Last updated: 12 October 2026 · Schedule-based APR checked against a published worked example
Merchant Cash Advance Calculator: Factor Rate to Real APR
Find the True Cost of an MCA Offer
Enter the advance and one or two offers. The payback, schedule, and APR update live. Nothing leaves your device.
The Advance
Offers
Offer A
Offer B (optional)
An offer is included once it has a factor rate above 1.00 and a way of working out the payments. Upfront fees are deducted from the advance, so you receive less cash than the headline figure while the payback stays the same.
Offer Comparison
Simple annualised = (cost ÷ net cash) × (365 ÷ days). Schedule-based APR solves the periodic rate that makes your payments worth the net cash, then multiplies by the payments per year (260, 365, or 52).
Quick answer: A merchant cash advance is repaid as advance × factor rate. Factor rates are commonly reported between about 1.1 and 1.5, so a $50,000 advance at 1.30 means $65,000 back, a $15,000 cost. That 30% is not an annual rate. Because you repay a little every business day, the true annual cost is much higher: at $300 a day over 217 payments the simple annualised cost is 35.9%, but the payment-schedule APR is 65.7%. Enter up to two offers above to see both figures, the cost per dollar received, and which offer is cheaper in dollars versus in APR.
- Cost: Free, unlimited offers, no signup, no watermark.
- Where it runs: 100% in your browser, nothing is uploaded.
- Two APR measures: simple annualised and payment-schedule-based, side by side.
- Three repayment models: fixed payment, percentage of sales, or term in days.
- Compares two offers: lowest dollar cost and lowest APR are identified separately.
- US and UK: dollars or pounds, daily or weekly payments.
Calculation Aid, Not Financial Advice: Your funding agreement governs what you actually pay. Check fees, renewal terms, and early-payoff terms that this calculator does not model.
Ranges Vary: The factor-rate, holdback, and APR ranges quoted here are commonly reported figures. Your own offer is what matters.
Estimates for Sales-Based Payments: If payments are a percentage of sales, real payments rise and fall with your sales. The calculator assumes your average stays constant.
Privacy: Your figures are processed locally and never uploaded or stored.
Why Do MCA Calculators Give Different APRs?
Look up the same offer on three calculators and you can get three different annual rates. The factor rate fixes the dollar cost, but turning that cost into an annual percentage needs an assumption about how long you hold the money, and the calculators make different ones.
| Method | What it assumes | $50,000 at 1.30, $300 a day |
|---|---|---|
| Factor-rate cost | Nothing, it is not annual | 30.0% of the advance |
| Simple annualised | You hold the whole advance for the whole period | 35.94% |
| Payment-schedule APR | Your balance falls with every payment | 65.73% |
217 payments (216 of $300 and a final $200) over about 305 calendar days at five payments a week. The schedule-based figure matches an independently published calculation of the same example.
You do not hold the full advance for the full period. After the first payment you owe slightly less, and by the middle of the term you owe about half. The same dollar cost is therefore being paid on a smaller and smaller balance, which is why the schedule-based APR is the higher and more honest number for comparing against a loan. The simple method is only accurate if you repay everything in a single lump sum at the end. A common published example shows the gap: a $100,000 advance at 1.25 repaid over 180 days is 50.69% simple, but 93.67% when the repayment is spread into equal daily payments.
How to Calculate the True Cost of a Merchant Cash Advance
Enter the Advance
The headline amount and how often payments are taken.
Enter the Offer
Factor rate, upfront fees, and how it is repaid.
Add a Second Offer
Optionally compare a competing quote.
Compare and Save
Read cost and APR, then download the PDF.
Your Figures Never Leave Your Device
Every calculation and the PDF comparison are produced by JavaScript running in your browser tab. There is no upload, no account, and no server that ever sees your advance amount or offers.
Merchant Cash Advance Calculator: Complete Guide
A merchant cash advance (MCA) is not a loan. A funder pays you a lump sum now and takes a fixed amount of your future sales in return, usually through daily or weekly debits or a share of your card sales. Because it is priced with a factor rate rather than interest, the true annual cost is hard to see, which is what this calculator is for. If your funding need is tied to unpaid customer invoices, an invoice factoring calculator does the equivalent job for that product, and a promissory note is the usual paperwork for a straightforward private loan.
