Free MCA cost calculator
Put in the money that actually reached your bank account and the money that has to go back out, and this tells you the total dollar cost, the effective factor rate, the cost as a share of the cash you received, an estimated annualised cost, and — the part that decides whether a contracting business survives it — how much of your monthly collections the withdrawals consume, before and after a second advance, and in a bad month. Nothing you type leaves your browser. There is no email wall and no lender referral, here or anywhere in this resource.
Last reviewed against the primary sources cited on this page: 6 August 2026. Enforcement actions, statutes and regulations in this area change quickly. Re-check every source before you rely on it.
Read this before you use any annualised number on this page
The annualised cost this tool shows is an estimate, produced for comparison only. A merchant cash advance may not be legally characterised as a loan, and it may not disclose an annual percentage rate the way consumer credit does. Federal consumer credit disclosure law generally does not reach small business financing, so there is frequently no official APR for the deal in front of you to check this against.
The estimate also depends on inputs that are themselves estimates. If your withdrawals can vary with your revenue, the repayment period is a projection and not a term of the contract, and the annualised figure moves with it: pay the same dollar cost faster and the annualised cost goes up, not down. Use these numbers to compare one offer against another and against a bank product. Do not present them as the contractual rate of your agreement, because in most cases your agreement does not have one.
Your numbers
Leave a field blank and it is treated as zero. Dollar signs and commas are fine.
The advance
Your business
A worked example
This is an illustration, not a typical deal and not an average
The figures below were chosen to demonstrate the arithmetic and the cash-flow mechanics. They are not market data, they are not a quote, they are not an offer, and they are not what any provider charges. Real deals vary enormously. Use them to understand the shape of the problem, then put your own numbers in the calculator above.
A contractor takes an advance. $50,000 clears into the bank account. The purchased amount is $72,500, collected at $575 every business day. At $575 a day that is about 126 full daily withdrawals plus a small final one, roughly six calendar months, and on a normal month with 21 or 22 debit days it is about $12,500 to $12,650 a month leaving the account.
The cost is $22,500 on $50,000 of cash received. That is 45 cents on every dollar received, over about six months. Annualised for comparison, the two methods this tool shows give roughly 90% by the simple method and roughly 160% by the actuarial method — which is exactly why a single annualised number is never enough on its own. Read the warning above before you use either figure for anything other than comparing one offer against another.
Now the part that actually matters
Say this contractor collects $100,000 in a good month. The withdrawal is about 12.5% of collections. Tight, but survivable on paper, and that is the number the deal gets justified with.
Then a month goes wrong. Not catastrophically — just the ordinary way construction months go wrong. A commercial customer disputes a change order. An inspection fails and the re-inspection is nine days out. Two weeks of rain push three jobs. Retainage on a completed job has not been released. Collections come in at $55,000.
The withdrawal does not move
It is still about $12,500 to $12,650. But it is no longer 12.5% of collections. It is now about 23%. The same dollars, against a base that fell by nearly half, while materials, payroll, fuel and insurance did not fall at all. Nothing about the agreement caused this. The agreement simply did not respond to it.
That is the whole risk in one paragraph. Unless the contract contains a reconciliation procedure that is mandatory rather than discretionary, that you can actually invoke, and that the provider must answer within a defined period, the withdrawal in a bad month is exactly the withdrawal in a good month.
And that is the month in which a second advance starts to look like the solution, which is how a single advance becomes a stack. Put the second withdrawal in the calculator above and look at the combined figure against the bad-month collections, not against the good-month collections.
How each number is calculated
All arithmetic runs in your browser on the values you typed. The tool holds no market data, no rate table and no benchmark, and it makes no claim about what any provider charges.
- Net cash received = the deposit that cleared, minus any fee you paid separately.
- Total dollar cost = purchased amount − net cash received.
- Effective factor rate = purchased amount ÷ net cash received. If fees were deducted before your deposit, this is higher than the factor rate written on the contract, because the contract’s factor is calculated on a number you never received.
- Cost as a share of cash received = total dollar cost ÷ net cash received.
- Estimated annualised cost, simple method = cost share × (365 ÷ the calendar days the withdrawals span). Easy to check by hand. It ignores the fact that the balance falls as you pay, so it reads higher than an actuarial rate.
