Editorial policy

Describe the market, do not instruct the reader

We write about what lenders generally do, what products typically cost, and what the data shows. We do not tell you what to do, because we do not know your business. “Lenders commonly require an equity injection of at least 10%” is a fact about the world. “You should put down 10%” is advice we are not qualified to give you.

Language we do not use

The following are banned outright from this site and the ban is enforced by an automated check that runs before every deployment:

• guaranteed approval, you will be approved, pre-approved, pre-qualified
• instant approval, no credit check
• we’ll get you the best rate, lowest rates guaranteed
• apply now in any context implying we take the application
• any claim that we can obtain, arrange, or secure financing for a reader

These are the phrases that turn a publisher into something that looks like a broker, and several are the specific representations the Federal Trade Commission has pursued in its small business financing enforcement actions.

Every number carries its source

No figure appears on this site without a source line and an as-of date. Where a figure is our editorial judgement rather than measured data - the cost bands on the funding ladder, for example - we label it as such. Where the underlying data is too thin to support a number, we print a dash instead of computing one anyway.

Costs are always converted to a comparable unit

A factor rate, a discount fee, and an interest rate measure different things. We never let one stand next to another without conversion, because that comparison is precisely how a business ends up paying a triple-digit APR believing it agreed to thirty percent. Where a product quotes in another unit, we show the APR equivalent and the arithmetic behind it.

Commercial relationships are walled off

Rankings are computed from federal data by a published formula and cannot be influenced by payment. Paid placement is labelled and rendered separately from editorial results. We publish unflattering figures about partners in the same language we would use about anyone else. We decline compensation from merchant cash advance funders, debt relief companies, and credit repair services entirely. Details on the advertiser disclosure page.

No reviews, no ratings, no testimonials

We do not host borrower reviews, star ratings, or testimonials. In a category this high-stakes, unverifiable reviews attract manipulation faster than they produce signal, and fabricated reviews are independently actionable under the FTC’s rule on consumer reviews. We would rather publish a charge-off rate computed from a federal file than a five-star average from an unverified source.

We cover things that earn us nothing

Grants, CDFI loans, SSBCI programmes, and microloans generate no revenue for this site whatsoever. They are frequently the right answer for the reader, so they get the same editorial care as anything else. If the correct answer to a question is “none of the products on this page - go to your local CDFI,” that is what the page says.

Corrections

When we get something wrong we fix it and, where the error was material, note the correction on the page. We do not quietly amend. If you spot an error, particularly on a page about your own institution, write to hello@fundingforbusinesses.com - include the page and the figure, and we will check it against the source file.

We correct inaccuracies. We do not remove accurate information because a subject dislikes it, and we do not accept payment to alter, suppress, or soften a published figure.

How this page is enforced

The banned-phrase list runs as an automated check across all editorial content on every build, and a failure blocks deployment. Disclosure placement is verified page by page before release. The list of monetized relationships lives in the site’s source code rather than a database, so what we disclosed and when is a permanent, auditable record.