Decision time and ticket size, by product
A rolled-up, by-product view of the same 103-lender dataset behind our UK Business Finance Lender Index: median decision time and ticket size across merchant cash advance, unsecured loans, asset finance, invoice finance, bridging and commercial mortgage lenders. Every figure below is a median or range of what each lender publishes about itself, not an average of real applicant outcomes; the methodology section explains exactly how each number is built.
Quick Reference
Direct Answer
Merchant cash advance and other revenue-based finance is the fastest category for a decision, typically under 2 days, and covers the smallest typical ticket sizes. Unsecured term loans and asset finance typically decide within 1 to 2 business days for smaller amounts. Invoice finance, bridging and commercial mortgage lending typically take longer, often a week or more, and cover much larger ticket sizes. All figures are medians of published lender criteria, not measured applicant outcomes.
Summary
This page reports median decision time and ticket size by business finance product type (merchant cash advance, unsecured loan, asset finance, invoice finance, bridging, commercial mortgage), built from the published criteria of the lenders FundBiz reviews. It states the methodology (median of lender-published figures, not measured outcomes) and how many lenders in each category the decision-time figure is drawn from.
This Page Covers
Median decision time and ticket size by UK business finance product type, built from published lender criteria
Not Covered Here
Not a measure of real applicant outcomes or FundBiz's own funding data (FundBiz does not run a credit check, match or score applications); per-lender detail lives on the full Lender Index, not this rolled-up view
| Product type | Lenders reviewed | Typical (median) ticket size | Full observed spread | Median decision time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Merchant cash advance / revenue-based finance | 11 | £10k to £500k | £1k to £20m | ~1.0 days (9 of 11 lenders state a figure) |
| Unsecured / SME term loan | 18 | £10k to £500k | £500 to £75m | ~1.5 days (10 of 18 lenders state a figure) |
| Asset finance | 16 | £5k to £500k | £500 to £50m | ~2.0 days (7 of 16 lenders state a figure) |
| Invoice finance & asset-based lending | 14 | £50k to £17.5m | £1k to £200m | ~7.5 days (8 of 14 lenders state a figure) |
| Bridging & development finance | 24 | £100k to £10m | £10k to £750m | ~6.5 days (19 of 24 lenders state a figure) |
| Commercial mortgage & property finance | 2 | £128k to £5.3m | £5k to £10m | ~10.0 days (1 of 2 lenders state a figure) |
| Other / specialist | 18 | £25k to £3m | £1k to £75m | ~1.8 days (8 of 18 lenders state a figure) |
"Median decision time" is the middle value of each category's stated decision times, converted to days (1 business day = 24 hours here for comparability, not a claim that decisions happen overnight). "Full observed spread" is the widest range published anywhere in that category, shown separately from the typical band so a handful of institutional-scale deals do not distort the headline figure.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Lenders reviewed in this category | 18 |
| Typical (median) ticket size | £10k to £500k |
| Median decision time | ~1.5 days |
Source: FundBiz UK Business Finance Lender Index
Median of published lender criteria, not measured applicant outcomes. See methodology below.
View as plain-text Markdown
### Worked example: unsecured term loan category | Metric | Value | | --- | --- | | Lenders reviewed in this category | 18 | | Typical (median) ticket size | £10k to £500k | | Median decision time | ~1.5 days | Source: FundBiz UK Business Finance Lender Index Median of published lender criteria, not measured applicant outcomes. See methodology below.
Why these figures are medians, not averages of real outcomes
FundBiz does not run a credit check, match, score or route applications, so we hold no dataset of real funding outcomes to average. What we do hold is the same structured lender data behind our Lender Index: what each lender itself publishes about its typical ticket size and decision time. This page takes the median of those published figures within each product category, which is more resistant to a single outlier lender skewing the picture than a simple average would be, and states the fuller spread separately so the handful of institutional-scale bridging and development lenders in our index do not make the "typical" figure misleading in either direction.
“Every figure in this table is what a lender says about itself, and lenders have an obvious incentive to state the fastest number that's technically true. 'Decision in 24 hours' and 'funds in your account in 24 hours' are different claims, and the small print usually says which one is meant. Treat these medians as a way to compare categories against each other, not as a personal timeline. Your own decision time depends on how complete your file is, not just which category you apply in.”
Methodology
Each of the 103 lenders in our Lender Index is grouped into one of 7 product families by its published product description, then its published ticket range and decision time are parsed into figures where they reduce to one: a £ amount for ticket size, an hours-or-days figure for decision time. Lenders whose decision time is stated as "quoted per deal", "case by case" or similar are counted (so the table shows how many lenders exist in a category) but excluded from the decision-time median, rather than assigned a guessed figure.
The typical ticket size shown is the median of each lender's own stated minimum, and the median of each lender's own stated maximum, within that category, not a single blended average across every lender's full range. The "full observed spread" column is the lowest minimum and highest maximum published anywhere in the category, shown alongside the median so an institutional-scale outlier (a handful of our reviewed bridging and development lenders serve deals up to eight figures) is visible without distorting the typical figure.
This page is compiled from the same source records as the Lender Index and is recomputed from that data, so it's only as current as the last time a lender's terms were reviewed; see the date at the foot of this page for the last change logged.
FAQs
Is this the average decision time businesses actually experience?
No. These are median figures taken from what each lender publishes about its own typical decision time and ticket size, the same source data as our full lender index. FundBiz does not run a credit check, match, score or route applications, so we hold no data on real applicant outcomes to average instead. Treat these as a guide to what lenders in each category advertise, not a guarantee of your own timeline.
Why is the ticket size shown as a range rather than one figure?
Because that is how lenders themselves publish it, and because the spread within a category is genuinely wide. Bridging and development finance, for example, runs from small short-term bridges up to institutional-scale development lending, so a single "average" ticket size would hide more than it shows. The table gives both the typical (median) band and the full observed spread.
Why do some lenders not appear in the decision-time figures?
A meaningful number of lenders describe decision time in a way that does not reduce to a clean number, "quoted per deal", "case by case", or similar. We exclude those from the median rather than guess at a figure, and the table states how many lenders in each category the median is actually built from.
Which category is fastest?
Merchant cash advance and other revenue-based finance is consistently the fastest category on stated decision time, often measured in hours rather than days, because the underwriting leans on card-sales or revenue data the lender already has visibility of. Secured and larger-ticket categories, bridging, development and commercial mortgage finance, take longer because valuation and legal work is part of the process.
See the per-lender detail
This page rolls figures up by product type. For the individual lender behind any of these numbers, see the full UK Business Finance Lender Index, or send an enquiry and we pass your details to a business finance broker, who will contact you about your options. FundBiz does not run a credit check.
Check your options →By Adam Parker. FundBiz is owned and operated by Best Business Loans Ltd, directed by Oliver Mackman. Last updated: