Personal Loans
The general-purpose option: one lump sum, one fixed rate, one final payment month..
Read the full guide →Kapitus Funding is a free comparison service for United States residents who need between $500 and $5,000. One request reaches our lending partner network, offers come back with the rate and the total cost stated plainly, and you decide from there.
What This Service Does — and What It Does Not
Kapitus is not a lender. We do not underwrite, we do not set rates, and we do not decide who gets approved. What we operate is the connection layer: a single request form that reaches a network of licensed lending partners, so that one submission produces several comparable offers instead of one answer from one company.
That distinction matters because it changes what you should expect. Submitting a Kapitus funding request is not an application for credit with us. It is a Kapitus Funding funding request that partners choose to respond to or decline based on their own criteria. Nothing here is an approval, and no page on this site can tell you what rate you will be offered — that figure belongs to the partner that underwrites your file.
What we can do is make the comparison honest. Every explanation on this site quotes cost in total dollars repaid rather than headline rate alone, because the headline rate is the number that hides the most. Every page that describes a product also describes when that product is the wrong choice. That is a deliberate editorial position, and it is why 7,000 people have used this service and rated it 4.9 out of five across 1,850 ratings.
The request range runs from $500 to $5,000. Below that, most people are better served by a provider payment plan or a short savings push. Above it, you are usually looking at secured lending with different economics. The band we cover is the one where unsecured instalment credit genuinely does something useful: a known expense, a fixed schedule, and a payoff date you can name.
How a Request Moves Through the Network
- You complete one form. Amount, purpose, income, employment, contact details, and bank information for deposit. It takes a few minutes and costs nothing.
- Partners evaluate. Those whose criteria fit your profile review the Kapitus funding request. Most begin with a soft credit pull, which does not affect your score.
- Offers come back. Each states an amount, an annual percentage rate, a term, a monthly payment, and any origination fee.
- You compare — properly. Multiply the monthly payment by the number of months. That figure, the total repaid, is what the loan actually costs.
- You accept one, or none. Declining everything is a normal outcome and costs you nothing.
- The partner funds. Verification, an agreement to sign, then a deposit. Timing is set by the partner and your bank; one to three business days is common.
Why one request beats four applications
Applying separately to four lenders over three weeks produces four hard inquiries spread across your file, which scoring models read as someone applying everywhere. A single request that reaches several partners at once avoids that pattern while still producing a comparison.
The Borrowing Situations We Cover
Every category below uses the same underlying instrument — a fixed-rate unsecured instalment loan — but the sizing, the sensible term, and the traps are different in each case. Each page is written for its specific situation rather than being the same guidance with the nouns swapped.
Holiday Loans
Turn a five-week spending window into a schedule that finishes before the next one..
Read the full guide →
Medical Expense Loans
For care that will not wait — after the itemised bill and the appeal have been tried..
Read the full guide →
Debt Consolidation Loans
Trade several minimum payments for a single schedule that actually reaches zero..
Read the full guide →
Large Purchase Loans
Arrange the money before you shop, and walk in as a cash buyer anywhere..
Read the full guide →
Credit Card Refinance Loans
Give a revolving balance the one thing it does not have: a payoff date..
Read the full guide →Reading Cost Honestly
Almost every complaint borrowers have about instalment loans traces back to comparing the wrong number. Lenders compete publicly on the headline rate, so that is the figure that appears in advertising. It is not the figure that determines what leaves your bank account over the next two years.
Three numbers matter, and all three appear on the disclosure you receive before signing. The annual percentage rate folds any origination fee into the rate, which makes it the only rate figure comparable across offers. The monthly payment tells you whether the loan is survivable. The total repaid tells you what it costs. An offer has to pass on all three.
| Borrowed | APR | Term | Monthly | Total repaid | Cost of credit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $1,000 | 17.99% | 12 months | $91.68 | $1,100.16 | $100.16 |
| $2,500 | 21.99% | 18 months | $164.35 | $2,958.30 | $458.30 |
| $2,500 | 21.99% | 36 months | $95.44 | $3,435.84 | $935.84 |
| $5,000 | 26.99% | 24 months | $271.63 | $6,519.12 | $1,519.12 |
| $5,000 | 26.99% | 36 months | $203.99 | $7,343.64 | $2,343.64 |
Compare rows two and three. Identical amount, identical rate, one variable changed. The longer term reduces the monthly payment by $69 and increases the cost of credit by $478. Neither row is wrong — a smaller payment is genuinely valuable if the larger one would break your month — but the trade should be made knowingly rather than by accident. Illustrative figures only; your offer will differ.
Who This Suits, and Who It Does Not
A good fit
You have a specific expense with a known price. Your income is steady enough to carry a fixed payment through a bad month as well as a good one. You want the debt gone by a date you can name. You are comparing options rather than accepting the first thing offered. Roughly speaking, this describes most people who complete a Kapitus funding request here and are happy afterwards.
A poor fit
Your monthly income does not cover your monthly obligations, and the loan would be covering the gap. You are borrowing to make payments on other borrowing without anything underlying having changed. You cannot state the amount you need to the nearest hundred dollars. In these cases, free nonprofit credit counselling is a better first call than any lender.
We would rather say that clearly than convert a Kapitus funding request that leaves someone worse off. If the second column describes your situation, the National Foundation for Credit Counseling maintains a directory of accredited member agencies, and their initial consultation is free.
Baseline Requirements
Individual partners set their own underwriting criteria, and they differ. The following is the common floor across the Kapitus network — meeting it does not guarantee an offer, and falling short of it generally means no partner will quote.
| Requirement | Detail |
|---|---|
| Age | At least 18, or the age of majority in your state |
| Residency | United States resident with a valid government-issued ID |
| Income | Regular, verifiable income — employment, self-employment, or benefits |
| Bank account | Active checking account in your name for deposit and repayment |
| Contact | Working phone number and email address |
| Credit | No universal minimum; partners underwrite across a wide band |
Self-employed and gig-income borrowers are not excluded, but should expect to document income more thoroughly — bank statements, tax records, or platform earnings summaries. Having those ready before you submit saves several days.
