Product · Path 02
Merchant cash advance for the cash gap on your P&L.
Fixed-asset inventory, first-90-day payroll, Q1 membership packages, marketing pushes, the 30–90 day bridge before insurance reimbursement lands. $10k–$250k working capital on a factor-rate payoff, drawn through the same merchant processor the practice already runs on. Read the deal shape, the qualifying signals, the four use cases owners actually pre-fund, and the cost-of-capital tradeoff before you spend sixty seconds on the intake.
MCA vs. loan
Why MCA is a different instrument.
MCA prices on a factor-rate and remits from the merchant processor, not on an APR against a bank account. The line items a med-spa owner reads side-by-side, and where MCA pays off faster than a 24-month amortizing loan.
Payoff shape
Amortizing monthly payment — fixed principal + interest over 24–72 months.
Factor-rate payoff — one advance, one fixed total, no amortization schedule.
Repayment cadence
Bank direct-debit once a month against the operating account.
Daily or weekly ACH tied to card receipts, drawn from the same payment processor.
Cost benchmark
APR — a comparable annual rate that lets you line items up side by side.
Factor rate — a multiplier on the advance (1.20 → 1.35 typical for MCA).
Underwriting
Personal credit score, time in business, debt service coverage.
Card volume consistency, time in business, no recent bankruptcies, no open MCAs.
Collateral position
General UCC on the practice, often a personal guarantee.
Confession of judgement + merchant lockbox; no blanket lien on assets.
Prepayment language
Pro-rata payoff at any time with no penalty.
Fixed total — payoff early still owes the declared total minus a small reconciliation.
Deal sizes
$10k–$250k ticket, in three bands.
Typical MCA ticket for an aesthetic practice, broken out from the solo-injector warm-up through the multi-clinic working-capital advance. The desk sizes the deal to the card volume, not to the headline ask.
Ticket band
$10k – $25k
Light warm-up
Solo-injector or new-clinic cash bridge
Typical use — Seed a Q1 membership-package pre-fund or smooth a 60-day inflow vs. outflow gap.
Ticket band
$25k – $100k
Core med-spa band
The most common MCA file on the desk
Typical use — Cover a botox / filler inventory buy before Allergan / Galderma ship date, or pre-fund a summer marketing push.
Ticket band
$100k – $250k
Multi-provider / multi-clinic
Two to four providers underwrite the daily remit against combined card volume
Typical use — Working capital alongside a new device, payroll bridge through a Q1 peak-to-trough swing, or a second-location inventory buy.
Qualifying signals
What the underwriter reads on the merchant file.
MCA underwrites the daily remit against the merchant processor statement, not a credit score. The four signals below are what the desk reads first — everything else on the application is a confirmation, not a primary input.
Card volume consistency
Six consistent months of $20k+/mo card receipts
The merchant processor statement is the centerpiece. A practice that moves $25k–$60k/mo through the same processor for six straight months will underwrite an MCA against that base; the daily remit sizes to a small fraction of the volume, not the gross revenue.
Time in business
At least 6 months operating, 12+ preferred
Newer clinics still qualify on a starter file when the owner is an established injector with a prior practice on the resume. Most lenders size against 9–12 months minimum on the merchant account.
No recent bankruptcies
Discharged 12+ months, no open Chapter
A discharged Chapter 11 from three years ago is workable. An open Chapter 7 or a discharge inside the last year will move the file to a subprime-equipment path instead of MCA.
No open MCAs
One position at a time, or one in payment
A second-stack MCA on top of an open balance is the deal killer — the daily remit on two positions will hit a slow month and trigger defaults. The desk consolidates rather than stacks new advances.
Use cases
Four situations that bring an owner to MCA.
The desk sizes to the actual reason the working capital lands in the operating account. The four below cover north of ninety percent of MCA intake files — specialty situations ship on the same factor-rate structure.
Seasonal cash crunch
Cover a 30–60 day gap between outflows (rent, payroll, supplier invoices) and inflows (card receipts, package redemptions). Common at Q1 peak – August trough, or any clinic that bills insurance after January resets.
60 – 120 day bridge · pre-funded before the gap opens
Opening inventory buy
Botox, fillers, devices, marketing collateral — the inventory and consumable buy ahead of a new clinic or a Q1 re-launch. Sized against the supplier ship window, not against the calendar quarter.
Pre-ship · factor sized to the buy-and-bill cycle
Marketing blitz funding
Pre-fund a paid-social / Google push ahead of a busy season. The cash lands before the campaign goes live; card receipts catch up to the spend in 60–120 days. Most common for aesthetic practices whose acquisition cost is paid in cash.
