SmartBiz vs. National Business Capital 2023

SmartBiz and National Business Capital are both online lending marketplaces that connect small-business owners with lenders. But how do you know which one is better for your next business loan?

As a rule, SmartBiz’s focus on SBA loans means it can offer lower interest rates on its loans, while National Business Capital’s broad network lets it accept business owners with lower borrower qualifications.

Of course, there are other factors you may want to consider. So in this comparison of SmartBiz and National Business Capital, we’ll look at some of the most important differences (and similarities) between these two business financing companies.

As we already mentioned, both SmartBiz and National Business Capital are actually lending marketplaces―not lenders.

A lending marketplace doesn’t offer financing itself. Instead, it partners with lenders that do. So when a business owner submits an application to a lending marketplace, the marketplace basically shops around within its lender network to find loan offers. Then the marketplace lets the applicant choose from those relevant loan offers.

In other words, SmartBiz and National Business Capital won’t directly give your business a loan―but they’ll seamlessly connect you with lenders that will. In many cases, they’ll even give you multiple loan offers to choose from so you can find the best deal.

But while these two financing companies have that much in common, they’ve still got some important differences. So let’s start digging deeper into SmartBiz and National Business Capital.

Since both SmartBiz and National Business Capital partner with various lenders to get you financing, they’re able to offer quite a few different kinds of financing, from generic term loans to equipment financing to other kinds of working capital funding.

Now, as we explain in our SmartBiz review, SmartBiz’s lender network heavily focuses on SBA loans, or business term loans that come backed by the US Small Business Administration.

More specifically, SmartBiz specializes in SBA 7(a) loans. These SBA loans offer a lot of versatility. You can use smaller ones for working capital or equipment financing, while larger 7(a) loans make for very competitive commercial real estate loans. And like all SBA loans, SBA 7(a) loans come with excellent, low interest rates.

But SmartBiz offers more than just SBA loans. It also works with its banking partners to offer bank loans, and SmartBiz’s online lending partners allow it to offer merchant cash advances, invoice factoring, and more.

Likewise, National Business Capital has a lot of loan options. For example, you can apply for these types of business financing:

• Term loan
• Line of credit
• Equipment financing
• SBA loans
• Accounts receivable financing (invoice factoring)
• Merchant cash advances

(You can learn more about all these in our ultimate guide to small-business loans.)

And that’s not all. National Business Capital even has some more specialized products, like financing for cannabis businesses (which lenders usually prohibit).

So while National Business Capital doesn’t specialize quite as much as SmartBiz does, both SmartBiz and National Business Capital offer a wide range of business financing options.

It’s great that both companies give you plenty of loans to choose from. But how choosy are the lenders they work with?

As it turns out, National Business Capital has lower business loan requirements than SmartBiz. For the most part, anyway.

To qualify for a business loan through National Business Capital, you need to meet these minimum requirements:

• 6 months in business
• $120,000 in annual revenue
• No minimum credit score

Note that National Business Capital’s requirements do vary by financing type. For a business line of credit, for example, you’ll need to have been in business for a whole year. You can get equipment financing, on the other hand, with a brand-new business―but you’ll need a 650 credit score.

Then there’s SmartBiz. It asks for the following:

• 650 credit score (675 for real estate loans)
• 2 years in business
• $100,000 in annual revenue

Younger businesses can apply for non-SBA loans (think merchant cash advances and invoice factoring), but SmartBiz does prefer older businesses.

So yes, National Business Capital does have a (slightly) higher revenue requirement. But given its more flexible time-in-business and credit score requirements, more small-business owners will qualify for National Business Capital financing.

Simply plut, National Business Capital has overall lower borrower requirements than SmartBiz.

If you meet its borrower requirements, we recommend applying with SmartBiz. That’s because SmartBiz SBA loans (and its other financing) are very competitively priced.

SmartBiz loans, like SBA loans from any lender, have a capped interest rate that keeps your rates nice and low. Outside of some bank term loans, these are some of the lowest business loan rates you’ll find.

And even on its other financing products, SmartBiz loan rates start at well under 10%―much lower than you’d get from many alternative lenders. Of course, your interest rate will depend on your background (like your credit score and revenue), but SmartBiz gives you a real shot at low interest rates.

National Business Capital, on the other hand, doesn’t publish any interest rates. Generally speaking, that’s not a great sign―since it often means the rates aren’t competitive enough to be attractive.

We expect National Business Capital does have decent rates on some products (like SBA loans, for example). But we don’t know for sure, while we do know SmartBiz’s rates. So if you want low interest rates, we recommend starting with SmartBiz.   

National Business Capital’s lack of loan rates brings us to another thing worth mentioning: transparency.

National Business Capital doesn’t provide tons of details about its financing. As we said, it doesn’t publish interest rates or loan fees―a habit that makes us very nervous.

But National Business Capital also doesn’t get very specific about things like loan sizes and terms. As far as we can tell, it describes all its products as being between $10,000 and $5 million (unlikely to be true), and it doesn’t list repayment term lengths on many products.

SmartBiz, on the other hand, offers tons of details. It tells you rates for SBA working capital loans compared to SBA commercial real estate loans, and it breaks down loan sizes and repayment terms for both as well. Likewise, SmartBiz offers much more transparency about loan sizes, repayment terms, and rates on its non-SBA loans too (including both bank term loans and working capital loans).

That transparency makes us trust SmartBiz more―especially because it means you’re less likely to waste your time applying for a loan you don’t end up wanting.

For business owners that like knowing details upfront, SmartBiz is the way to go.

Finally, we need to compare funding times.

National Business Capital brags that it can get you funded in “as little as a few hours” after you get approved for a loan. It also advertises approval times of just a few hours.

Now, your actual funding time may not be that fast. It will depend on the kind of funding you want (expect merchant cash advances to get approved and funded more quickly than equipment financing, for instance) and how quickly you provide your lender with any necessary documentation. On the whole, though, expect National Business Capital to move quickly.

SmartBiz doesn’t have that kind of speed. Again, it focuses on SBA loans―which notoriously take a long time to get approved and funded. SmartBiz says to expect funding to take a week―and that week starts after getting matched and approved for a loan.  Its non-SBA loans will move faster, yes. But still, SmartBiz doesn’t focus on speed.

So if you need funding right away, National Business Capital will likely move faster.

Both SmartBiz’s and National Business Capital’s lending marketplaces can offer you plenty of business loan options. And with their matchmaking processes, they both give you the chance to shop around for the best lender.

Overall, we expect SmartBiz to offer you lower interest rates, thanks to its emphasis on SBA loans and its partnerships with banks.

National Business Capital, on the other hand, works better for business owners with low credit or little time in business―or small-business owners that need faster funding.

If you’re not sure about SmartBiz or National Business Capital, we have plenty of other great lender options on our rankings of the best small-business loans.

To get our scores and comparisons of SmartBiz and National Business Capital, we first graded each company on more than a dozen factors. These factors included their financing options, loan sizes, funding costs, customer reviews, and more. The resulting grades helped us to objectively compare the two companies―and then to come up with our reviews and recommendations.

SmartBiz itself isn’t SBA approved, since it doesn’t directly offer business loans. But the lending partners it works with to provide SBA 7(a) loans are SBA-approved lenders.

No, neither SmartBiz nor any other lender are still accepting PPP loan applications. The PPP loan program ended in May 2021.

Disclaimer

At Business.org, our research is meant to offer general product and service recommendations. We don't guarantee that our suggestions will work best for each individual or business, so consider your unique needs when choosing products and services.