Generally, a minimum credit score of 620, an annual revenue above $100,000, and at least two years in business is required to qualify for a traditional term loan.

If you’re an extremely qualified borrower, then the best lender for you to work with is a traditional bank lender.

However, if you don’t qualify for a bank loan just yet, a medium-term loan offered by an online lender like Funding Circle, Lending Club, or Fundation would be a good fit. All three offer similarly large loans structured like bank loans but are slightly easier to qualify for.

As we mentioned before, qualifying for an SBA loan can be challenging. Generally, lenders will want to see an annual business revenue over $180,000, at least a 680 credit score, and four years of business history on the books.

SBA loans are not actually offered by the Small Business Administration. Instead, they’re offered by SBA-approved lenders. SBA lenders are typically traditional banks who’ve partnered with the SBA.

To qualify for equipment financing, you’ll need annual revenues exceeding $130,000, a minimum credit score of 630, and about two years of business history on the books.

Traditional banks typically offer an equipment financing option.

However, these will be more complicated and harder to qualify for. You could also pursue alternative equipment lenders, like Direct Capital and Funding Circle.

Another option is to look for lenders specializing in financing the specific type of equipment you’re purchasing. This is a good option specifically for vehicle and truck financing.

Qualifying for a business line of credit requires having annual revenues in excess of $180,000, having a minimum 630 credit score, and have at least one year of time in business.

Business lines of credit are traditionally offered by commercial banks. However, like term loans, these bank loans can be very hard to qualify for.

Another option is to pursue alternative, accessible, and shorter-term lines of credit from lenders like Kabbage or OnDeck. These two companies work well for businesses that don’t qualify for many other financing options.

A short-term loan is generally easier to qualify for than a longer-term loan. Lenders will want to see annual revenues of at least $150,000, a 600 credit score, and over two years of business history.

Almost all short-term lenders are online, non-bank lenders.

They generally work with riskier borrowers and use technology to underwrite their loans, so you can expect short-term lenders to be accessible and fast. One of the best in the space is Direct Capital.

To qualify for a merchant cash advance, you’ll only need a credit score of 550 or higher. However, some financing companies will want to see revenues upward of $180,000, and at least two years in business.

Like short-term loans, MCAs are only offered by online financing companies.

There are many merchant cash advance companies out there, and some of them offer ridiculously high rates. Be sure to compare your options fully before working with the first MCA provider you come across. Two companies we recommend are CAN Capital and Rapid Finance.

To get invoice financing, you need just $130,000 in annual business revenues, a 600 credit score, and one year of business history.

The invoice factoring companies are typically non-bank lenders that you can apply to online, like Fundbox and BlueVine.

These companies are really only concerned with the terms of your outstanding invoices, so they’ll mainly look at those details during the loan underwriting process. With online, streamlined applications, you can typically be approved within the same day you apply.

You might have just started your business with you and a few employees. As your business grows, you’ll inevitably need to continue to grow your team. You’ll get busier, and you’ll need to keep up with increasing demand.

If you don’t have the capital on hand to pay for top-notch employees, you could consider using business expansion loans to afford payroll right off the bat. This is only a good idea when you’re confident that adding staff and employees will contribute significantly to your revenue. This way, you’ll know that you can pay off the business expansion loan and not continue to take on debt to meet payroll in the future.

Nailed your first trial in your current market? Your first product launch in one market might have been so successful that branching out to a new one is a no-brainer.

New market expansion is a common use for business expansion loans. This makes sense to take on when you know there’s significant revenue-earning potential in a market that you’re ready to tap into.

You might have just started off with one product, and made a killing selling it. Now, you can serve your customers even better by offering another product.

Expanding product lines and offering more and more types of products costs money, though. You’ll likely need to invest resources in research and development, and could have material costs, manufacturing costs, and so on. Business owners often afford the cost of product development with business expansion loans.

Business expansion loans might help you literally expand your business.

When you’ve outgrown your current storefront and need another, you might pursue commercial property loans.

You might only need to renovate your current space to bring it to the next level. This can still be an expensive undertaking, and business expansion loans can help you cover your construction bills.

A common way to expand a business is by buying new equipment and machinery. You might need new delivery vans, commercial trucks, ovens, forklifts, and so on.

These pieces of equipment that you’ll continue to need more of as you grow are expensive.

Business expansion loans, namely equipment loans, can help you meet your equipment goals.