Revenue is real. Cash in the account isn't.
Profitable on paper, tight in the checking account. Marketplace payout schedules, inventory prepayments, and growth itself all conspire to keep your money everywhere except where you can use it.
The faster you grow, the tighter it gets
Ecommerce cash flow has a cruel structure: you pay for inventory months before you sell it, platforms hold your revenue for weeks after you earn it, and every growth spurt means buying more inventory sooner. A business doubling year over year can be simultaneously thriving and unable to make payroll in the same week a payout is pending.
The standard advice — 'keep three months of expenses in reserve' — was written by someone who never had to wire a supplier 30% down on a container while Amazon held two weeks of revenue in reserve against returns.
What this situation needs isn't a pile of borrowed cash sitting in the account collecting interest charges. It's standby capacity: a facility you draw when the gap opens and repay when the payout lands, costing you nothing in between.
The structures that fit this moment
Honest pros and cons — none of these is right for everyone.Line of credit
The right default for timing gaps: draw against it when outflows cluster, clear it when revenue lands, pay interest only on days you actually used it.
- Cheapest way to hold dry powder — pay only for what you draw
- Reusable: repay and the capital is available again
- Bank lines build a lending relationship that compounds over years
- –Bank lines want 2+ years of history and clean financials
- –Limits are often lower than what a big inventory buy needs
- –Variable rates move with the market — budget for the top of the range
Revenue-based financing
When the gap is bigger than a line covers — or you can't get a bank line yet — capital repaid in step with your sales keeps payments survivable in slow months.
- Payments scale down when sales dip — no fixed monthly cliff
- No dilution, no board seat, no personal real-estate collateral
- Underwritten on store performance, not just your credit file
- –Flat fees can work out more expensive than a bank line if you repay fast
- –Remittance comes off the top of revenue — model it against your margins
- –Renewals are easy to fall into; treat each one as a new decision
What lenders will actually look at
No mystery underwriting. This is the review, in the open — so you know where you stand before anyone else does.
The questions sellers actually ask
Isn't borrowing for cash flow a red flag?+
Borrowing to cover losses is. Borrowing to bridge a timing gap in a profitable business is just working capital — it's what the entire commercial banking industry was built on. The review process will make clear which one you are, and we'll be straight with you about it.
How big a line can I get?+
Rule of thumb: 1–2 months of revenue for fintech lines, sometimes more from banks with strong financials. A $2M/year business typically sees $150K–$350K limits.
This is urgent — I have payroll in two weeks. Can you help?+
Possibly — some lenders in our network fund in 2–5 days. But urgency is exactly when bad capital gets signed, and we'd rather tell you that than exploit it. If the only options in your window are ones we wouldn't take ourselves, we'll say so.
Why not just use the MCA offers already in my inbox?+
Because daily debits sized to someone else's optimism are how tight months become fatal ones. MCAs solve this week by mortgaging every week after it. We don't broker them, full stop — the structures above solve the same gap without the spiral.
Will applying hurt my credit?+
Getting matched through us involves no credit pull at all. When you move forward with a specific lender, most start with a soft pull; a hard inquiry typically only happens at final underwriting, with your explicit go-ahead.
See which lenders fit this exact situation.
Five minutes to a matched shortlist. No credit pull, no obligation.