In short
A merchant cash advance (MCA) offer comes down to four numbers: what you actually receive, what you repay in total, the size of each payment and how long the payments run. This calculator works them out from any offer, adds the cost per dollar received and an annual rate equivalent, and can put a second offer next to the first.
MCA calculator: type in an offer
Type in the numbers from a written offer and the result updates as you go. The starting numbers are the worked example further down; replace them with your own. Nothing you type is stored or sent anywhere.
The offer
Count every fee deducted from the funding before it reaches your account. Clear the field if nothing is deducted.
Type either one. The other fills in.
Changing this keeps the number of payments, so the length changes.
Type either one. If the payment is a share of sales, use the estimate on the offer.
What the offer works out to
You receive $39,000 and repay $52,000 at $1,000 a week, which works out to about 59.7% a year.
| Amount you actually receive | $39,000 |
|---|---|
| Total you repay | $52,000 |
| Cost in dollars | $13,000 |
| Cost per dollar received | 33.3 cents |
| Each payment | $1,000 a week |
| How long you are paying | 52 weeks, about 12 months |
| Annual rate equivalent | 59.7% |
Worked out from the numbers typed above and nothing else. The annual figure is a comparison figure: it assumes equal payments on a fixed schedule.
No offer in hand yet? Answer eight short questions and a real advisor at Clearwater Capital Group reads them. No hard credit pull to apply.
Check my optionsA worked example with round numbers
Take $40,000 funded at a 1.30 factor rate, with a $1,000 fee taken out and 52 weekly payments. You receive $39,000 and repay $52,000 at $1,000 a week. The cost is $13,000, or 33.3 cents for every dollar received, which works out to about 59.7% a year.
| Line | Figure |
|---|---|
| Typed in | |
| Amount funded | $40,000 |
| Fees taken out | $1,000 |
| Factor rate | 1.30 |
| Payments | 52, weekly |
| Worked out | |
| Amount you actually receive | $39,000 |
| Total you repay | $52,000 |
| Cost in dollars | $13,000 |
| Cost per dollar received | 33.3 cents |
| Each payment | $1,000 a week |
| How long you are paying | 52 weeks, about 12 months |
| Annual rate equivalent | 59.7% |
Scroll sideways to see every column.
Round numbers chosen to make the arithmetic easy to follow. This is an illustration: it is not an offer, and it is not a typical deal.
Why 33.3 cents on the dollar becomes 59.7% a year
The payments in this example last exactly one year, yet the annual figure is far above 33.3 cents on the dollar. The reason is timing. You do not hold the $39,000 for a year. You begin handing it back in the first week, so the amount still in your hands falls with every payment while the cost was fixed on day one. The annual rate equivalent measures the cost against what you still hold, week by week.
How each result is worked out
Every result is plain arithmetic on the numbers you type. Here is each one in words, with the worked example's figures in place.
Amount you actually receive
The amount funded minus every fee taken out before the funding reaches your account. In the example, $40,000 minus $1,000 is $39,000. Every cost figure on this page is measured against this number, because it is the part you can actually use.
Total you repay
The amount funded multiplied by the factor rate. In the example, $40,000 x 1.30 is $52,000. This is the payback amount in the contract. It is set on day one and does not grow if the payments take longer than planned.
Factor rate: how to calculate it from the payback
The total payback divided by the amount funded. In the example, $52,000 divided by $40,000 is 1.30, which means $1.30 is repaid for every $1 funded, before any fee is counted. If your offer states the payback and not the factor rate, type the payback, and the calculator finds the factor rate by dividing.
Cost in dollars
The total you repay minus the amount you actually receive. In the example, $52,000 minus $39,000 is $13,000: $12,000 from the factor rate plus the $1,000 fee. The fee counts as cost because you repay the full $52,000 even though the fee never reached your account. A Florida disclosure draws the line elsewhere: its total dollar cost is the total to be paid minus the funds provided, before fees come out (section 559.9613, Florida Statutes), which in the example would read $12,000.
Cost per dollar received
The cost in dollars divided by the amount you actually receive. In the example, $13,000 divided by $39,000 is 33.3 cents for each dollar that reached the account. This figure has no time in it. Time is what the annual figure adds.
