Capify review: a direct UK funder of merchant cash advances and business loans

Capify is a UK business funder that markets directly to business owners rather than embedding its products inside somebody else's platform. Its site says it has been funding businesses since 2008, and it lists five products: unsecured small business loans, secured business loans, a merchant cash advance, supplier invoice payment and debt consolidation. That breadth is the first thing that separates it from most of the names in this market, which sell one product.

The merchant cash advance is the product this site is concerned with. It is not a loan. The funder buys a share of your future card takings at a discount, pays you a lump sum up front, and recovers an agreed total by taking a fixed slice of each day's card sales, usually somewhere between 5 and 20 per cent. The price is expressed as a factor rate rather than an interest rate, commonly between 1.1 and 1.5 across the UK market, and because these advances are written to limited companies for business purposes they generally fall outside the Financial Conduct Authority's consumer credit regime.

Capify's site quotes a headline range of £10,000 to £3,000,000 across its products as a whole, alongside same day funding for unsecured facilities and 24 to 48 hours for secured. Read that range carefully: the upper end belongs to secured lending against assets, not to an unsecured advance against card takings. It also states that it has funded over £1.2 billion to more than 20,000 businesses, which is a claim about its history rather than a guide to what you will be offered.

Having both an advance and a term loan under one roof is genuinely useful, because it means the conversation can start with what you need rather than with the only product the firm sells. It is also a reason to be alert: make sure the product you end up with is the one that suits your cash flow, not simply the one that was easiest to approve.

The natural customer is an established UK trading business with visible income, most obviously a hospitality, retail or service business taking a healthy share of its revenue by card. Because Capify assesses you directly rather than reading data from a platform you already use, it can look at a wider picture: bank statements, card processing history, how long you have traded and what the money is for.

That direct relationship suits business owners who want to ask questions and negotiate. If you would rather talk through whether an advance or a term loan makes more sense, a direct funder gives you a conversation that an automated offer inside a dashboard does not. It also helps if your situation has a wrinkle, such as a recent dip in trade with a clear explanation, that a purely data driven decision might penalise.

It suits you less well in a few situations. If your income arrives by invoice and bank transfer rather than card, a cash advance has little to repay from and invoice finance or a term loan is a better match. If you are very newly established, most providers in this market want to see a period of trading history first. And if the purpose is long term investment such as premises, a facility designed to clear within months is the wrong instrument regardless of how straightforward the application is.

The debt consolidation product deserves a word of caution that applies to the whole market rather than to Capify specifically. Consolidating several expensive short term facilities into one can genuinely reduce pressure on daily cash flow, but it can also extend the total cost and mask the underlying problem. If you are consolidating because repayments have become unaffordable, that is a signal to get independent advice before taking on more funding.

Capify does not publish a standard rate card. Pricing is quoted per business, typically on a factor rate basis for the cash advance and as a fixed cost for its loan products, and the figure depends on your trading history, the amount, the expected repayment period and, for secured lending, the asset behind it. Any site quoting you a precise Capify rate before an application has been assessed is guessing.

What the site does state is that there are no early repayment fees. That phrasing needs care. On a factor rate advance, the absence of an early repayment fee is not the same as a saving for repaying early. The total repayable is usually fixed at the outset, so clearing a 1.2 factor rate advance in four months rather than nine means paying the same fee over a shorter period, which raises the effective cost. Ask explicitly whether early settlement reduces the amount owed, and get the answer in writing.

Two other questions are worth putting to any direct funder. Is a personal guarantee required, and from whom? And is there an arrangement or administration fee deducted from the advance before it reaches your account? Those two answers change the real cost and the real risk more than a small difference in factor rate does. Our explainer on what a factor rate is covers why the headline number alone tells you so little, and the merchant cash advance calculator converts a quote into a total repayable and a likely duration so you can compare offers on the same basis.

The closest direct comparison is 365 Business Finance, which also describes itself on its own site as a direct financial provider and offers revenue based finance repaid from a small percentage of future card sales. The two occupy similar ground: a UK funder you deal with yourself, assessing your trading rather than reading it from a platform. The practical difference is product breadth, since Capify also offers secured and unsecured term lending.

The contrast with the embedded providers is sharper. Liberis and YouLend both distribute funding through payment platforms and marketplaces, so the offer arrives inside a dashboard you already use, pre assessed against data the platform already holds. That is faster and requires less paperwork. What you give up is the ability to negotiate, to ask for a different product, or to have someone explain why a particular structure was chosen.

Neither model is reliably cheaper, and it is a mistake to assume that convenience costs more or that a direct funder charges less. Compare the total repayable and the holdback percentage on the actual offers in front of you. Our roundup of the best merchant cash advance providers in the UK puts the main names side by side, and if you are still unsure the product is right, the alternatives to a merchant cash advance covers what else is available.

Ask for five figures in writing: the amount advanced, the total repayable, the holdback percentage or repayment schedule, any minimum monthly payment, and any fee taken from the advance before it lands. Those numbers let you calculate what the funding costs and roughly how long it will run. Then stress test it. Model the holdback against your weakest recent trading month, not your strongest, and check whether the business still functions on what is left.

Ask separately whether a personal guarantee is involved, because an unsecured facility to the company can still carry personal exposure for a director. Read what the agreement says about missed payments and about changing card processor mid term. And remember that a business cash advance sold to a limited company is generally unregulated, so the complaint routes and protections you might expect from consumer credit will not apply in the same way.

Capify's own description of its products is on its website, and its registered company details, accounts and directors are available free of charge from Companies House. Rates, eligibility criteria and product ranges in this market change frequently, so confirm everything directly with Capify before you sign.