- Eligibility: Applicants must have a PayPal Business or Premier account for at least 90 days, and process at least $15,000 in annual PayPal sales for Business accounts or $20,000 for Premier accounts.
PayPal working capital loans have no effect on your credit score, require no collateral or personal guarantees, and application and approval should only take a few minutes. It’s worth considering if you are in need of gap funding and are sure future sales will support the repayment requirements.
If your daily sales slow to zero, you are not required to pay anything. However, you will need to pay a minimum of 5% or 10% every 90 days to keep the loan in good standing. In addition, this option is only available for businesses that choose PayPal as their payment system, which may not be the right fit for every company.
American Express Working Capital
While some, such as AmEx Merchant Financing, require a credit check, the American Express Working Capital option allows current customers access to bridge funding without dinging your credit. Here are some specs:
- Loan limits: $1,000 to $750,000
- Rates and fees: 0.5%-3% depending on the length of the loan term, payment, and purchase history with AmEx
- Term length: 30, 60, or 90 days
- Eligibility: Must be an active American Express Business Card holder who uses their card relatively frequently; vendors or customers must be set up to accept American Express.
American Express Working Capital is aimed at creating flexible options for positive cash flow. If your timelines for accounts payable and accounts receivable do not align, AmEx Working Capital can keep you in good standing with your vendors and allow you to maintain positive relationships with your customers. With this option, businesses never see loans in their bank accounts. Instead, if vendors are set up to accept American Express, AmEx will pay your vendors directly within five days. You then have 30, 60, or 90 days, depending on the term of your loan, to collect funds from your customers to repay the loan.
Approval for these funds is generally easy and does not require a ounts plus associated fees must be paid in full at the end of the relatively short term, which can pose a problem if your receivables are not up to date.
Square Working Capital
Square has become a popular point-of-sale and payment processor for small businesses since launching in 2009. While the company formerly offered flexible merchant cash advances, it now offers small loans called “Square Capital.”
- Loan limits: $300-$250,000, depending on your history of sales with the Square platform
- Rates and fees: Square enacts a one-time fee of, on average, 10%-16% of your loan; exact fees and repayment rates are determined by the amount you choose to draw.
- Term length: Loans must be paid in full within 18 months.
- Eligibility: Must be a Square customer with relatively high processing volume, usually at least $10,000 per year
Once a business shows a steady processing volume with Square, it is offered a range of capital it can choose whether or not to collect. The exact fees and repayment rates are determined by the amount a business elects to take, but that burden is made very clear before committing to the loan. These sliding rates are because the loans are designed to be paid back within 15 months regardless of how much a business chooses to take.
Daily sales repayment burdens can be hard for small businesses when it comes to managing their 
cash flows, so Square Capital may not be the best fit for smaller companies that have irregular cash inflow and outflow. If daily sales are not where you expect them to be, there is an option to pay a minimum payment of one-eighteenth of the loan every 60 days, although the loan will still need to be paid in full when it matures at 18 months.