Each payment
The total you repay divided by the number of payments. In the example, $52,000 divided by 52 is $1,000 a week. If you type the payment instead, the calculator divides the other way and shows how many payments it takes. A count that is not a whole number means the last payment is a partial one. A daily payment is worked out the same way: a payback of $65,000 over 126 business days is $515.87 each business day.
How long you are paying
The number of payments turned into weeks and months, at 252 business days, 52 weeks or 12 months to a year. In the example, 52 weekly payments are 52 weeks, about 12 months. A schedule of 126 payments taken each business day is 26 weeks, about 6 months.
Annual rate equivalent
The periodic rate that discounts all the payments back to the amount you actually receive, multiplied by the number of payment periods in a year: 252 for business-day payments, 52 for weekly, 12 for monthly. In the example, 52 payments of $1,000 are worth $39,000 on day one at a rate of 1.1473% a week, and 1.1473% x 52 is 59.7%.
It is a comparison figure. An advance is a purchase of future receivables with a factor rate and a payback amount. It is not a loan with an interest rate, and it has no fixed term. So read the result as "works out to about 59.7% a year" and use it to hold one offer against another, or against a loan quote.
Next to a published estimate
A December 2019 Federal Reserve Board report, Uncertain Terms, gives one factor rate case with an estimate: a 1.15 factor rate on $50,000, a 2.5% set-up fee and a $50 monthly fee, a total repayment of $59,000, steady payments 5 days a week, repaid in 6 months. The report puts that product at about 70% APR and does not show its working. Typed into this calculator, the same case returns between 65.6% and 70.1%. The spread comes from two things the report leaves open: whether the fees come out of the $50,000 or are part of what is repaid, and whether 6 months holds 126 payments or 130. For the first reading this page takes $1,550 out of the funding: the set-up fee and 6 monthly fees. For the second it uses the total the report states, $59,000, and adds nothing to it. How the monthly fee is counted in that total is the report's own treatment.
What the calculator cannot know
The calculator knows only what you type. Four things that change the real cost are usually not on the first page of an offer: fees charged later, whether a share-of-sales payment runs ahead of or behind its estimate, what happens if you pay early, and what a funder would offer you in the first place.
Fees that are not on the offer
The fees field covers what is deducted from the funding. A contract can also charge fees afterward, such as a monthly administrative fee or a fee for a returned payment, and those sit in the contract, not in the offer summary. Those later fees are not taken out of the funding, so add them to the total payback instead: type the payback plus the fees. In the Federal Reserve Board report's case above, a 2.5% set-up fee and a $50 monthly fee are part of what takes a 1.15 factor rate to its estimate of about 70%. With no fees at all, the same factor rate over 6 months of business-day payments works out to 56.9%. Clearwater's guide on how to read a merchant cash advance contract goes through the clauses where fees sit.
Whether a split of sales runs faster or slower than the estimate
Where an advance is collected as a set percentage of sales, the payment and the number of payments on the offer are estimates. The total you repay does not change. The time does. If sales run ahead of the estimate, you finish sooner and the annual figure is higher than the calculator shows. If they run behind, you are paying longer and the annual figure is lower. The dollars are the same either way.
To turn a holdback into a payment the calculator can take, multiply the sales it applies to by the percentage. Take the Federal Reserve Board report's example, $50,000 for $65,000 collected as 10% of daily card sales, and suppose card sales of $2,500 each business day, a round figure chosen here for illustration. The payment is $250, it takes 260 payments, or 53.7 weeks, about 12.4 months, and it works out to about 53.1% a year. With card sales a quarter higher, $3,125 a day, the payment is $312.50, the payments end after 208, and the same $15,000 works out to about 66.4% a year.
The Federal Reserve Board's 2019 report makes the same point: depending on the speed of repayment, it says, the equivalent annual percentage rate on a merchant cash advance may exceed 80% or reach triple digits. To see the range for your own offer, run it twice, once with fewer payments than the estimate and once with more.
