Utah, and Virginia, now require commercial financing providers to give standardized cost disclosures before signing. If you are in one of them, you will receive a disclosure that lays out the total cost — read it side by side with any competing offer.
These rules differ by state and continue to change, so treat this as a prompt to ask rather than a statement of what applies to you. If you did not receive a disclosure and believe your state requires one, ask for it before signing.
A factor rate is a fixed price, not a rate that accrues. Judge an MCA by total dollars repaid, the daily remittance's fit with your revenue, and the fine print on fees — not by an APR conversion that assumes it behaves like a loan.
Used deliberately, for a purpose with a return that outruns the cost, an advance is a reasonable tool. Used to paper over a shortfall that keeps recurring, it compounds the underlying problem. The math above tells you the price; only your own numbers tell you whether it is worth paying.
