The Four Numbers That Matter Most
Per Nav’s guide to merchant cash advances, a standard MCA offer states four core figures: the funded, lump-sum amount paid upfront, the total payback amount the merchant owes back, the holdback percentage that will be debited from daily card or ACH deposits, and a repayment timeframe. A broker who can recite all four from memory, rather than re-reading the letter mid-call, presents with far more confidence than one visibly hunting for a number the merchant just asked about.
These four numbers are also the ones a merchant is most likely to ask about directly, and getting even one wrong when repeating it back destroys credibility faster than almost any other mistake in the conversation.
Why the Repayment Timeframe Range Is So Wide
Per the same Nav guide, the repayment timeframe commonly ranges 90 days to 18 months, and that range is wide because it reflects three separate inputs, not one arbitrary number. Advance size is one factor, larger advances often carry longer terms. The merchant’s cash flow pattern is a second, and monthly sales volume is a third, since holdback is calculated as a percentage of actual deposits, not a fixed dollar figure.
Reading a term in isolation, without connecting it to those three drivers, misses the actual story the offer is telling. A 90-day term on a smaller advance to a high-volume merchant and an 18-month term on a larger advance to a lower-volume merchant can both be entirely reasonable given the underlying math, not evidence that one merchant got a better deal than the other.
Stips: The Fine Print Standing Between Approval and Funding
Per Ramp’s guide to merchant cash advances, “stips,” short for stipulations, are the specific documents or actions a funder requires before closing on the advance, commonly including proof of ownership and a landlord waiver where applicable. An approval letter is not a funded deal; it is an offer conditioned on the merchant clearing every stip listed, and a broker who skips past that section when reading the letter risks setting an expectation with the merchant about timing that the stips list doesn’t support.
Reading the stips list carefully before the presentation call also lets a broker flag, upfront, exactly what the merchant needs to gather, rather than discovering a missing document mid-process and having to circle back.
The Use-of-Funds Freedom Most Bank Products Don’t Offer
Per the same Ramp guide, most MCA issuers place little to no restriction on how the merchant uses the funds once the advance closes, no receipts or use-of-funds reporting required, unlike many bank loan products that track spending against a stated purpose. This is a genuine, real differentiator worth having ready to explain, not a footnote buried at the bottom of the offer.
A broker who can state this clearly and proactively, rather than waiting for the merchant to ask “what can I spend this on,” is answering a real concern before it becomes friction in the conversation.
Reading for Errors and Red Flags Before You Ever Forward the Letter
This is reasoning, not a cited statistic. Before forwarding an approval letter, cross-checking it against whatever was quoted verbally during underwriting catches the rare but real cases where a final offer shifted from an early estimate, a smaller funded amount, a higher holdback, or a shorter term than the merchant was led to expect. Scanning the stips list for anything unusual, an unexpected fee mentioned only in passing, a document request that doesn’t match the deal type, is worth doing before the letter goes out, not after the merchant calls confused.
A few minutes spent reading the letter line by line before presenting it is cheap insurance against a conversation that starts with the broker explaining a discrepancy nobody caught in advance.
From Reading to Presenting
Reading one letter correctly is the prerequisite for the next skill, presenting two or three offers side by side without overwhelming the merchant, which depends entirely on the broker already knowing exactly what differentiates each offer before the presentation starts. A broker who reads well presents with confidence; one who is still parsing numbers mid-call presents with hesitation the merchant notices.
Human + AI SDRs surface a qualified, ready merchant on the calendar, which means a broker’s prep time goes toward reading the actual offer terms carefully rather than chasing a submission that was never going to convert.
What this means for you
- A standard MCA approval letter states the funded amount, total payback amount, holdback percentage, and a repayment timeframe commonly running 90 days to 18 months.
- Stipulations, proof of ownership, landlord waivers where applicable, are conditions still standing between approval and actual funding, and a broker should read the full stips list before setting timing expectations with a merchant.
- Most MCA issuers place little to no restriction on how a merchant uses the funds once advanced, no receipts or use-of-funds reporting required, a genuine differentiator worth explaining proactively.
Sources
The external data in this guide draws on the sources below. Figures described in the text as estimates or industry triangulations are directional and are not attributed to a single dataset.
- Nav, Merchant Cash Advance (MCA) Guide for 2026
- Ramp, Merchant Cash Advance Guide: Costs, Rates & Risks