What happens if you pay early
The calculator assumes you pay the full payback amount on schedule. Some contracts discount an early payoff and some do not, so ask for the prepayment terms in writing. Florida's commercial financing disclosure law makes a covered provider state in its written disclosure whether prepayment carries any costs or discounts (section 559.9613).
What a funder would offer you
The calculator prices an offer you already have. It cannot predict one. The Clearwater Published Requirements Check (November 2026) found that 5 of 9 national funding companies publish no factor rate range, starting rate or APR on their own websites. The price is on the written offer, which is why the calculator starts from one.
Costs that turn out higher than expected are common enough to show up in survey data. The Federal Reserve's 2025 Small Business Credit Survey found that 60% of firms that borrowed from online lenders said their actual borrowing costs were higher than expected, against 44% at finance companies, 37% at small banks, 32% at large banks and 31% at credit unions. The survey reports this by type of lender, not by product, and online lenders include, but are not limited to, merchant cash advance companies (Federal Reserve Banks, 2026 Report on Employer Firms).
How to compare two offers
Tick "Compare a second offer" in the calculator, type both offers in exactly as written, and read the lines in this order: what you receive, what you repay, what each payment takes, how long it runs, and the annual rate equivalent last.
- Amount you actually receive. Two offers with the same amount funded can put different amounts in your account once fees come out. If the amounts differ, the offers are for two different sizes of funding, so settle the amount first.
- Total you repay and cost in dollars. Both are fixed on day one. When the amounts received match, the offer with the smaller total costs fewer dollars, whatever its rate looks like.
- Each payment, and the average paid out per week. Hold these against what the business takes in during an ordinary week. The per-week line is the total you repay divided by the weeks you are paying, or by one week when the payments end sooner than that, which puts a daily schedule and a weekly schedule on the same footing. For daily payments it counts about 4.8 payments to a week, because business days skip bank holidays.
- How long you are paying. A longer schedule spreads the same total over more payments and keeps part of your receipts committed for longer.
- Annual rate equivalent. Use it to put offers of different lengths on one scale, and to hold either one against a quote for a loan or a line of credit, which is priced with an annual rate.
Here are the two example offers the calculator loads. Each one has $40,000 as the amount funded and a $1,000 fee.
| Line | Offer A | Offer B | Offer B against Offer A |
|---|---|---|---|
| Factor rate | 1.30 | 1.25 | |
| Payments | 52, weekly | 25, weekly | |
| Amount you actually receive | $39,000 | $39,000 | the same |
| Total you repay | $52,000 | $50,000 | $2,000 less |
| Cost in dollars | $13,000 | $11,000 | $2,000 less |
| Cost per dollar received | 33.3 cents | 28.2 cents | |
| Each payment | $1,000 a week | $2,000 a week | |
| How long you are paying | 52 weeks, about 12 months | 25 weeks, about 5.8 months | 27 weeks shorter |
| Paid out per week, on average | $1,000 | $2,000 | $1,000 more |
| Annual rate equivalent | 59.7% | 104.5% |
Scroll sideways to see every column.
Illustrations with round numbers, not offers. The last column is in dollars and weeks only; the two rate lines are left to be read side by side.
Offer B costs $2,000 less in dollars and is finished 27 weeks sooner. It also takes $2,000 a week against $1,000 a week, and its annual rate equivalent is 104.5% against 59.7%, because a similar cost falls due in far fewer weeks. No single line settles it. A business that can carry $2,000 a week pays fewer dollars with Offer B. One that cannot is choosing Offer A for the room it leaves each week, and paying $2,000 more for it.
Holding one offer and want to see what else you could qualify for? The application is eight short questions, read by a real advisor at Clearwater Capital Group. No hard credit pull to apply.
Check my optionsFactor rate to APR table: what each rate works out to a year
The same factor rate works out to a very different annual figure depending on how long the payments run. A 1.25 factor rate repaid over 6 months of business-day payments works out to about 92.2% a year. Over 18 months it works out to about 30.9% a year.
| Factor rate | You repay on $50,000 | Cost | 3 months (63 payments) | 6 months (126 payments) | 12 months (252 payments) | 18 months (378 payments) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.05 | $52,500 | $2,500 | 38.8% | 19.5% | 9.8% | 6.5% |
| 1.15 | $57,500 | $7,500 | 112.9% | 56.9% | 28.5% | 19.0% |
| 1.25 | $62,500 | $12,500 | 183.2% | 92.2% | 46.3% | 30.9% |
| 1.35 | $67,500 | $17,500 | 250.2% | 125.9% | 63.2% | 42.1% |
| 1.44 | $72,000 | $22,000 | 308.2% | 155.0% | 77.7% | 51.9% |
Scroll sideways to see every column.
