@LadyFoxtrot Your "eek" moment re: Square Loans is spot-on. That is the one downside that most sellers never consider -- the repayment rate is always applied, every sale, every day, until the loan is paid off. And if you have a really great sales day, you just pay more and pay the loan off faster -- resulting in a rather high APR% if you bother to do the math to convert the loan fee to APR after you've paid off the loan. And I keep seeing people who are living from loan offer to loan offer and are one "no loan offer" away from closing their business. That's not wise nor good for sleeping at night. Thankfully, I've not been in that situation.
Still, merchant cash advances like this do have their advantages and uses. I've used them strategically over the years, and only/always after I plotted out the cash flow and was sure it made sense to do this. Honestly, I thought I had outgrown Square Loans after 10+ years, but I recently took out what will probably be the last one I do. This time, my business had grown enough that I got a really good offer -- one that would basically help me FINALLY reach my goal of retiring all of my pandemic-incurred debt. Doing this forced me to prioritize getting rid of that debt since I now must pay back the loan every day. Best of all, if my sales predictions for this ice cream season hold true, I'll have 80% of this loan paid off by October! On paper this Square Loan made a lot of sense for both debt retirement, cash flow and ultimately my sanity at not having to think about the blasted pandemic any more! Ha.
Anyway, thanks for coming back here and reporting your experiences and success with Square Loans. I'm sure that @Twpchair @ryanwanner @marielmt appreciate know how your story ended after their great advice.
Chip A.
Square Expert & Innovator and member of the Square Champions group. (But NOT a Square employee, just a seller like you)
Was my post helpful? Take a moment to mark it as a solution. Marked solutions help other sellers find possible resolutions to similar problems. Also, if you find your solution elsewhere (say, through Support), it is helpful to come back to your post and tell us about it, then mark that as a Solution. Solutions are what this Community is all about!
