Lender alternatives·12 min read·Updated 7 September 2026

Lovey alternatives: six direct lenders to hold against a Lovey quote

By the CapExpand team

Reviewed by Alex Beardsley, Founder · UK commercial finance broker

Facts checked 7 September 2026 · first published 7 September 2026

Read against lovey.com, Companies House, the January 2026 rebrand announcement, iwoca.co.uk, fleximize.com, fundingcircle.com and cubefunder.com; YouLend and 365 Finance figures are those on our own reviews of each lender.

Lovey is the trading name Love Finance Limited adopted in January 2026, and its footer says something a reader comparing lenders needs to know first: “We are a credit broker and a lender.” Some deals are funded from Lovey's own book, others are placed with a panel of lenders, and its commissions vary by lender and product. A page of Lovey alternatives is therefore partly a page of lenders Lovey might itself place you with. We name six that lend from their own balance sheet, publish their criteria, and sit on our panel.

Disclosure, since it cuts both ways: Lovey's brokerage arm competes with us, so you are reading one intermediary on another. What we can offer is method. Every figure below comes from the lender's own pages or factsheets, checked on 7 September 2026, and where Lovey publishes nothing (its merchant cash advance has no range, split, rate, criteria or speed claim on its site) we say so rather than guess.

The short version of the case for looking elsewhere: Lovey's “as low as 6.9%” is, on its own small print, an indicative panel rate based on the average for its lowest-risk businesses, and its cash advance cannot be compared on paper because there is no paper. The section after the table explains both. The last section is honest about where Lovey's own lending still fits.

Why people look past Lovey

The hybrid model. Lovey's footer continues: “We may source finance from a panel of lenders. We may receive commissions that will vary depending on the lender, product, or other permissible factors.” A quote from Lovey may be a quote from a lender on this page with a layer in between, or Lovey's own money at Lovey's own price, and the offer document is the only place that tells you which. Neither is improper, and the disclosure is to Lovey's credit. It just means that “Lovey versus iwoca” may not be two options.

The 6.9% headline. The business loan page says “Interest rates as low as 6.9%”. The small print beneath it reads: “Indicative rates for this term start from 6.9%, based on our panel of lenders. Final rates are subject to individual lender approval and borrower eligibility. You may be offered different terms. Based on average rate of our lowest risk businesses, and current fees.” So the poster rate is the average for the best-risk borrowers across a panel, not Lovey's price for its own lending and not a quote. Funding Circle publishes the same 6.9% floor as a direct lender, with a fixed rate and a stated completion fee, which is at least a number a business can be put against.

The cash advance with no terms. Lovey's merchant cash advance page describes borrowing against future card sales with repayments that move with the business, and routes to a quote form. There is no funding range, no percentage of card sales, no factor rate, no minimum trading time and no card turnover floor. YouLend publishes a ceiling and a trading floor; 365 Finance publishes its range, its floors and its 16% cap. A product with no published terms cannot be shortlisted, only applied for, and filling in a quote form is how a business joins a pipeline rather than how it compares a market.

What Lovey does publish is decent. Loans of £1,000 to £1,000,000 over 3 months to 6 years, unsecured to £750,000 (the same page also says £1,000,000), 3 months of trading and £50,000 of annual turnover, limited companies and sole traders, a soft search first, a decision in an hour and funds in as little as four hours. Its Trustpilot profile held 4.9 from around 2,320 reviews at our check, which is real and large. The personal guarantee policy is published nowhere we could find, and that is the first question to ask of any Lovey offer.

The alternatives at a glance

Lender	Product	Range	Min trading	Min turnover	Repayment
YouLend	Merchant cash advance (embedded)	£3,000 to £2,000,000	3 months of card sales	Around £1,500 a month in card sales	Percentage of daily card sales (up to 30%)
365 Finance	Merchant cash advance	£10,000 to £500,000	6 months	£10,000 a month in card sales	Up to 16% of daily card takings
iwoca	Flexi-Loan credit facility	£1,000 to £1,000,000	None published (start-ups capped at £10,000)	None published	Monthly; interest per 30 days on the drawn balance
Fleximize	Flexiloan and Flexiloan Lite term loans	£10,000 to £500,000 unsecured (£1,000,000 secured)	6 months (Lite) or 12 months	£5,000 a month	Monthly; interest recalculated on early settlement
Funding Circle	Fixed-rate business loan	£10,000 to £750,000	1 year	None published	Monthly; fixed rate plus one-off completion fee
Cubefunder	Fixed-cost short-term loan	£5,000 to £100,000	3 months	£4,000 a month	Fixed deduction every working day (weekly available)

Published criteria as at 7 September 2026; every figure is subject to the lender's own checks. Inclusion is a fact about the market, not an endorsement.

