Corporate treasury, made legible
What every way of funding a business actually costs, converted to one annual rate you can put side by side, with the source and the date behind each number.
Pick a job and start with the real number.
I need capital
Six structures, what each actually costs once the quote is converted to an annual rate, and which one fits your collateral and time in business.
I need to cut tax
Cost segregation, the R&D credit, hiring credits, and the energy deductions. What each study costs, what it returns, and the break-even where it stops being worth it.
Buying or selling instead? Start with valuation and deal costs. Been quoted a factor rate? Convert it to a real APR with the true-cost calculator. Not sure which structure fits? Run the two-minute router.
Checked, not recycled
Read any of these on a lender's blog and you'll get a range with no date and no citation. Here is the whole working, so you can go and check it yourself.
9.75%
Prime was 6.75% on July 15 2026. SBA caps a variable-rate 7(a) over $350,000 at prime plus 3.00%. That is the ceiling, not a quote: a lender may go under it, and none may go over.
If a broker quotes you 13% on a $600,000 7(a) and calls it the SBA rate, they are not quoting the SBA rate. Smaller loans carry higher caps, up to prime plus 6.5% under $50,000.
142%
Take $100,000 at a 1.4 factor and repay $140,000 in equal daily payments across 126 business days. Solve for the rate that discounts those payments back to $100,000 and annualize it: 142% nominal. Compounded, 313%.
The factor rate hides this by quoting total cost instead of a rate, and by never mentioning that you start repaying tomorrow. This is the richest referral rail in the niche. We take none of it.
28 days
WOTC lapsed on December 31 2025 and has not been renewed. Section 51(c)(4) of the tax code still excludes anyone who begins work after that date, in the Code as it stood on July 16 2026. State agencies are logging Form 8850 for 2026 hires without certifying them.
File it anyway, inside 28 days of the start date. Congress has revived this credit retroactively before, and the employers still filing through the hiatus are the only ones who will be able to claim it if that happens again. Stop filing and you cannot go back.
"1.4" reads like 40%. Repay $140,000 on $100,000 over roughly six months of daily debits and the annualized cost lands near 142%. The small number is a multiplier, not a rate, and nothing on the contract converts it for you.
SBA 7(a) ceilings float on prime, so they move every time the Fed does. An article quoting a maximum from 2023 is not slightly stale, it is a different number: the cap today runs 9.75% on large loans and 13.25% on small ones.
A lease almost always beats a loan on the monthly figure, which is why vendors quote it. Add the down payment, the buyout, and what you own at the end, and the cheaper monthly is frequently the more expensive way to own the machine.
The whole picture
Every bar is the honest annual-rate range a business with ordinary credit sees, converted from whatever the quote was written as. The gap between a bank line and a cash advance is not a rounding error. It is the whole reason to check the number before you sign.
The factoring reveal
A "2.5% fee" on a net-30 invoice is a 24% APR. Quoted as a fee, it looks like a footnote. Annualized, it's a rate.
The cash-advance reveal
A "1.4 factor" is a 142% APR once you count the daily payments. The factor rate is built so you never do the division.
The SBA ceiling
Prime plus the legal cap is 9.75% on a large 7(a). A broker quoting 13% and calling it "the SBA rate" is quoting themselves.
The WOTC clock
The hiring credit expired Dec 31 2025, yet the 28-day filing deadline still runs. Keep filing, or lose it if it's revived.
What each way of funding a business actually costs once you convert the quote into an annual rate. Factoring, revenue-based financing, asset-based lines, equipment paper, SBA, and acquisition debt.
ReadCost segregation, the R&D credit, hiring credits, and the energy deductions. What the study costs, what it returns, and where the break-even sits.
ReadValuation methods, 409A pricing, quality-of-earnings scope, and fractional CFO rates. Written for the owner on one side of the table, not the advisor billing it.
ReadFour books we work from, and what each one is actually good for.
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The reference the other side of the table is working from. Heavy going, and the only book here that treats the cost of capital as something you derive rather than quote.
Where the comparable-company and precedent-transaction methods are actually spelled out. Read it before you accept a multiple someone else picked for you.
The clearest plain-English account of how acquisition debt gets structured, and why the SBA 7(a) is the instrument most search-fund buyers end up using.
Old, and still the fastest way to learn to read your own statements well enough to argue with a lender about what your working capital cycle really is.
Answer four questions about your collateral, your time in business, and how fast you need the money. The router tells you which structures you actually qualify for, what each one costs, and which to walk away from. No email, no credit pull, no call from a broker.
