A contractor financing fee calculator estimates what a construction or home-service business pays to offer customers financing. It compares costs such as annual platform subscriptions, dealer fees, per-funded-job charges, setup fees, and promotional financing fees. Unlike a homeowner loan calculator, it looks at the contractor’s expenses and profit, not the customer’s monthly payment. Enter your average job value, the share of jobs customers finance, the amount financed, and the actual pricing terms offered by each program. The calculator estimates annual fees, per-job costs, and profit remaining after those charges. It also shows where one fee structure becomes cheaper than another. The important word is estimate: actual charges depend on the program contract, specific loan product, funding amount, promotional terms, and completed transactions. Use the output to narrow choices and ask better questions, not as a substitute for a lender’s written merchant schedule.

A dealer fee is an amount a financing provider or lender charges the contractor when a customer-funded loan is originated or completed under that program. It is often expressed as a percentage of the funded loan amount. For example, a hypothetical 6% fee on a $15,000 funded loan would cost the contractor $900, leaving $14,100 before any other deductions. Dealer fees are not necessarily the interest rate the homeowner pays. They are a separate cost to the business offering financing, and they can vary substantially by lender, term, promotion, and merchant arrangement. Some platforms instead use a subscription fee or combine fixed and variable charges. Always ask whether the quoted percentage is based on the funded amount, the full contract, or another figure. This tool uses the funded amount as the rate base, so you can model partial financing accurately.

Multiply the funded loan amount by the contractor’s dealer-fee percentage. On a $20,000 project where the customer finances $12,000 and the dealer fee is 5%, the percentage charge is $600, not $1,000. If there is also a $25 per-funded-job charge, the total modeled variable cost is $625. This difference matters whenever customers use a deposit, pay cash for part of the work, or finance only a specific portion of a larger project. Some merchant agreements use a different fee base or assess extra fees, so confirm the written rate sheet before relying on a calculation. In the calculator above, enter the share of the contract financed separately from the share of jobs financed. The first determines the fee base for each funded job; the second determines how often those fees occur during the year.

A subscription is cheaper only when its fixed annual cost, plus any variable fees, is lower than the transaction fees you would otherwise pay at your actual funded volume. Suppose a subscription costs $1,800 annually and has no per-job charges. A competing per-transaction plan charges a hypothetical 4% on the funded amount. At $30,000 in annual funded volume, the transaction plan costs $1,200 and wins. At $100,000, its charge is $4,000, making the $1,800 subscription cheaper by $2,200. The simple crossover is $1,800 divided by 4%, or $45,000 funded per year. That shortcut assumes no setup costs, no promotional fee differences, and identical service eligibility. Real contracts may have all three. Use the tool’s break-even section when the plans include mixed fees, promo rates, and per-job charges.

Divide the additional annual fixed cost by the amount saved in variable fees per funded job, provided that savings is positive. For instance, if a subscription has $2,000 more annual fixed cost but saves $200 on each funded job, it breaks even at 10 funded jobs. If the variable fees are the same under both programs, more jobs will never pay back that additional fixed cost. If the subscription also has a dealer fee, compare the entire variable charge rather than assuming that the subscription eliminates it. The calculator calculates exact pairwise crossover points using each program’s base and promotional rates, flat per-job charges, and expected promotional mix. The result is a forecast threshold, not a promise about customer approvals or financed volume. Check the price and typical funded loan size of your actual projects before making a decision.

Promotional financing can cost the contractor more because the loan terms and funding economics differ from standard-rate products. Some programs charge higher merchant or dealer fees when customers receive promotional rates, extended promotional periods, or other incentives. However, a 0% offer does not automatically mean a particular percentage fee, and consumer terms differ across lenders and products. Ask each provider for its current merchant fee on the exact promotional plan you intend to offer, plus any separate flat charges. This calculator treats promotional and standard fees as alternative rates for different funded transactions, not two fees automatically stacked on the same loan. If a provider quotes an additional promotional surcharge on top of a standard charge, add them before entering the promotional rate. Do not advertise a consumer’s financing terms until your lender approves the terms and required disclosures.

The applicable fee base depends on the financing provider’s written merchant agreement, but a common modeling approach is to apply the percentage to the amount actually funded. If a customer accepts a $25,000 project but finances only $15,000, a 5% fee on the loan amount is $750, rather than $1,250 on the entire project. This calculator lets you enter the expected percentage of the job that customers finance, which avoids overstating charges when deposits or partial payments reduce the funded amount. It still reports job profit against the full contract value because that is the revenue from the work. Confirm whether the lender charges fees on gross approved amounts, disbursements, changed orders, refunds, or canceled transactions; those details can make actual statements differ from a simple forecast.