YouLend

YouLend is the merchant cash advance Lovey's page describes without the numbers. It lends from its own book against future card sales, from about £3,000 up to a £2,000,000 ceiling, and its published floor is the lowest we know of: three months of card sales at around £1,500 a month, which matches Lovey's three-month loan criterion. Most of the deals we place with it sit between £5,000 and £25,000. The marketing quotes a decision in 24 hours and funding in 48, and clean open-banking cases can fund the same day.

It serves sole traders as well as limited companies, takes personal guarantees from the directors as standard, and at its best partnership pricing sits at the cheap end of the mainstream advance market. Repayment is a percentage of each day's card sales, so a quiet week costs less that week.

What it does not substitute is a published price or a fixed schedule. YouLend, like Lovey, publishes no rate card; the fee is fixed per deal, early repayment saves nothing, and the daily sweep can run up to 30% of card sales on a stretched advance. It underwrites on director credit as well as takings, so active CCJs or recent defaults usually mean a decline, and twenty business days with no card sales is an event of default. A business paid by invoice has nothing for it to collect against.

Read our YouLend review

365 Finance

365 Finance is the card-split lender that publishes the most: £10,000 to £500,000, 6 months of trading, £10,000 a month in card sales, and a hard cap of 16% of daily card takings in repayment. Every one of those is a number Lovey's advance page lacks. It has advanced over £572 million to UK businesses, runs named account managers rather than a portal, and in our placements is the lender that most often funds a deal an automated decline has rejected, a single satisfied CCJ being the typical case.

Funds land reliably in 24 to 48 hours from a complete application, and top-ups can open at 40% to 60% repaid, earlier than the market's usual 60%. Its Trustpilot score sits between 4.6 and 4.8 across its profiles. Pricing is a fixed fee per deal, unpublished.

What it does not substitute is Lovey's three-month floor or its £1,000 minimum. Six months of trading and £10,000 a month on cards are real bars, the 16% cap sizes the offer as well as protecting cash flow, and the advance is only for businesses paid mostly on cards. Our YouLend vs 365 Finance comparison covers which of the two fits which business.

Read our 365 Finance review

iwoca

iwoca matches Lovey's loan range almost exactly, £1,000 to £1,000,000, and publishes what Lovey's small print hedges: interest from 1.5% per 30 days on the drawn balance only, with an FAQ range of 1.5% to 5.7% a month and a representative example of 3.33% per 30 days (49% APR representative). The Flexi-Loan is held for one day to five years, you draw what you need, and the interest stops when you repay. There are no early repayment fees; iwoca says more than 20% of its customers repay ahead of schedule in their first six months.

Speed is comparable with Lovey's: a decision within 24 hours in almost all cases and money within hours of approval. A personal guarantee from at least one director is required and stated plainly, with no charge over assets. iwoca lent £1.3 billion across 58,000 loans in 2025 from its own book, and its Trustpilot profile held 4.7 from over 11,000 reviews at our check.

What it does not substitute is the sole trader or the fixed-rate term loan. iwoca works with limited companies and LLPs only; Lovey's published criteria include sole traders. Its rate is variable, borrowing beyond 12 months typically adds a fee of 5% to 6%, and it publishes no trading minimum but caps start-ups at a £10,000 limit and sizes limits at around one month's revenue. Drawn for weeks it usually beats a fixed-fee product; held for years, it does not.

Read our iwoca review

Fleximize

Fleximize is a direct term lender with a published rate range and no arrangement fee when applying directly, which is the shape most people picture when they read Lovey's 6.9% line. The Flexiloan runs 12 to 60 months at 0.9% to 2.9% a month from 12 months of trading; the Flexiloan Lite runs 3 to 12 months at 1.9% to 3.9% a month from six months. Unsecured lending reaches £500,000. The Penalty-Free Promise recalculates interest on early settlement, and Fleximize says early repayers save an average of 44% of their total interest.

