Amazon Lending: how it works and what it costs
Funding offers for Amazon.co.uk sellers inside Seller Central, £500 to £5m, lent by TradeBridge and YouLend.
How it works
Amazon Lending is not a lender you can walk up to. It is a programme where funding offers from Amazon's partners appear inside Seller Central for certain Amazon.co.uk sellers. If Amazon judges your business eligible, the offer shows up in your account. Amazon says eligible businesses could receive £500 to £5m.
Two partners do the actual lending. TradeBridge provides term loans, which Amazon says are repaid in "fixed, equal, monthly instalments (principal and APR)". That is the familiar shape: borrow a lump sum, pay the same amount each month until it is cleared. YouLend provides the merchant cash advance, the flexible financing line and the revolving financing line. These are priced with a "one-time fixed fee", and Amazon says there are "no additional fees or interest charged".
Repaying the advance works differently from a loan. In Amazon's words, "Repayments are automatically collected via a variable Direct Debit, based on a pre-agreed percentage of your business sales" and "There is no fixed term, repayments are tied to future sales revenue." Sell a lot this month and a bigger chunk goes out. Have a quiet month and less goes out. The debt shrinks at the speed your sales do.
The fixed fee needs translating, because a fee only makes sense next to time. Take an illustration, not an Amazon price: borrow £10,000 with a £1,000 fixed fee and you repay £11,000, full stop. If strong sales clear it in six months, you have paid £1,000 to hold £10,000 for half a year. That is close to 20% a year, and the true rate is higher still because you are not holding the full £10,000 for the whole six months. Same fee, very different real cost depending on how fast you repay. Our guide to the true cost of merchant cash advances walks through this in detail.
On eligibility, Amazon publishes no minimum revenue or trading time. It says it looks for "sellers who have a proven track record of growing sales". In practice the assessment happens before you know about it. Amazon looks at your selling record, and the first you hear is the offer in Seller Central. If there is no offer in your account, there is nothing to apply for.
What it really costs
At the time of checking, the Amazon Lending programme page shows no rates, no fees and no representative example. The only way to see a price is to have an offer in Seller Central. What Amazon does say is how each product is shaped. The TradeBridge term loans are repaid in "fixed, equal, monthly instalments (principal and APR)". The YouLend products carry a "one-time fixed fee" with "no additional fees or interest charged".
"No additional fees or interest" sounds gentle, but it simply means the whole cost sits in the one fee, agreed up front. That fee does not shrink if your sales clear the balance quickly. The faster you repay, the higher the cost works out per year of borrowing. A term loan is the opposite shape: the APR tells you the yearly cost directly, and the instalments stay the same every month.
The number that makes any offer judgeable is the total you will repay in pounds. For the advance, the percentage of sales the Direct Debit will take matters too, because that decides how much cash leaves your account in a good month. That pound cost only means something next to a quote from a lender you can approach directly. If Amazon's offer wins on price, fine. Sometimes captive-audience offers do not.
Who can apply
- You sell on Amazon.co.uk. This is funding for Amazon sellers only.
- Amazon says it evaluates "sellers who have a proven track record of growing sales". No minimum trading time or revenue figure is published.
- It is offer-based. Funding offers appear in your Seller Central account when Amazon judges your business eligible.
- Amounts run from £500 to £5m, so both small and large sellers can be in scope.
Good for
- Amazon sellers who want funding assessed on their sales record, without a bank-style application.
- Sellers who want repayments that flex with revenue. The advance has no fixed term and collections track your sales.
- Sellers who prefer a predictable loan shape. The TradeBridge term loans have fixed, equal monthly instalments.
- Businesses at either end of the size range. Offers run from £500 up to £5m.
Watch out for
- It deepens your dependency on Amazon. Your sales, your funding and your repayments all run through one platform, and the repayments come straight off the same sales Amazon controls your access to.
- No pricing is published in advance, at the time of checking. You cannot shop the rate ahead of an offer, you can only judge the offer that appears. A direct quote from another lender gives you something to judge it against.
- The fixed fee on the advance never shrinks. Repay fast through strong sales and the yearly cost quietly climbs.
- The variable Direct Debit takes a pre-agreed percentage of sales. A bumper month means a bumper collection, right when you may want that cash for stock.
- You cannot apply when you need it. Offers appear on Amazon's timetable, not yours.
How Amazon Lending compares
The advance side of Amazon Lending is YouLend money in Amazon packaging, so the useful comparison is not another marketplace but a plain term loan you can price in advance. Holding the pound cost of Amazon's offer against a term loan quote from a lender such as iwoca or Fleximize shows whether the offer in Seller Central is good value. Amazon's price only appears when an offer does, so an outside quote is the only yardstick available before then.
Put Amazon Lending side by side with another lender →
Common questions
How do I apply for Amazon Lending?
You cannot apply in the usual sense. Amazon Lending is offer-based, and offers appear inside your Seller Central account when Amazon judges your business eligible. Amazon says it evaluates sellers with a proven track record of growing sales. If there is no offer in your account, the product is not currently available to you.
Who actually lends the money?
Amazon brokers the funding but does not lend it. TradeBridge provides the term loans, repaid in fixed, equal monthly instalments covering principal and APR. YouLend provides the merchant cash advance, the flexible financing line and the revolving financing line, each priced with a one-time fixed fee.
How are repayments collected on the advance?
Amazon says repayments are automatically collected via a variable Direct Debit, based on a pre-agreed percentage of your business sales. There is no fixed term. When sales rise the collection rises, and when sales dip it falls.
Does repaying early save money?
On the YouLend products, no. The one-time fixed fee is set at the start, so the pounds you repay stay the same however fast your sales clear the balance. Repaying quickly actually pushes the yearly cost up. At the time of checking, Amazon has not published early-repayment terms for the TradeBridge term loans, so that is a question for the lender before signing.
Will I need a personal guarantee?
Amazon's programme page does not say, at the time of checking. Personal guarantees are common in unsecured business lending, so it is a fair question to put to TradeBridge or YouLend before accepting an offer, and worth having answered in writing.
Is Amazon Lending regulated by the FCA?
This is business funding, not regulated consumer credit, so the protections that come with consumer borrowing do not apply. Amazon acts as the broker, and its partners TradeBridge and YouLend are the lenders.
Regulation and status
Amazon Lending is business funding, not regulated consumer credit. Amazon acts as the broker, and its partners TradeBridge and YouLend are the lenders.
FundSpeed has no commercial relationship with Amazon Lending, TradeBridge or YouLend, and earns nothing if you take an offer. That never changes what we write. Facts checked on 7 September 2026 against the sources below. Spotted a change? Tell us and we will fix it.