Computed on this page with the method stated at the end of it: equal payments each business day, 21 to a month, no fees. The first and last rows are the ends of the factor range Clearwater Capital Group publishes for the advances it arranges, 1.05 to 1.44. Clearwater publishes a factor range, not which lengths go with which rates; no cell is a Clearwater rate. The rows are arithmetic, not offers and not typical deals.
Three things the table shows
- Length changes the annual figure and leaves the dollars alone. Along any row, doubling the length roughly divides the annual figure by two, while the total you repay does not move.
- The amount does not move it at all. With no fees, any amount at the same factor rate and length gives the same annual figure, because the amount cancels out of the arithmetic.
- Fees and payment frequency do. In the worked example, the $1,000 fee moves the annual figure from 54.1% to 59.7%. And a 1.30 factor rate over 6 months works out to 109.3% with business-day payments, 106.6% with weekly payments and 96.6% with monthly payments, because the sooner each dollar goes back, the less use you had of it.
What the numbers on an offer are called
Offers and contracts use several names for the same few numbers. The table maps the common ones to the calculator's fields. The Federal Reserve Board report gives the example of $50,000 in capital provided for $65,000 in future receipts, collected as 10% of daily card sales. In contract terms that is a purchase price of $50,000, a purchased amount of $65,000 and a specified percentage of 10%. Dividing $65,000 by $50,000 gives the factor rate, 1.30.
| In the calculator | Names you may see | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Amount funded | Purchase price, advance amount, funding amount | What the funder pays for your future receivables, before any fee comes out. |
| Fees taken out | Origination fee, underwriting fee, set-up fee, administrative fee | Charges deducted from the funding, so they never reach your account. A balance paid off for you out of the funding is not a fee: it settled something you owed. |
| Amount you actually receive | Net funding, net proceeds, amount disbursed | The amount funded minus the fees taken out. On a renewal, the amount disbursed can also be net of an old balance paid off for you. That payoff is not a fee, so leave it out of the fees field. |
| Factor rate | Factor, or not stated at all | The total payback divided by the amount funded. It is applied once, to the whole amount, whatever the length. If the contract does not state it, type the payback and the calculator works it out. |
| Total payback | Purchased amount, receivables purchased, payback amount, total repayment amount | The fixed total of future receipts sold to the funder. This is what you repay. |
| Each payment | Remittance, daily or weekly debit, estimated payment | What the funder takes from the business bank account each time. |
| Number of payments | Estimated number of payments | How many payments it takes to reach the total payback. An estimate when payments follow sales. An estimated term is a length of time, not a count: turn it into payments first, at about 21 business days or 4.3 weeks to a month. |
| Not a field: share of sales | Specified percentage, holdback, split | The percentage of receipts the contract assigns to the funder. The calculator does not ask for it; type the estimated payment it produces. |
| Annual rate equivalent | Estimated APR on a state disclosure, annualized rate | The cost measured against time, as a yearly rate. A comparison figure. |
Scroll sideways to see every column.
States where the offer must show an annual rate
At least 12 states have commercial financing disclosure laws that reach merchant cash advances, by Clearwater's count, and 3 of them require an annual rate on the disclosure: California, New York and Vermont. The table gives the date each one took or takes effect. Where such a law is in force, a covered offer comes with an annual percentage rate worked out by the provider.
| State | Law | In force | Covers transactions of | Text |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | SB 1235 (2018) | Since December 2022 | $500,000 or less | leginfo.legislature.ca.gov |
| New York | Commercial Finance Disclosure Law (2020) | Since 2023 | $2.5 million or less | nysenate.gov |
| Vermont | Act 142 (2026) | From July 2027 | Under $1 million | legislature.vermont.gov |
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From the state law table in Clearwater's merchant cash advance statistics, updated November 10, 2026. A state that table missed would raise the count.