- Estimated annualised cost, actuarial method = the periodic rate that makes the present value of the withdrawal schedule equal the net cash received, multiplied by the number of such periods in a year. This is the concept federal Regulation Z uses for an annual percentage rate, applied here to a payment stream that is itself an estimate. It is the more conservative of the two figures.
- Monthly withdrawal burden = withdrawal × the average number of debits in a month (business days per week × 52 ÷ 12 for daily debits, 52 ÷ 12 for weekly). Individual months run higher or lower depending on how the calendar falls.
- Share of monthly collections consumed = total financing outflow ÷ collections.
- Cash remaining after financing = collections − every financing payment. This is money that still has to cover materials, payroll, subs, fuel, insurance, rent and you.
Sources
“Notably, while the Truth-in-Lending Act requires the disclosure of annual percentage rate ("APR") and other key pieces of information in personal credit transactions, it generally does not apply to small business financing.”
Federal Trade Commission, Bureau of Consumer Protection staff, "Strictly Business: An FTC Forum on Small Business Financing" (staff perspective), February 2020. https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/reports/staff-perspective-paper-ftcs-strictly-business-forum/strictly_business_forum_staff_perspective.pdf
Reviewed 6 August 2026. This is the reason the annualised figures above are labelled estimates.
“The estimated annual percentage rate, using the words annual percentage rate or the abbreviation "APR", expressed as a yearly rate, inclusive of any fees and finance charges, and calculated in accordance with the federal Truth in Lending Act, Regulation Z, 12 C.F.R. § 1026.22, based on the estimated term of repayment and the projected periodic payment amounts, regardless of whether such act or such regulation would require such a calculation.”
New York Financial Services Law section 803 (sales-based financing disclosure requirements), Financial Services Law article 8, text as published by the New York State Senate. https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/FIS/803
Reviewed 6 August 2026. New York requires an estimated APR on covered sales-based financing, and calls it estimated for the same reason this tool does: the repayment term is a projection.
“(2) The total dollar cost of the financing. (3) The term or estimated term. (4) The method, frequency, and amount of payments. (5) A description of prepayment policies. (6) The total cost of the financing expressed as an annualized rate.”
California Financial Code section 22802 (commercial financing disclosures; added by SB 1235, Stats. 2018, ch. 1011, amended by SB 33, Stats. 2023, ch. 376), text as published by California Legislative Information. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=FIN§ionNum=22802
Reviewed 6 August 2026. California Financial Code § 22802 lists what a covered provider must disclose. If you were given a disclosure like this, check it against what this calculator produces from your bank statement.
- Federal Trade Commission, Bureau of Consumer Protection staff, "Strictly Business: An FTC Forum on Small Business Financing" (staff perspective), February 2020. https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/reports/staff-perspective-paper-ftcs-strictly-business-forum/strictly_business_forum_staff_perspective.pdf — reviewed 6 August 2026.
- California Financial Code section 22802 (commercial financing disclosures; added by SB 1235, Stats. 2018, ch. 1011, amended by SB 33, Stats. 2023, ch. 376), text as published by California Legislative Information. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=FIN§ionNum=22802 — reviewed 6 August 2026.
- New York Financial Services Law section 803 (sales-based financing disclosure requirements), Financial Services Law article 8, text as published by the New York State Senate. https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/FIS/803 — reviewed 6 August 2026.
- New York Financial Services Law article 8, "Commercial Financing" (sections 801-812), text as published by the New York State Senate. https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/FIS/A8 — reviewed 6 August 2026.
This is not legal advice and it is not financial advice. Contractor Lane is not a law firm, not a lender, not a broker, not a funder, and not a financial adviser. Nothing on this page is a recommendation to take or refuse any financing. Merchant cash advance agreements differ from one another in ways that change the legal answer, and the law that applies to yours depends on the actual wording of your contract and on your state. Before you sign, take the agreement to a business-finance attorney, and take the numbers to a CPA or a qualified commercial-finance adviser who is not being paid a commission on the deal.
We do not sell, broker, refer or receive any payment from any financing provider. There is no affiliate link, no referral link, no lead form and no lender directory anywhere in this resource, and there will not be one. If a page here ever routes you to a funding company, that page is broken and you should not trust it.