Merchant Cash Advance Calculator

The short answer: Enter the values you know and this calculator solves for the rest. It computes total payback from your funding amount and factor rate (or the factor rate from your funding amount and total payback), the total financing cost, the payment amount or number of payments, the estimated term, and — when enough information is available — an estimated annualized cost (APR). It does the math only; it is not a financing quote and requires no registration.

How factor rates work

A merchant cash advance is priced with a factor rate — a decimal multiplier, commonly between about 1.1 and 1.5 — rather than an interest rate. The factor rate is applied once, to the full advance, to set the total amount you must repay. On a $50,000 advance at a 1.3 factor rate, the total payback is $65,000 and the financing cost is $15,000. That cost is fixed the moment you sign; it does not grow over time and it does not shrink if you pay early, unless the funder offers an early-payoff discount. For a deeper look, see the factor rates page.

Why factor rates are different from interest rates

An interest rate is annualized and accrues on the outstanding balance. Pay a loan down faster and you pay less interest. A factor rate is neither annualized nor accruing — it is a single, upfront multiplier on the entire advance. This is the core reason the two numbers are not directly comparable: a 1.3 factor rate is not "30% interest." Because an MCA is repaid over months rather than years, that fixed fee is compressed into a short window, which is why the annualized cost (the APR) lands far higher than the factor rate suggests. To compare an MCA against a loan or line of credit, convert the factor rate into an APR-equivalent first — which is exactly what this calculator does.

How total payback is calculated

Total payback is the simplest and most important number in an MCA:

Total payback = Funding amount × Factor rate

From there, the financing cost is just total payback minus funding amount. If you know the total payback and the funding amount but not the factor rate, you can solve for it: factor rate = total payback ÷ funding amount. And if you know the payment amount, the number of payments is total payback ÷ payment amount. The calculator handles any of these directions automatically — fill in what you know and leave the rest blank.

How daily and weekly payments work

Most MCAs are repaid through automated debits from your business bank account. Dailyschedules pull a fixed amount every business day — roughly 22 debits per month — which keeps each individual withdrawal small but means cash leaves your account more than 20 times a month regardless of how the business performed that day. Weekly schedules pull a larger amount once a week, about four or five times a month, which some owners find easier to plan around. The total payback is usually the same either way; only the cadence changes. The payment amount is total payback divided by the number of payments, so a daily schedule produces many small debits and a weekly schedule produces fewer, larger ones.

How business owners should compare two MCA offers

Funders quote in ways that make direct comparison difficult, so reduce every offer to the same three figures before deciding:

1. Total payback — the total dollars that will leave your account. This is the bottom line.
2. Payment amount and frequency — what each debit is and how often it hits. Model it against your slowest week, not your average one.
3. Estimated APR — the annualized cost, so you can compare the MCA to a loan or line of credit on equal footing.

The offer with the lowest factor rate is not always the cheapest. A smaller daily debit can stretch the term long enough that the total payback is higher. Run both offers through this calculator using the same payment frequency, then compare total payback and estimated APR. The offer with the lower total payback and lower APR-equivalent is the cheaper one, all else equal. For the broader context, see the MCA rates page and the full merchant cash advance guide.

Frequently asked questions