How we make money. Plainly.

The lender pays. Always.

Brokerage in small business finance works the same way insurance brokerage or commercial real estate brokerage works: the party providing the product pays the broker. The borrower's role is to apply, sign, and fund. The lender's role is to underwrite, fund, and pay us a percentage of the deal as commission.

This is not a favor or a quirk — it's how the entire commercial finance brokerage industry is structured, and it's why brokers are free for borrowers to use. Lenders pay because brokers do work that lenders would otherwise pay sales reps to do: source deals, package files, qualify candidates. Paying a broker on closed deals is dramatically more efficient than maintaining a direct sales force chasing every cold lead.

What this means in practice

You apply to Elite Funders. We submit your file across our 70+ lender network. Lenders that approve you send back offers. We help you compare and negotiate. You pick a lender, sign their contract, and fund. The lender then pays us a commission based on the deal — after you've funded, out of the lender's margin, never out of your advance or your factor rate.

If you don't fund, we don't get paid. If you fund directly with a lender we didn't introduce you to, we don't get paid. Commissions are 100% deal-contingent.

How much we make per deal

Commissions vary by product, lender, deal size, factor rate, and term length. The ranges below are typical broker-channel commission structures across our network — specific deals can fall outside these ranges depending on the lender's appetite, your file's strength, and other variables.

Source: aggregate broker-channel commission ranges across our lender network as of Q2 2026. Specific commissions are negotiated between Elite Funders and each lender; confidentiality clauses prevent us from publishing per-lender rates.

Why commission economics don't drive editorial.

Two things in our business need to be honest at the same time: the service (matching borrowers to the right lender) and the editorial coverage (lender directory, best-of pages, product comparisons). The service is paid for by lenders. The editorial coverage is not.

Concretely: the lender that pays us the highest commission is not necessarily the one that prices your specific deal best. If we routed deals based on commission, we'd be selling out borrowers in exchange for a few percent of upside — and we'd get caught fast, because borrowers compare offers across multiple brokers, and bad routing shows up in customer reviews and lender quote letters. The economics of repeat business and reputation are larger than the economics of any single deal's commission spread. So we route on price.

The lender directory specifically

Our lender directory scores 16 lenders on a five-dimension framework (transparency 25%, qualification flexibility 22%, funding speed 18%, customer experience 20%, documentation rigor 15%). Scores are computed from primary lender disclosures, broker-channel rate sheets, customer-reported pricing, and third-party reviews — none of which involve "how much commission this lender pays Elite Funders."

Some lenders we cover are commercial partners. Some aren't. Some pay us above-market commissions because they're trying to grow broker volume. Some pay below-market because they have strong direct origination. None of that affects their score. Where we have a commercial relationship with a lender we cover, we disclose it inline on the lender profile page.

What we do, and don't do, because of how we get paid.

• DORoute deals to the lender that prices yours best. Across the 70+ lenders we work with, the routing decision is based on offer terms (factor rate, term, total cost), not commission spread.
• DODisclose commercial relationships in editorial coverage. If we have a commercial relationship with a lender we review or compare, we say so on that page. No hidden affiliations.
• DOScore lenders on the same framework regardless of relationship. Lenders that pay us more aren't scored higher. Lenders we don't have a relationship with aren't excluded.
• DOTell you when not to take an MCA. If you qualify for cheaper products (LOC, term loan, SBA), our editorial coverage and our team will say so — even though MCAs typically pay higher broker commissions than cheaper alternatives.
• DON'TCharge borrowers anything. No application fee, no "broker fee," no anything. The only money you pay is to the lender, on the contract you sign.
• DON'TMark up factor rates or APRs. The rate quote you see is what the lender approved. Our commission is paid out of the lender's margin, not added to your cost.
• DON'TSell your application data. Submissions are routed to lenders for the purpose of generating offers, not sold to lead aggregators. See our privacy policy for the full data flow.
• DON'THide that we're a broker. Every lender contract you sign will be with the lender, not with Elite Funders. The relationship is disclosed throughout our marketing and on every page.

Audit the claims yourself.

Apply with multiple brokers. The most common test borrowers run on us is submitting the same file to Elite Funders and one or two competitors and comparing the offers we surface against theirs. If our routing favored commission over price, the comparison would show it — and we'd lose business immediately. Apply with a competitor; see how the math compares.

Apply directly with a lender. Pick any lender from our directory and apply directly. The rate they quote should be in the same range as the rate we'd quote you for that lender. If our quote is materially higher, something's wrong — the lender shouldn't be charging you more because you came through us. Walk us through the discrepancy and we'll either match or explain.

Read our editorial policy. The full editorial policy documents review framework, refresh cadence, conflict-of-interest rules, and the disclosure standard. It's the operating manual for how we cover lenders.