YouLend vs 365 Finance: Which one should you actually apply to?

We send applications to both YouLend and 365 Finance every week. They are the two biggest merchant cash advance providers in the UK and they are not really competitors in the way most comparison sites pretend. They are built for different businesses. Once you understand who each one is built for, the choice usually makes itself.

The short version: if your business is well-credited, taking card payments through a Dojo machine and you want the fastest, cheapest route to funding, YouLend will almost always win. If you run a hospitality venue with a relationship-driven team, you have been turned down somewhere else, you are a nightclub, or you need someone on the phone who knows your name, 365 Finance is the call.

This is not going to be 3,000 words of “varies” and “subject to underwriting.” We will tell you what we actually see when we place these deals. Where the numbers come from publicly available sources or the lenders' own marketing, we point that out. Where they come from what we see in our broker portal, we are specific without revealing client information.

The 60-second answer

Most of our clients fit YouLend. The ones that don't, fit 365.

At a glance

The full side-by-side comparison. Highlighted cells show where one provider has a clear edge for a specific kind of merchant.

Trustpilot scores reflect each lender's own published data at time of writing. Factor rates and approval ranges reflect what we see across deals our team places.

Who YouLend actually is

YouLend started in 2015 in London. Companies House number 12576377. They have grown faster than anyone else in the UK MCA market and they are now the embedded finance engine behind Dojo Funding, Amazon Lending UK, eBay Seller Capital, JustEat business funding and the funding products inside dozens of other platforms you would recognise. When a UK merchant sees “Get funding through your card processor” in their dashboard, there is a high chance YouLend is the lender behind it.

J.P. Morgan put up £4 billion in private securitisation to fund their loan book. That is a number that matters because it means YouLend can write a lot of deals at competitive rates without running out of money. Their public turnover went from £25.9M in 2022 to £67.2M in 2023, with headcount climbing past 250.

What this means for you as a borrower: YouLend has the cheapest cost of capital in the mainstream UK MCA market most of the time, and they pass some of that on as a lower cost of borrowing. They are also the most risk-averse, which is the trade-off. If you are a clean, profitable, card-heavy business, you get a great deal. If anything on your application is messy, you are more likely to get declined here than at 365 Finance.

Their published approval rate is 91% for applications using open banking and 84% for applications using uploaded bank statements. Both numbers come from YouLend's own data and they are broadly consistent with what we see on the ground for applications that actually reach underwriting.

YouLend assigns you an account manager but the experience is portal-first. Most of the journey runs through the portal, with email and chat support as the default channels and phone when needed. If you want to log in at 11pm, request a top-up and have it land in your account by Tuesday lunchtime, this style suits.

Want a deeper read on YouLend specifically? Read our full YouLend Review UK 2026 for rates, approval criteria and what actually happens at each step.

Who 365 Finance actually is

365 Finance is the trading name of 365 Business Finance Limited, based in London, in operation since 2012. They are a direct MCA lender, not an embedded finance platform, which means they fund deals from their own balance sheet rather than plugging into someone else's checkout. Around 90 employees as of late 2025. They have advanced over £572 million to UK SMEs since launch.

They won SME Lender of the Year at the 2025 Credit Awards and Best Fintech Lender at the 2026 Lending Awards. That is not just PR fluff. Award judges in this space tend to weight broker feedback and complaints data, and 365 consistently scores well on both.

What this means for you: 365 Finance operates more like a traditional finance house with a fintech veneer. Every customer gets a named account manager. The application takes more conversation than YouLend's. The approvals process is more accountant-led, meaning the underwriters look at your business as a whole rather than running automated checks. The trade-off is they need more from you to make a decision and they generally need a bigger business to fund (£10,000 monthly card sales minimum, where YouLend will go down to £1,500).

The bit nobody mentions: 365 caps the daily repayment percentage at 16%. YouLend will go higher. This matters for a specific reason: if you want a big advance relative to your monthly turnover, YouLend will offer it but the daily sweep will be brutal. 365 will offer you slightly less but will not let the daily repayment get into territory that risks killing the business. Their stated logic is that they would rather fund less and protect the merchant than fund more and damage them. That is an accountant-led view and it shows up consistently.

What you actually pay

Both lenders use a factor rate rather than interest. You take a lump sum upfront, the fee is fixed at the start, and you repay the total over time as a small share of your daily card takings. The fee does not compound, does not grow if you pay slower, and does not shrink if you pay faster.

We do not publish specific factor rates for either lender on a public page. Pricing is set per deal and we share live numbers through your application. What we can tell you is where the structural cost edge sits.

Where you land on price depends on:

• Your trading history. Two years plus prices better than six months.
• Your card volume. Higher monthly card turnover prices better.
• Your director credit. Clean Experian files price better. Anything messy pushes the cost up.
• Your card processor. YouLend’s deepest discount is reserved for Dojo customers because of the partnership volume. 365 does not have a processor-specific discount in the same way.
• The size of the advance relative to your turnover. Stretching to the limit of what either lender will fund pushes the cost up.

The bigger cost trap is usually not the headline fee. It is the daily repayment percentage, the share of every card sale that gets skimmed off the top by the lender each day.

If you are going for the biggest amount you can possibly get, YouLend will offer more, sometimes at the cost of a higher daily sweep. If you care about protecting your cash flow, 365 Finance will usually suit better.

Who actually gets approved

YouLend's stated approval rate is 91% via open banking and 84% via document upload. That is an application-level number. By the time something reaches underwriting it has already passed initial eligibility checks. The reality at the enquiry-level is lower because plenty of enquiries never make it that far (duplicate applications, existing funding elsewhere, businesses under three months old, industries they do not fund).