New York's statute shows that the disclosed figure is an estimate too. Section 803 of its Financial Services Law has the provider disclose an estimated annual percentage rate, based on the estimated term of repayment and the projected payments and calculated under federal Regulation Z. If your offer carries a state disclosure, put its figure next to this calculator's. A gap between the two points to a fee, a term or a day count that they treat differently, and it is a fair thing to ask the provider about.
MCA calculator questions
How do I calculate the payment on a merchant cash advance offer?
Multiply the amount funded by the factor rate to get the total payback, then divide by the number of payments. In this page's worked example, $40,000 at a 1.30 factor rate is a payback of $52,000, and 52 weekly payments come to $1,000 each. If the offer states the payment instead, divide the payback by it to see how many payments it takes.
How do I calculate an APR equivalent for an MCA from a factor rate?
A factor rate alone is not enough: the calculator also needs what you received after fees, the size of each payment and how many there are. It finds the periodic rate that discounts those payments back to the amount received and multiplies it by the periods in a year: 252 business days, 52 weeks or 12 months. The result is an annual rate equivalent, a comparison figure, because an advance has a factor rate and a payback amount and no fixed term.
Why is the annual rate higher than the factor rate makes it look?
A factor rate is charged once on the whole amount, however long the payments run, and you start handing the amount back with the first payment. In the worked example, a 1.30 factor rate with a $1,000 fee costs 33.3 cents per dollar received over 52 weeks, which works out to about 59.7% a year. The same factor rate with no fees over 26 weekly payments works out to about 106.6% a year.
Is the annual rate equivalent the same as an APR?
Not exactly. An APR is a disclosure defined by federal Regulation Z for consumer credit, and its Appendix J multiplies a periodic rate by the periods in a year, counting 365 days when the period is a day. This calculator applies the same approach to the payments you type and counts 252 business days for daily payments; both describe the same year, so the two figures stay close without being identical. Where a state requires an annual rate on a commercial financing disclosure, as California and New York do, the figure on that disclosure is the provider's own estimate.
How do I calculate payments that are a percentage of sales (a holdback)?
Multiply the sales the percentage applies to by the percentage, and type the result as the payment: 10% of $2,500 in daily card sales is $250 each business day. If the offer gives an estimated payment or number of payments, type that instead. The total you repay stays the same whatever sales do; the time changes. If sales run ahead of the estimate the payments end sooner and the annual figure comes out higher than the calculator shows, and if they run behind it comes out lower.
Does the calculator count fees?
It counts the fees you type in. A fee taken out of the funding leaves the payback unchanged and lowers the amount you receive, so it raises both the cost per dollar and the annual figure: in the worked example, the $1,000 fee moves the annual figure from 54.1% to 59.7%. Fees charged later under the contract are not in the result unless you add them to the total payback.
Which number matters most when comparing two offers?
Start with dollars: the amount you actually receive, the total you repay and the size of each payment against what the business takes in. Then use the annual rate equivalent to put offers of different lengths on one scale. A shorter offer can cost fewer dollars and still show a higher annual rate: with $40,000 funded and a $1,000 fee, a 1.25 factor rate over 25 weekly payments costs $2,000 less than a 1.30 factor rate over 52 weekly payments and works out to 104.5% a year against 59.7%.
Does the calculator send or keep the numbers I type?
No. The arithmetic runs in your browser, and the calculator neither stores what you type nor sends it anywhere. It asks for no name, phone number or email. The only place this site takes contact details is its separate application page.
How this calculator was made and checked
- Publisher. Clearwater Capital Group, a business funding broker and the trade name of Clearwater Capital Solutions LLC. It is paid when a business it helps is funded, and the application on this site goes to it.
- The annual-rate method. The annual rate equivalent is the periodic rate i that solves: amount received = payment x (1 - (1 + i)^-n) / i, where n is the number of payments. Put in words, it is the rate at which the payments, discounted back to day one, add up to the amount received. The calculator finds i by bisection and multiplies it by the periods in a year: 252 for business days, 52 for weeks, 12 for months. The result is a nominal annual rate, not a compounded one. It assumes equal payments, the first one a full period after day one.