30 – 90 day runway · cash before the campaign goes live
Insurance-reimbursement bridge
For mixed clinics — dermatology, functional medicine, weight management — bridge the 30–90 day gap between an insurance claim submitting and the payer remittance landing. Daily remit sizes to the average arrivals and won't bite the slow week.
Pre-fund · card-volume sized, not loan-amount sized
Not on this list? The desk sizes to the card volume, not the use case. Send the four months of merchant processor statements and the use case you are pre-funding; the desk reads the card base and routes the file to the right product the same week.
Cost of capital
The tradeoffs, in plain language.
MCA is not the cheaper cost of capital on every file — equipment financing at the specialty band is, when the deal is the device. The tradeoffs below name when MCA is the right fast bridge and when the desk routes the file to the loan column instead.
MCA vs. APR
MCA factor and loan APR are not a clean apples-to-apples comparison. A 1.25 factor at six months is a different cost-of-capital than 1.25 at twelve; the descriptor formula on the loan side does not produce a number the MCA side will ever quote.
The desk prices both products against the same master file, not against each other.
Cheaper vs. faster
Equipment financing at the specialty band is the cheaper long-term cost of capital on a $50k ticket — but it amortises against a device and takes 7–14 days to close. MCA is the faster bridge — same-day to 48-hour, against a factor-rate total in the 1.20 – 1.35 range.
Cheaper is not always the right answer when the cost is a missed Q1 package buy or a payroll gap.
Stacking vs. one-and-done
A second MCA stacked on top of an open position is the single most common underwriting failure: the daily remit doubles and the slow month bites. The desk consolidates, never stacks, and sizes one position to the card base, not to the headline ask.
If the file needs $80k and the card volume supports $80k, the deal is one $80k position — not two $40k positions back to back.
When MCA wins
A file that the desk would route an OWNER to MCA over equipment financing is one that needs working capital fast — pre-fund Q1, bridge an inflow-outflow gap, fund a marketing push — and has the card volume to support the daily remit without breaking the slow month.
When the asset itself is the deal (lasers, RF platforms, hydrafacial-class chairs), equipment financing is the cheaper long-term answer; when the capital itself is the deal, MCA wins.
The one-line rule
Buy the device with equipment financing. Buy the cash you need with MCA.
When the asset itself is the deal — a laser, an RF platform, a body-contouring suite — the desk routes the file to equipment financing. When the capital itself is the deal — a Q1 inventory buy, a marketing push, a 60-day bridge between inflows and outflows, a payroll gap during a slow month — the desk routes it to MCA. The two never compete on the same file; the desk picks one or stacks them on the same coordinated ticket.
Both reads happen on the same intake form — one route ask, the desk decides.
See what the real cost looks like
Plug in the deal your desk quoted you.
Live math on your quoted factor rate — the payback total, the term-loan APR, the MCA-industry IRR, and the total cost of capital before you spend sixty seconds on intake.
See what the real cost looks like
Plug in the deal the desk quoted you.
Drop in an advance, the factor rate the desk quoted, and your remittance cadence. The payback total, the term-loan APR, the MCA-industry IRR, and the total cost of capital all recompute live — before you spend sixty seconds on intake.
Typical $10k–$250k ticket across solo injector through multi-clinic.
1.20–1.35 typical; 1.40+ for shorter files or thinner TIB.
~190 business days — the structure most med-spa desks quote.
Payback amount
$62,500.00
Total dollars you owe the desk at end of remittance.
Implied simple APR · term-loan equivalent
57%
If the same cash were a 9-month amortizing loan instead, this is the APR that produces this monthly.
Effective annual rate · MCA IRR
72%
MCA-industry IRR assuming your average outstanding balance is half the advance — annualized so it lines up against loan APR.
Total cost of capital
$12,500
Total dollars paid above the advance — your true cost of borrowing.
This widget is illustrative — submit intake for a real quote. The desk prices the term sheet against your actual merchant processor statements; the factor and cadence here are estimates.
Send the file to the desk
One short form. Three coordinated tickets.
Tell us the clinic, the card volume, and which situation you are pre-funding. We respond inside one business day with a routing read and a funded-path estimate against the MCA shape above — or against the equipment loan and SBA 504 paths it coordinates with.
See how this compares to equipment financing and SBA 504 →
Independent vertical-credit desk · MedGuild Capitalis not a lender. Deal shapes, ticket bands, and factor-rate ranges above are illustrative of the desk’s first-pass sizing — not an offer to fund, not a comment on any applicant’s specific file, and not a guarantee of term-sheet outcomes from any listed MCA partner.