SBG Funding Review

Why SBG Funding Is Best for Flexibility

We found SBG Funding to be the most flexible lender for small businesses due to, for starters, its range of loan amounts and repayment terms. You can obtain loans from SBG Funding of up to $10 million depending on your funding needs and the loan type. Repayment terms span six months to 10 years, and these terms are also based on your funding needs and loan type.

Additionally, SBG Funding’s rates are low, and there are no prepayment penalties. For bridge capital, SBG Funding offers discounts if you repay your funding early. We also like that the company clearly goes out of its way to make its lending options work for you. Furthermore, SBG Funding customizes its loan approvals for each applicant. The company often advises prospective borrowers on the best loans for them based on their use case. We love that the company takes an active role in helping you make smart decisions for your business. User reviews for SBG Funding even emphasize that the company will guide, not push, you toward taking out a loan — this is flexible business funding on your own terms.

Borrowing Costs

The rates on SBG Funding’s business term loans and lines of credit start at 1.75% but ultimately depend on your credit score. The better your score is, the less you’ll pay to borrow. Conversely, a poor credit score will likely get you high interest rates. Equipment financing rates begin at 3.75% while invoice financing rates begin at 0.25% per week. Rates for bridge capital loans from SBG Funding start at 1.92%, with SBA 7(a) loan rates starting at 2.5% plus the prime rate.

Applying for a Loan

To begin the qualification process with SBG Funding, you fill out a one-page online application. This form asks for basic business information, including your business’s name, address and other contact information. You also must provide your federal tax ID, your date of birth and your business’s legal entity type.

The application requires a fairly significant amount of financial information as well, including your business’s yearly revenue, average daily bank balance and monthly credit card sales. You must also detail your intended use for the funds and how much money you’re requesting.

To qualify for a loan with SBG Funding, you must be in business for at least six months, have a credit score of at least 500 and earn at least $10,000 in monthly revenue. You must also provide your past three months of business bank statements alongside your driver’s license and a voided business check.

These are relatively lenient qualifications, making SBG Funding a viable option for all sorts of business owners, but the company is willing to work with you to find financing for your small business if you don’t meet its criteria. This is also true of one of the financier’s competitors — read our BusinessLoans.com review to learn why this lender is our top pick for businesses particularly interested in comparing loan options.

Once you’ve applied, an SBG Funding representative will contact you to discuss your financing options. This is a good way to get an understanding of what you qualify for without committing to a loan with the company. You’ll generally get a final decision within 12 to 48 hours, with funding to follow shortly. An SBG Funding representative told us that in 2022, the company’s average time from application to closing was 2.2 days.

SBG Funding has a simple application process but requires a lot of financial information. Source: SBG Funding

Loan Types

SBG Funding offers six types of loans:

• Term loans: With SBG Funding, you can borrow up to $5 million for a term loan and pay it back biweekly or monthly over one to five years. Not all lenders offer these repayment term options. Rival Balboa Capital, for example, has terms of at most 24 months, although this lender is still among our picks for the best business loans given its easy approvals.
• Lines of credit: SBG Funding offers lines of credit for up to $150,000, with repayment terms between six and 24 months. This is longer than another competitor, Fundbox, which caps its terms at 12 and 24 weeks for lines of credit. We also appreciate that SBG Funding can approve your line of credit in 24 hours and doesn’t charge a penalty for paying it off early. The interest rate on its business lines of credit starts at 1.75%.
• Equipment financing: Similar to Crest Capital, SBG Funding’s equipment financing product allows you to finance 100% of your equipment purchase. Terms run from one to seven years. Payments are due each month, and you won’t be hit with a prepayment penalty if you want to pay it off early. SBG Funding can make an approval decision in 48 hours and charges interest rates starting at 3.75%. See our detailed review of Crest Capital to compare offerings. [You may also want to consider equipment leasing.]
• SBA 7(a) loans: Through SBG Funding, you can obtain SBA 7(a) loans of up to $10 million, with repayment terms ranging from two to 10 years. There are no prepayment penalties, and you’ll repay your loan monthly. Rates start at 2.5% plus the prime rate. However, as with most Small Business Administration (SBA) loans, you may wait several weeks for approval.
• Bridge capital: SBG Funding can disburse up to $1 million of bridge capital and make approval decisions within 24 hours. You can repay this funding weekly or monthly over six months to two years. Your rate will be at least 1.92% per month. As with all SBG Funding loans, no prepayment penalties apply but, unlike with the other products, prepayment can earn you a discount here.
• Invoice financing: You can receive a loan that’s up to 90% the size of your accounts receivable if you choose invoice financing with SBG Funding. You can repay your loan monthly or weekly at a rate that’s potentially as low as 0.25% per week. For this type of loan, SBG Funding can typically approve or decline your application within 24 hours. Note that invoice financing works a little differently than invoice factoring.