- How that relates to an APR. Federal Regulation Z, which governs consumer credit, defines an annual percentage rate as a yearly measure of the cost of credit that relates the amount and timing of what is received to the amount and timing of the payments made (12 CFR 1026.22). Its Appendix J, written for closed-end credit, computes that rate by multiplying the rate for one unit-period by the unit-periods in a year: 12 for months, 52 for weeks, 365 for days. This calculator follows the same approach and counts 252 for daily payments, because the payments on an advance are taken on business days. Both counts describe the same year, so a figure worked out under Appendix J for the same payments stays close to the one shown here without being identical.
- How fees are counted. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau describes the APR on a loan as a measure of the interest rate plus the additional fees charged with the loan. The calculator counts the fees you type in the same spirit: they come off the amount received and the payback stays whole, so the annual figure includes them.
- Checked against Clearwater's other calculator. The annual-rate function is the one behind the repayment calculator on Clearwater's main site, and an automated test fails if the two ever disagree. Further tests check every result against figures worked out by hand, at each payment frequency, and feed the calculator empty, zero, negative and impossible input.
- What is an illustration. The worked example, the two example offers, the factor rate table and the $2,500 of daily card sales in the holdback example use round numbers chosen for this page. They are arithmetic. They are not offers, not typical deals and not a statement of what any business will be offered.
- What this page cannot tell you. What a funder will offer your business, what fees a particular contract adds, or whether an advance is the right kind of funding for it. Nothing here is legal, tax or financial advice.
- Corrections. If a result looks wrong, send the numbers you typed to efras@clearwatercapitalgrp.com.
Sources
| Source | What this page takes from it | Dated | Read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Regulation Z, 12 CFR 1026.22(a)(1) | Defines an annual percentage rate as a yearly measure of the cost of credit that relates the amount and timing of what is received to the amount and timing of the payments made. | Regulation in force | November 12, 2026 |
| Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Regulation Z, 12 CFR Part 1026, Appendix J | Computes an annual percentage rate by multiplying the rate for one unit-period by the number of unit-periods in a year: 12 when the period is a month, 52 when it is a week and 365 when it is a day. | Regulation in force | November 12, 2026 |
| Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, What is the difference between a loan interest rate and the APR? | Describes the annual percentage rate on a loan as a measure of the interest rate plus the additional fees charged with the loan. | August 28, 2026 | November 12, 2026 |
| Federal Reserve Board, Uncertain Terms: What Small Business Borrowers Find When Browsing Online Lender Websites | Gives one factor rate case with an estimate: a 1.15 factor rate on $50,000 with a 2.5% set-up fee and a $50 monthly fee, a total repayment of $59,000, steady payments five days a week, repaid in six months, estimated at approximately 70% APR. Gives the example of $50,000 in capital for $65,000 in future receipts, collected as 10% of daily card sales, and says the equivalent annual percentage rate may exceed 80% or reach triple digits depending on the speed of repayment. | December 2019 | November 12, 2026 |
| New York Financial Services Law, section 803 | Requires a provider of sales-based financing to disclose an estimated annual percentage rate, based on the estimated term of repayment and the projected payments and calculated under federal Regulation Z. | 2020 | November 12, 2026 |
| Florida Statutes, section 559.9613 | Requires a covered provider's written disclosure to state the total dollar cost, measured as the total to be paid minus the funds provided, and whether prepayment carries any costs or discounts. | 2023 | November 12, 2026 |
| Federal Reserve Banks, 2026 Report on Employer Firms | The share of online lender borrowers who said their costs were higher than expected, and the same share at other kinds of lender. | March 3, 2026 | November 10, 2026 |
| Clearwater Published Requirements Check | How many national funding companies publish no price on their own websites. Clearwater's own count. | November 10, 2026 | November 10, 2026 |
Scroll sideways to see every column.
The state statutes linked in the table of disclosure laws come from Clearwater's statistics data, updated November 10, 2026.
Eight short questions, read by a real advisor at Clearwater Capital Group. No hard credit pull to apply.
Check my options