The most common reasons we see YouLend decline an application:

• Recent CCJs or defaults on any director’s personal credit file
• Existing live funding with another MCA lender they won’t pay off
• Director has had funding through YouLend before via a different business and it didn’t repay cleanly
• The business has only three months of trading history but is asking for £100,000+
• The industry is on their excluded list (nightclubs, adult, gambling)
• Bank statement uploads instead of open banking when the request is over £50,000

365 Finance publishes around a 90% approval rate. They are more willing to look at businesses that do not fit a clean automated profile. Where YouLend's underwriting is largely algorithmic, 365 will pick up the phone. We have had deals 365 has approved where YouLend has declined, particularly:

• Hospitality businesses with seasonal patterns that look risky to automated underwriting
• Businesses with a single CCJ from 2 or 3 years ago that’s now satisfied
• Nightclubs and late-night venues
• Businesses where the directors don’t fit a standard credit profile but the business itself is solid

If YouLend says no, the very next call we make is to 365 Finance. They take the deal more often than not.

Industries: where each one wins

If you are a nightclub, save yourself the application time and skip straight to 365. If you are an e-commerce business on Shopify, start at YouLend. Most other businesses can go either way and the answer comes down to credit profile, card volume, and whether you want a portal or a person.

How fast do you actually get the money?

Both lenders market 24 to 48 hour funding. The real story is more nuanced.

YouLend's fastest pattern is open banking connected, single director with clean credit, no card processor rerouting needed, agreement signed before 4pm. That can be a same-day fund. We have seen it happen within 7 hours of application start. The longest patterns are multi-shareholder limited companies with bank statement uploads and multi-terminal sites that need processor rerouting. That can take a week or more.

365 Finance's typical pattern is 24 to 48 hours from complete application to funds in account. They tend to need a bit more documentation upfront, which means the application takes longer to prepare. But once it is submitted, the decision and funding cycle is reliably quick.

In a head-to-head on a deal that suits both lenders, YouLend will usually be fractionally faster. But 365 Finance is more predictable. With YouLend, you might get funded in 7 hours or you might wait five days depending on what underwriting throws up. With 365, it is almost always two days. Different shapes of “fast”.

The relationship vs the tech

Both lenders assign you an account manager. The day-to-day style of working with them is where the experience really diverges.

YouLend leans portal-first. Most of what you need is in the portal: documents, offers, top-up requests, balance, daily sweep amount, estimated maturity. Your account manager handles a wider book of merchants and is mostly reachable on email and chat, with phone support when the situation calls for it. If you like getting things done without picking up the phone, this works very well.

365 Finance leans phone-first. From the first application you are talking to a named account manager and that same person tends to follow your business through the life of the advance, the renewal, the top-up. They get to know your trading patterns. If you have had a bad month and the daily repayments are stressing your cash flow, you can pick up the phone and have a conversation. They may agree a temporary reduction or a payment plan.

There is no objectively better answer here. Some merchants prefer the portal-first style because they do not want unscheduled phone calls from lenders. Others want a named human they can call by first name. Knowing which one you are before you apply usually saves time.

Real-world picks: when we send to which

A few patterns from how we actually route deals on our broker desk.

How to apply: what to prepare

Either way, you need the same core information ready before you start. It saves time and significantly improves your chances of a clean approval.

Business basics

• Registered company name and number (or sole trader name)
• Trading address
• Business bank account details
• 12 months of bank statements (or open banking access, which is faster)
• Last three months of card processor statements
• Last filed accounts if applicable

Director basics (for every director with 25%+ shareholding)

• Full name and date of birth
• Personal home address (and any address changes in the last five years)
• Personal email address (not a business one)
• Mobile number
• Photo ID
• Soft consent to credit check

You can apply to either lender directly, or apply through us and we will route your application to whichever lender suits you best, and negotiate the offer on your behalf.

Our honest take

If we are being completely honest with you: YouLend wins on price, speed and tech. 365 Finance wins on relationship, sector flexibility and merchant protection (that 16% sweep cap matters more than people realise until they are inside a deal).

For around 70% of the businesses we work with, YouLend is the right first call. They are the default for a reason. But the 30% where 365 is the right answer matters too, because those are deals that YouLend would not have done anyway, and 365 will. They are not the same business. They are complements.

The smartest move for most merchants is to apply through someone who works with both, so you do not have to guess. That is broadly what we do at CapExpand. We see both portals daily, we know which lender will respond well to which profile, and we do not get paid more or less depending on which one funds you.

Frequently asked questions

Common questions we get from UK business owners weighing YouLend against 365 Finance. Tap any question to expand on mobile.

Sources and references

1. YouLend’s official UK site and product pages (youlend.com)
2. YouLend Limited Companies House record, registration number 12576377
3. YouLend’s published merchant data including approval rates and Trustpilot performance
4. 365 Business Finance Limited Companies House record
5. 365 Finance’s official product and eligibility pages
6. UK Financial Conduct Authority register entries for relevant authorisations
7. Trustpilot review pages for YouLend and 365 Finance
8. 2025 Credit Awards results (SME Lender of the Year)
9. 2026 Lending Awards results (Best Fintech Lender)
10. Plaid case study on YouLend’s open banking integration
11. J.P. Morgan press release on the £4 billion securitisation facility
12. NACFB lender directory entries
13. Industry trade press coverage including Insider Media, AltFi and Business Cloud