Loan Terms

We selected SBG Funding as the best lender for flexibility because its terms and loan amounts vary widely for all its loan products. The company offers loan lengths that are among the most flexible of the financiers we reviewed — terms range from six months to 10 years. We like this level of flexibility from SBG because it means the company can support your needs now and in the future.

SBG Funding doesn’t require collateral to secure a loan, although a personal guarantee may be required. This puts the lender at a disadvantage compared to rival Fora Financial, which requires neither of these provisions. Regardless, with SBG Funding, you can pay back your loan on a weekly, biweekly or monthly basis, depending on the loan type. The money can be deducted automatically from your business’s checking account, ensuring that you make the payments on time and don’t have to worry about late fees or dings to your credit score.

You can pay your loan off at any point, as SBG Funding doesn’t charge any prepayment penalties. Additionally, loan discounts are possible if you repay your bridge capital funding early.

SBG Funding Features

Loan Selection

Flexibility in your choice of loan is an important attribute all borrowers should seek. We like that SBG Funding lets you choose from a variety of loan types. If its term loan doesn’t make sense for your business, you can apply for a line of credit, invoice financing, equipment financing, SBA 7(a) loan or bridge capital. That’s a wide breadth of service for an alternative lender.

Flexible Terms

SBG Funding’s terms are some of the most flexible in the industry. You can pay off certain loans in under a year or spread out your payments over five years. This range of repayment options enables you to manage cash flow better. Many lenders don’t provide this extensive of a selection of repayment term lengths.

Various Loan Amounts

Whether you need to borrow tens of thousands of dollars or millions, SBG Funding can deliver. It can extend financing up to $10 million, depending on the loan type, to meet all of your capital needs. 

Rates on a line of credit from SBG Funding start at 1.75%. Source: SBG Funding

Customer Service

Based in New York City, SBG Funding provides customer support during standard business hours by phone and email, but you are also welcome to visit the office. The lender operates a regularly updated blog on its website, though its online COVID-19 resource center doesn’t contain recent information. Still, we like that the site houses a funding calculator, which business owners can use to determine how much funding they may qualify for.

SBG Funding works with most industries and has a great online reputation, earning an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau, with which it has accreditation. The company also has a strong track record on customer review sites like Trustpilot, where users have given the lender 4.9 out of 5 stars on average.

Drawbacks

SBG Funding requires a large amount of information about your business during the application and approval process. This includes your federal tax ID, legal entity type, yearly revenue, average daily bank balance and monthly credit card sales. Some lenders we evaluated allow you to connect your bank account to the application, which reduces the documentation you have to provide. Since SBG Funding doesn’t offer such an integration, the application may be more time-consuming to complete if you don’t have all the necessary information on hand.

Another potential downside of SBG Funding is that the company requires businesses to have about $10,000 in monthly sales to qualify. If you’re a very new business still getting off the ground, that sales minimum may keep you from securing a business loan with this lender. However, as noted above, the SBG Funding team does try to work with business owners to find a suitable financial solution even if you don’t hit all of the criteria.

Methodology

To find the top business lender for business owners looking for flexibility, we started by searching for lenders that offer a variety of reasonable loan terms, amounts and rates. We then examined customer reviews to see if the companies prioritized matching borrowers with loans that meet their needs.

From there, we reached out to lender representatives to learn more about their flexible options. Through these conversations and our independent research, we identified SBG Funding as the ideal choice for flexible funding options. The company offers a myriad of loan amounts, terms and rates that it customizes to each of its borrowers. It’s a clear standout for any borrower who wants a business loan that matches their ideal vision as closely as possible.

Overall Value

We recommend SBG Funding for:

• Borrowers who want a variety of loan options with different terms.
• Businesses that have been in operation for at least six months and bring in at least $10,000 in monthly sales.

We don’t recommend this lender for:

• Business owners with a low credit score who can’t afford the high interest rates they will be charged.
• Startups that have been in business less than six months and make less than $10,000 a month in sales.