Best SmartBiz Competitors and Alternatives 2023

The bottom line: For most small-business owners, Lendio is the best SmartBiz alternative. Like SmartBiz, it’s a lending marketplace with SBA lending―but it offers plenty of other business loan options too.   

But Lendio is just one of the SmartBiz competitors we want to tell you about. Let’s dive in and talk about some of the best small-business loan companies.

So what makes these business loan companies good SmartBiz competitors? Well, they do some of the same things SmartBiz does―and they often do it better.

As you can see in our SmartBiz review, we like that SmartBiz lets you shop around to different lenders with one loan application. We also like the low interest rates on its SBA 7(a) loans. And we love how SmartBiz uses financial technology to make a complicated loan application process simpler.

Well, the business lenders on this page do the same kind of stuff.

Lendio, Fundera by Nerdwallet, and Funding Circle are all lending marketplaces―meaning they let you shop around for business loan offers with just one loan application. They also offer personalized loan guidance, much like you’d get from a SmartBiz advisor. And all three funding companies offer SBA loans like SmartBiz (though they have other types of working capital, too).

Likewise, all the lenders in this list offer competitive interest rates. Sure, they don’t all have the capped interest rates you get with SBA lending. But even Bluevine’s line of credit comes with very low starting rates, as do Bank of America’s various business loan options.

And yes, all these lenders use the internet to make loan applications easier and faster than ever before.

In other words, these SmartBiz competitors have a lot going for them―and we’re ready to tell you more about them.

Lendio is our favorite SmartBiz competitor―and probably our favorite place to get a business loan, period.

Like SmartBiz, Lendio partners with lenders (both online lenders and banks) rather than offering its own loans. So once you submit your loan application, Lendio will try to match you with lenders based on your borrower qualifications and borrowing preferences. You’ll get to choose from your matches, and then you’ll finish things up with the lender you like best.

Lendio’s process (like SmartBiz’s) allows you to get a great deal on your business loan because you’re not putting all your eggs in one lender’s basket.

But Lendio has even more loan options than SmartBiz does. It offers SBA loans, yes, but it also has term loans, business lines of credit, merchant cash advances, invoice factoring, commercial real estate loans, and more types of working capital.

With so many options, Lendio can offer funding even to small-business owners without perfect credit or old businesses―business owners that wouldn’t qualify for SmartBiz, in other words.

The downside? Lendio doesn’t move super quickly. While you can get funded in just a day or two (depending on what kind of working capital you apply for), you should expect the process to take at least a few days. But hey, that’s still faster than SmartBiz.

So for most business owners in the market for a SmartBiz competitor, Lendio is the lending marketplace to beat.

Fundera by Nerdwallet is another excellent lending marketplace that offers a good alternative to both SmartBiz and Lendio.

Like other small-business marketplaces, Fundera by Nerdwallet matches you with lending partners rather than offering its own funding. And just like Lendio, Fundera has all kinds of small-business financing. In addition to SBA loans, Fundera has lines of credit, cash advances, short-term loans, and more. Fundera even offers personal loans that you can use for your small business.

So why choose Fundera’s marketplace? Well, Fundera works with some lenders that Lendio doesn’t (and vice versa). If you’ve got a specific lender in mind that Fundera works with, Fundera might make sense for you. Plus, Fundera places a real premium on customer service, with its loan specialists giving you guidance on how to qualify for better financing in the future.

In other words, Fundera by Nerdwallet’s top-notch customer service and many loan options make it a marketplace worth looking at.

If you’ve got a mature business with plenty of revenue, plus a solid personal credit score, you’ll like Funding Circle.

Funding Circle, like Lendio, and Fundera, is a lending marketplace. But it’s a little more specialized than those two. Funding Circle offers just SBA loans, term loans, and lines of credit―and it only offers them to very well-qualified business owners. You need half a million in annual revenue, for example, to get considered for a Funding Circle loan.

The upside? Competitive rates. Much like SmartBiz, Funding Circle can offer very low interest rates on its business financing. Borrowers enjoy starting rates well under 10%, making Funding Circle more like banks than many online lenders. Except, unlike many banks, Funding Circle uses updated financial technology to process loans in just a few days.

So while Funding Circle is too exclusive for some borrowers, it has plenty to attract established businesses.

If you don’t have time to wait on matchmaking, apply with Bluevine to get funded ASAP.

Bluevine might be less like SmartBiz than any other company on this list. It’s a direct lender, not a marketplace. It offers just one product: business lines of credit. (No SBA lending here.) But those traits allow Bluevine to move much more quickly than other companies reviewed here. You can apply for a Bluevine line of credit, get approved, and get money in your bank account all in one day.

And unlike many online lenders, Bluevine lines of credit won’t kill you with fees. They start at just 6.2% interest―just a slightly higher rate than you’d find at traditional banks. That said, Bluevine credit lines do cap out at $250,000―smaller than SBA loans and traditional term loans, so they may not work for all business needs.

All the same, Bluevine’s fast (yet affordable) funding makes it a worthy SmartBiz competitor.

Prefer banks over alternative lenders? Then we recommend Bank of America as the best big bank option.

Bank of America offers all kinds of small-business loans, including equipment financing, commercial real estate loans, unsecured and secured term loans, and―you guessed it―SBA loans. So whether you’re interested in working capital to grow your inventory or you need a large loan amount to fund your real estate purchase, Bank of America can fund you.

As you’d expect from a bank, Bank of America offers rock-bottom interest rates and long repayment terms. Of course, you’ll have to qualify for Bank of America loans, and it’s pretty picky about its borrowers. And you have to be okay working with a bank―which almost always means working with a financial institution with very negative customer reviews.

If you’re on board with that, though, Bank of America’s low rates and many options make it our top bank lender.

If you’re looking for SmartBiz alternatives, the five lending companies above are the cream of the crop. But if you want to explore even more options, we do have a couple other lenders to tell you about.

Look, we don’t love Wells Fargo, but it’s consistently one of the top five SBA lenders in the country. So if you’re looking for an alternative to SmartBiz, you may want to turn to Wells Fargo.

Just keep in mind that Wells Fargo has stricter borrower requirements than even many other banks. And it’s got a rotten reputation (a big reason we don’t love it), so make sure you’re okay with that.

Don’t have a great credit score? Accion Opportunity Fund accepts business owners with all kinds of credit scores―and it still offers very competitive rates. So if you can’t qualify for SmartBiz loans, you may still qualify for an affordable term loan through Accion Opportunity Fund.

That doesn’t mean Accion Opportunity Fund won’t look at your credit―it will look at that, and your revenue, and your time in business. But since Accion Opportunity Fund tries to lend to business owners that can’t usually get financing, you may be able to qualify even with a lower credit score. 

We found that the best SmartBiz competitor for most small-business owners is Lendio. It offers a wide variety of loan types and lending partners, which allows you to get competitive rates on SBA loans and other kinds of working capital.

Fundera by Nerdwallet and Funding Circle also offer excellent lending marketplaces for business owners. If you’re in a hurry, Bluevine can get you funded faster than most lending companies. And for business owners that prefer banks, Bank of America can help you out with SBA loans and much, much more.

No matter which lender you choose, figure out how much your loan will cost by running the numbers in our business loan calculator.

We scored dozens of lenders based on factors like their loan amounts, loan fees, borrower reviews, and more. To narrow things down to the lenders on this list, we looked for lenders that directly compete with SmartBiz―that is, lenders that offer competitive interest rates and flexible working capital. Once we had our short list, we used their scores to rank and review them.

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.