PayPal, Stripe, Square, Shopify, Amazon, SumUp, Dojo, Teya: they can all offer you a lump sum against your future sales, often with no application and money in days. The mechanics are the same everywhere, so learn the model once and you can judge any offer.
The provider already sees your takings, so there is no application in the normal sense. After a few months of history an offer appears in your dashboard: a lump sum for one fixed fee. Instead of monthly instalments, the provider keeps a set percentage of every sale until the advance plus fee is repaid. Busy week, you repay faster. Quiet week, you repay less. Most still have a backstop minimum, for example PayPal wants at least 5% or 10% of the total every 90 days and Square wants one eighteenth every 60 days.
The trap is the cost. A fixed fee has no clock, so the faster you repay, the higher the true annual rate. A £10,000 advance with a £1,300 fee cleared in four months is roughly 40% a year, not the 13% the fee suggests. And behind the logos the market is more concentrated than it looks: YouLend is the named UK funding partner for Stripe Capital, Shopify Capital, Dojo and Teya (with Liberis), and one of Amazon's two UK partners. SumUp's UK advance is its own, and PayPal Working Capital is PayPal's own. Compare the pound cost, not the logo.
Rough guide only. It assumes steady sales. It is not an APR and not advice; the real figure depends on how your sales actually land.
The lender behind many big-name platform advances. One fixed fee, repaid automatically as a slice of every sale.
A cash advance against future PayPal sales, repaid automatically as a slice of every sale, with one fixed fee.
Fixed-fee advance for Stripe users, funded by YouLend. Offer-based, so you cannot apply, only accept.
An invitation-only flat-fee loan for Square sellers, repaid automatically from a slice of daily card sales.
An invite-only cash advance for Shopify stores, repaid from a slice of daily sales and issued by YouLend.
Funding offers for Amazon.co.uk sellers inside Seller Central, £500 to £5m, lent by TradeBridge and YouLend.
Cash advances built into SumUp, Dojo and Teya card terminals, repaid as a fixed slice of card takings.