Decisions come in as little as 24 hours with same-day funds on approval, loans are sized at up to four months of revenue, and top-ups and repayment holidays open after three successful repayments. Fleximize lent £149 million in 2025 and its Trustpilot profile held 4.8 from over 1,100 reviews at our check. The representative example for loans under £25,000 is 41.1% APR, built on 34.9% fixed a year on £15,000 over 18 months, which is the honest anchor for a small borrower rather than the 0.9% floor.

What it does not substitute is the renter, the small sole trader or the three-month-old company. Fleximize's FAQ states it can only support non-homeowners trading for over 36 months and then only to £20,000; sole traders and non-limited partnerships with fewer than four partners can apply only for loans over £25,000; and the youngest business it serves has six months of trading against Lovey's three. A personal guarantee from at least one director or shareholder is required on every loan.

Read our Fleximize review

Funding Circle

Funding Circle is the direct lender behind the number on Lovey's poster. Its term loan is priced from 6.9% a year, fixed, on £10,000 to £750,000 over 6 months to 6 years, plus a one-off completion fee set by risk rating and term. The calculator's default example puts the fee in pounds: £100,000 over 24 months, £6,900 completion fee, £8,668 interest, £115,568 in total at £4,815 a month. There is no early settlement fee and overpayments are allowed. Its shorter-term loan of up to 12 months carries no completion fee when applied for directly, with an instant decision up to £250,000.

Speed is a 7-minute application, a decision in as little as an hour and funds typically within 48 hours. Funding Circle states that a personal guarantee will be required and that Funding Circle Ltd is authorised and regulated by the FCA under reference 722513. It has lent £18 billion to more than 135,000 UK businesses since 2010 and held a Trustpilot score of 4.6 from around 17,000 reviews at our check.

What it does not substitute is Lovey's breadth of eligibility. Funding Circle withdrew from sole traders and partnerships on 23 February 2026 and now lends to limited companies and LLPs only; its published minimum is a year of trading against Lovey's three months; and the assessment reads up to eight months of bank statements and full accounts. The completion fee is not refunded on early settlement, and on the sub-24-month Flexible Loan the personal guarantee is set at twice the loan.

Read our Funding Circle review

Cubefunder

Cubefunder is the direct lender for the youngest and smallest end of Lovey's range. It lends £5,000 to £100,000 over 3 to 12 months to limited companies registered in England or Wales from 3 months of trading and £4,000 a month of revenue, a lower turnover bar than Lovey's £50,000 a year, and its FAQ says adverse credit does not disqualify an applicant. Funds are quoted within 48 hours. It also runs a separate regulated sole-trader loan of £5,000 to £10,000 with a published representative example: £5,000 over 24 months at 30.0% a year fixed, 24 payments of £320.83, £7,700 repayable, 45.5% APR representative.

The product is a fixed cost of credit, set per case and unpublished, divided by the working days in the term and collected every working day (weekly on request). Cubefunder publishes no late payment charges where an overrun is agreed in advance, and no fee for early settlement, though it does not say the fixed cost falls. A personal guarantee from each controlling director is required. It had lent over £110 million by July 2026.

What it does not substitute is scale, term or reach. The ceiling is £100,000 for a new customer and the term 12 months, against Lovey's £1,000,000 and six years; Scottish and Northern Irish companies are outside its published scope; and accountants, financial services firms and debt collection agencies are excluded. A fixed cost over a short term also needs translating into an annual rate before it is held against anything with a percentage on it. Our Cubefunder alternatives page goes further.

Read our Cubefunder review

When Lovey is still the right call

Two things on this page are about Lovey's own lending, not its brokerage. The first is the sole-trader route. Lovey's published criteria are 3 months of trading and £50,000 of annual turnover for both private limited companies and sole traders, across the whole £1,000 to £1,000,000 range. Of the six direct lenders here, only YouLend takes sole traders without a minimum, Cubefunder writes them £5,000 to £10,000, and Fleximize takes them above £25,000. iwoca and Funding Circle do not serve them at all. A sole trader who wants £40,000 over three years has a short list, and Lovey's own book is on it.