How the Numbers Work
| Item | Formula |
|---|---|
| Total payback | Advance × factor rate |
| Net cash received | Advance − upfront fees |
| Cost of the advance | Payback − net cash received |
| Cost per $1 received | Cost ÷ net cash received |
| Payment (percentage of sales) | Average sales × holdback % |
| Number of payments | Payback ÷ payment, rounded up (the last payment is smaller) |
Faster Repayment Means a Higher APR
The factor rate fixes the payback, so repaying sooner does not usually save you money - it only squeezes the same cost into a shorter time. Here is a $50,000 advance at 1.30 with no fees, repaid in equal payments five days a week:
| Repaid Over | Payment | Simple Annualised | Schedule-Based APR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 90 days | $1,015.63 | 121.67% | 220.54% |
| 180 days | $507.81 | 60.83% | 110.97% |
| 270 days | $338.54 | 40.56% | 74.14% |
| 365 days | $250.00 | 30.00% | 54.81% |
Every row costs exactly $15,000. Only the speed changes, and the APR with it.
Cheaper in Dollars, Costlier in APR
The sample offers in the calculator show a trap. Offer A is a 1.30 factor with no fees at $300 a day. Offer B is a lower 1.25 factor with $1,500 of upfront fees at $350 a day.
| Offer A | Offer B | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost in dollars | $15,000 | $14,000 |
| Cost per $1 received | $0.300 | $0.289 |
| Repayment time | About 305 days | About 251 days |
| Schedule-based APR | 65.73% | 76.90% |
Offer B costs $1,000 less overall but has the higher APR, because it is repaid about two months sooner. Which is better depends on what you need: the lowest total payback, or the cheapest use of the money per day it is outstanding. The calculator reports both so the choice is yours.
What to Ask Before You Sign
- Are origination or underwriting fees deducted from the advance?
- Are there administration, processing, or ACH fees on top?
- Is the payment fixed, or a percentage of sales that can change?
- Does repaying early earn any discount on the payback?
- What are the renewal or reload terms?
If you are unsure what a fee does to the cost, put it into the upfront fees box and watch the net cash and APR move. Invoice-based funding works differently, so see the invoice factoring calculator if you are comparing both.
Commonly Reported Ranges
| Item | Commonly Reported Range |
|---|---|
| Factor rate | About 1.1 to 1.5 |
| Repayment period | About 4 to 12 months |
| Holdback (share of card sales) | About 10% to 20% |
| Annualised cost | About 40% to well over 100% |
These are commonly reported figures from industry publications and vary by funder, industry, and risk. Use the numbers in your own offer.
How This Calculator Actually Works
The calculator multiplies the advance by the factor rate for the payback and subtracts any upfront fees from the advance for the net cash you receive. It then builds the payment schedule from whichever repayment model you choose: a fixed payment, a holdback percentage of your average sales, or a term in days converted into equal payments. The number of payments is the payback divided by the payment, rounded up, with a smaller final payment. The simple annualised cost divides the cost by the net cash and scales it by 365 over the repayment days. The schedule-based APR finds the periodic rate that makes the present value of every payment equal the net cash, using a bisection search, and multiplies it by the payments per year. Both figures, the dollar cost, and the lowest of each across your offers are shown. The PDF is drawn locally with jsPDF and jsPDF-AutoTable. Nothing ever touches a server.
Security and Privacy Considerations
- No Data Upload: Every figure you enter stays on your device.
- No Server Processing: Calculation and PDF generation run as client-side JavaScript.
- No Account Needed: No login and no usage cap.
Browser Compatibility and Technical Requirements
This calculator works in modern browsers that support JavaScript and Blob downloads.
- Chrome and Edge 76+
- Firefox 55+
- Safari 13.1+
- Mobile Chrome (Android) and Mobile Safari (iOS)
Troubleshooting Common Issues
Explanation: An offer needs a factor rate above 1.00 and a way to work out payments (a payment amount, a sales figure and holdback, or a term in days). Solution: Complete those fields for that offer.
Explanation: The payment is so small that more than 3,650 payments would be needed. Solution: Check the payment amount, or the sales and holdback figures.
Explanation: Many calculators show a simple annualised figure, which assumes you hold the full advance for the whole term. Solution: Compare it with the simple annualised row, and use the schedule-based APR for a like-for-like comparison with a loan.
Explanation: Net cash received would be zero or negative, so no cost can be calculated. Solution: Check the upfront fees amount.
Frequently Asked Technical Questions
Question 1: What builds the PDF?
Answer: jsPDF, a widely used open-source JavaScript library, with its jsPDF-AutoTable plugin for the comparison table, both loaded in your browser.
Question 2: How is the schedule-based APR solved?
Answer: It searches for the periodic rate at which the discounted value of every payment equals the net cash received, then multiplies by the number of payments per year. This is a nominal APR, not a compounded annual rate.
Question 3: Why 260 payments a year for five-day payments?
Answer: Five payments a week for 52 weeks is 260. Seven days a week uses 365 and weekly payments use 52.
Question 4: What happens to the final payment?
Answer: If the payback does not divide evenly into the payment, the last payment is smaller, which is what happens in practice when a balance is paid off.
Question 5: Does it need an account, server, or API key?
Answer: No. It runs as ordinary JavaScript already loaded by this page.
Glossary of Terms
- Factor Rate
- A fixed multiplier applied once to the advance to set the total repayment, for example 1.30.
- Payback Amount
- The total the business repays, equal to the advance multiplied by the factor rate.
- Holdback
- The percentage of daily or weekly card sales remitted to the funder as repayment.
- Net Cash Received
- The advance minus any upfront fees deducted by the funder.
- Payment-Schedule APR
- The annual rate that makes the actual scheduled payments worth the net cash received.
Frequently Asked Questions
Multiply the advance amount by the factor rate. A $50,000 advance at a 1.30 factor rate means $65,000 back in total, a cost of $15,000. If upfront fees are deducted from the advance, the cost is the payback minus the cash you actually receive.
A factor rate is a fixed multiplier applied once to the advance to set the total repayment. Commonly reported factor rates run from about 1.1 to 1.5. It is not an interest rate and does not compound.
There are two common methods. The simple method is (cost ÷ cash received) × (365 ÷ days) and treats the whole advance as outstanding for the whole period. The payment-schedule method solves for the rate that makes your actual daily or weekly payments worth the cash received, and is higher because the balance falls as you repay.
They use different methods. On a $50,000 advance at a 1.30 factor repaid at $300 a day over 217 payments, the simple annualised cost is 35.9% while the payment-schedule APR is 65.7%. This calculator shows both.
The cost is fixed up front and repaid in small daily or weekly amounts over a short period, so the annualised figure is large. Commonly reported APRs for merchant cash advances run from about 40% to well over 100%, depending on the factor rate and how fast it is repaid.
The holdback is the share of your daily or weekly card sales that goes to the funder as repayment. Commonly reported holdbacks run from about 10% to 20%. The payment is the holdback percentage multiplied by your sales.
Usually not. The payback is fixed by the factor rate however quickly you repay, unless your contract offers an early-payoff discount. Repaying faster raises the effective APR but not the dollar cost.
Yes. A lower factor rate that is repaid faster, or that comes with upfront fees, can have a higher APR even though it costs less in dollars. This calculator shows both the dollar cost and the APR so you can see the trade-off.
Upfront or origination fees are usually deducted from the advance, so you receive less cash than the headline amount while the payback stays the same. This calculator measures the cost and the APR against the net cash you actually receive.
No. Everything is calculated in your browser using JavaScript, and the PDF is generated locally. Nothing is uploaded or stored.
Final Thoughts
A factor rate tells you the dollar cost but hides the speed, and speed is what drives the annual rate. Enter your offers above, compare the schedule-based APR alongside the dollar cost, and read your agreement for the fees and terms a calculator cannot see.