How to Tell a Real Offer From a Scam
Loan fraud follows a predictable script, and knowing it protects you across every lender you ever deal with, not just this one.
- Nobody legitimate asks for money upfront. Not gift cards, not a wire transfer, not a prepaid card "to release the funds". Fees on real loans are disclosed in the agreement and deducted from the disbursement. An advance payment request is a scam, always.
- Guaranteed approval is not a real thing. Every lender underwrites. Anyone promising approval regardless of credit is selling something else.
- Pressure exists to prevent comparison. A genuine offer is still there tomorrow. "This expires in the next hour" is a technique, not a term.
- Check the licence. Your state banking or financial regulation department publishes a searchable register. It takes four minutes.
- Watch for name-alikes. Fraudulent operations frequently borrow the name of a real lender with a slight spelling change. Verify the domain and the phone number independently.
We publish contact details in full on every page of this site — a phone number, an email address, and a physical address — because operations that will not tell you where they are should not be handling your bank details.
How This Site Is Written and Funded
Kapitus earns a fee from participating lending partners when a Kapitus funding request is transmitted or funded. That is disclosed in the footer of every page and it is the only way the service stays free at the point of use. It also creates an obvious tension, so here is how we handle it: our editorial pages state when borrowing is the wrong answer, they name the free alternatives, and they quote cost in total dollars rather than in the most flattering available format.
Rate examples on this site are illustrative and are labelled as such. We do not publish invented customer testimonials. The reviews on our reviews page are drawn from feedback submitted through the service, and the aggregate rating shown across the site reflects 1,850 ratings with 20 written comments. Where we reference an outside expert, we describe their published work and credentials accurately and we do not attribute invented quotations to them.
Kapitus servicing questions — statements, due dates, payoff quotes, hardship arrangements — are handled by the lending partner that holds your loan, not by us. We can help you work out which partner that is and what to ask them, but we have no access to your account and cannot change your terms. Our contact page explains where each type of question should go.
Six Things That Shape How We Run This
These are operating commitments rather than marketing claims, and each one is testable against the rest of the site.
One request, several answers
A single submission reaches partners with different underwriting models, so a profile that reads as marginal to one can read as perfectly acceptable to another.
Cost quoted in dollars
Every example on this site shows the total repaid alongside the monthly payment, because the monthly payment on its own hides the length of the schedule.
No fee to you, ever
Submitting a Kapitus funding request is free. Partners compensate us; you are never billed by Kapitus for anything at any stage.
Soft pull to start
The request itself does not put a hard inquiry on your reports, which means comparing does not cost you points before you have decided anything.
Fixed rates, fixed dates
Every partner in the network quotes closed-end instalment loans. The payment does not move and the schedule ends on a stated month.
Written to be argued with
Our guidance pages say when not to borrow and name the free alternatives. That is unusual for a site funded this way, and it is deliberate.
From the Kapitus Library
Fifteen guides covering credit, budgeting, repayment and the mechanics of consumer lending. Three of the most read are below.
What Lenders Actually See When They Pull Your Credit File
Read the guide →
Building an Emergency Fund When Your Income Is Different Every Month
Read the guide →What Kapitus Is Accountable For
A comparison service can only be judged on the parts it controls, so it is worth stating them. Kapitus controls the request form, which partners sit in the network, the order pages are presented in, and every word published on this domain. That is the whole list.
Kapitus does not control the credit decision, the rate, the term, the fee schedule, the funding date, or anything that happens after an agreement is signed. Those belong to whichever Kapitus lending partner underwrites your file, and no page here can promise otherwise.
Where that leaves a borrower is straightforward. Hold Kapitus to the accuracy of the arithmetic on this site, to the absence of a fee, and to the fact that a Kapitus funding request never obliges you to accept anything. Hold the lending partner to the terms in the agreement. Conflating the two is the most common source of frustration in this industry, and separating them is the single most useful thing this page can do.
Everything above can be checked rather than taken on trust. The Kapitus calculator collects nothing, the Kapitus alternatives page carries no referral links, and every rate example on the Kapitus site is labelled as an illustration. A Kapitus funding request is free, obliges nothing, and places no hard inquiry on your reports — which means comparing costs you nothing except the time it takes to read the offers.
Common Questions
No. We are a free comparison and referral service. Licensed lending partners in our network make all credit decisions and set all rates and terms. We never underwrite and never hold your loan.
Between $500 and $5,000. The amount any individual partner is willing to offer depends on your credit profile, income, existing obligations, and state of residence.
The request itself does not place a hard inquiry on your credit reports. Partners typically start with a soft pull. If you proceed with a specific partner, that partner will usually run a hard inquiry before final approval.
Nothing. Participating lending partners compensate us when a Kapitus funding request is transmitted or funded, which is how the service remains free to you. You are never charged a fee for submitting.
Funding timing is set by the lending partner and your bank. One to three business days after final approval is common, though it can be faster or slower depending on the partner's process and when the Kapitus funding request was completed.
Yes, and it costs nothing. You are under no obligation at any point until you sign a loan agreement with a lending partner.
Partners in the network underwrite across a wide range of credit profiles, and some weight recent income stability more heavily than score alone. An offer is not guaranteed, and weaker files that do receive offers will generally see higher rates or smaller amounts.
The lending partner that holds your loan handles all servicing — statements, payment dates, payoff quotes, and hardship requests. Kapitus has no access to your loan account.