The second is the small, fast ticket. A £1,000 minimum, a decision in an hour and funds in as little as four hours, a VAT loan that spreads a quarter's bill over 3 months, and short-term loans of 3 to 12 months with a soft search first: that is a real offer for a business that needs £5,000 by Friday and does not want an advance against card sales. Lovey has the balance sheet to write it directly, having raised its first external debt facility in October 2025, £45 million from Paragon Bank and LGB Capital Markets, to lend from its own book after nine years bootstrapped. Lending went from £48 million in 2023 to £195 million in 2025.

In either case the offer document is what tells you whether the money is Lovey's own or a panel lender's, and what the total repayable and any guarantee are. Our own enquiry form puts the same business to the direct lenders on this page so the offers sit side by side, and our factor rate vs APR guide lines up a fixed-fee offer against a rate honestly.

Check the whole panel in one go

Tell us your numbers once and we say which of these lenders your business fits, and which would decline, before anything is submitted. We arrange; the lender decides.

Start an enquiry 0333 041 3127

Frequently asked questions

Both, in its own words: its footer states “We are a credit broker and a lender”, that it may source finance from a panel of lenders, and that it may receive commissions that vary by lender and product. Love Finance Limited (Companies House 08103018) trading as Lovey states it is authorised and regulated by the FCA under reference 723310. The practical question on any Lovey offer is whether the money is Lovey’s own or a panel lender’s, and the offer document answers it.

No. Lovey’s own small print says the 6.9% is an indicative rate for the term, based on its panel of lenders and on the average rate of its lowest-risk businesses, with final rates subject to individual lender approval. Funding Circle publishes the same 6.9% floor as a direct lender on a fixed-rate loan with a one-off completion fee; its calculator’s worked example is £100,000 over 24 months for £115,568 in total.

Only that it is based on future card sales with repayments that move with the business. There is no funding range, no percentage of card sales, no factor rate, no eligibility criteria and no speed claim on the page. YouLend publishes a £2,000,000 ceiling, a three-month floor and around £1,500 a month in card sales; 365 Finance publishes £10,000 to £500,000, six months, £10,000 a month and a 16% cap on daily takings.

YouLend does, and Cubefunder does through a separate regulated loan of £5,000 to £10,000 for sole traders in England and Wales. Fleximize accepts sole traders and small partnerships only for loans over £25,000. iwoca lends to limited companies and LLPs only, and Funding Circle withdrew from sole traders and partnerships on 23 February 2026. Lovey’s published criteria cover both limited companies and sole traders.

YouLend (three months of card sales) and Cubefunder (three months of trading, limited companies in England or Wales). Fleximize’s Lite product and 365 Finance start at six months, Funding Circle at a year. iwoca publishes no minimum but caps start-ups at a £10,000 limit.

Funding Circle (from 6.9% a year fixed, plus a completion fee), Fleximize (0.9% to 2.9% a month on the Flexiloan, 1.9% to 3.9% on the Lite) and iwoca (from 1.5% per 30 days, up to 5.7% a month on its FAQ). YouLend, 365 Finance and Cubefunder price per deal and publish no figures, as Lovey does for its cash advance. A published range is a starting point, not a quote.

It does not say on any public page we could find, which makes it the first question to ask of an offer. Every direct lender on this page either states that a personal guarantee is required (iwoca from at least one director, Fleximize from at least one director or shareholder, Funding Circle, Cubefunder from each controlling director) or takes one as standard (YouLend and 365 Finance).

Yes. Lovey is a trading name of Love Finance Limited, Companies House 08103018, incorporated in June 2012 and named Love Finance Limited since March 2014, with the business dating its start to 2016 under founder Jack Smith. The rename was announced on 20 January 2026 and the site moved to lovey.com; the old lovefinance.co.uk address redirects there. Same company, same FCA reference, new name.

No. Lovey is not on our panel and we have no commercial relationship with it; it is a competitor on the brokerage side. All six alternatives on this page are on our panel. One enquiry lets us say which of them a business fits before anything is submitted; the lender makes the decision. Figures were read from each firm’s own pages on 7 September 2026 and can change without notice.

Sources and method

Facts on this page were checked against the sources below on 7 September 2026. Where a lender does not publish a figure we say so rather than estimate it.