These are two separate inputs that answer different questions. The percent of jobs financed tells you how many customers use financing. If you complete 10 jobs a month and 40% are financed, that is an expected four financed jobs per month. The percent of a financed job funded tells you how much of each qualifying contract becomes a loan. If those jobs average $15,000 and customers finance 80% of the price, the average funded amount is $12,000. Together, the assumptions determine annual funded volume: 10 jobs × 12 months × 40% × $15,000 × 80%, or $576,000. That is why simply typing annual company revenue into a dealer-fee calculator can badly overstate your costs. The percentages are forecasts, and actual customer choices will vary.

Subtract the financing fees from the job profit you expected before those charges. Imagine a $15,000 project with a 25% modeled profit margin before financing: expected profit is $3,750. A 6% dealer fee on a fully funded $15,000 loan costs $900, leaving $2,850 before other unmodeled costs or taxes. The fee is only 6% of funded revenue, but it eliminates 24% of the expected $3,750 profit. That gap is the profit erosion effect. The tool calculates annual and per-job profit after each financing program’s variable charges and an allocated share of fixed charges. It assumes your margin input already accounts for the job costs and overhead you want to include. If it does not, fix that margin estimate first or the apparent remaining profit will be overstated.

Not automatically. First determine whether your standard price already covers the relevant costs and delivers the profit margin you need. Then review your financing provider’s merchant agreement and applicable consumer-financing, advertising, and pricing rules. Some arrangements restrict adding a finance-only surcharge or require specific disclosures, and different offers may have different requirements. This tool includes a theoretical uniform price-planning calculation showing how much the average contract price would need to change to protect the entered margin under its stated assumptions. That is not a recommendation to charge financing customers more than cash customers. The calculation also does not predict how a higher price would affect conversion. Before changing quotes or advertising payment plans, confirm permitted pricing practices with the provider and qualified advisers.

Yes, a more expensive program may still make commercial sense if it reliably creates additional profitable sales, helps suitable customers complete projects, improves funding speed, or delivers other business value. But those benefits must be measured, not assumed. For example, a provider that costs $3,000 more annually could be worthwhile if it produces more than $3,000 of additional contribution profit after all related costs and avoids serious collection delays. The calculator deliberately ranks programs on fee cost at an identical projected financed volume. It does not give a provider automatic credit for a claimed conversion boost or approval rate. Compare actual funded projects, accepted proposals, cancellation rates, timing of disbursements, and customer outcomes before judging full return on investment. A lower fee is not always the better overall financing partner.

Put every program on the same annual time horizon and apply its written fees to the same projected funded jobs, average loan size, and promotional mix. Record the annual or monthly subscription, first-year setup costs, standard dealer rate, promotional dealer rate, and flat funded-transaction fee separately. This avoids comparing a subscription’s sticker price with a transaction provider’s percentage in isolation. Next examine the result per financed job, per funded dollar, and as a share of expected job profit. Finally, review qualitative differences that the fee model cannot capture: loan eligibility, consumer disclosures, funding time, chargeback rules, support, and minimum commitments. The tool uses three customizable program cards so you can enter actual quotes rather than relying on made-up industry defaults. The built-in sample values are illustrative only.

Break-even financed volume is the amount of expected loan funding at which two financing programs would cost the contractor the same under a fixed set of assumptions. If Plan A has higher fixed charges but lower variable fees than Plan B, there may be a crossover where A becomes the less expensive choice. That point can be expressed as funded jobs per year and as financed dollars per year. This tool solves the crossover algebraically for each pair of plans while holding average funded job size and promotional usage constant. It also tells you when there is no positive crossover. A break-even point does not mean you must finance that much to become profitable as a business. It only marks the fee-cost equality between two financing programs, not your company’s overall operating break-even.

A higher share of promotional loans changes your blended fee rate whenever promotional and standard transactions carry different merchant charges. Consider 20 financed jobs with equal funded amounts. If five use promotional financing, the promotional mix is 25%; if 10 do, it rises to 50%. A program charging 4% on standard loans and 9% on promotional loans has a 5.25% blended percentage rate at 25% promo usage and 6.5% at 50%, before flat charges. That is a meaningful change without adding a single project. The calculator includes a promotional-mix stress scenario because the cheapest provider at today’s mix may not be the cheapest when your sales team promotes 0% terms more heavily. Enter realistic rates for the actual promotional offers you plan to make available.

When funded volume drops, annual subscription charges are spread across fewer transactions. A $2,000 annual subscription allocated across 20 financed jobs costs $100 per job before any other fees; allocated across five jobs, it costs $400 per job. A percentage-only program moves more directly with funded sales and usually has less unused fixed cost. That doesn’t automatically make transaction pricing superior, but it creates downside risk for a volume-sensitive choice. The calculator runs a half-volume stress test alongside the base forecast so you can see whether a program stays competitive if fewer customers borrow than expected. For a newly launched financing offer, using conservative volumes may be more useful than relying on the most optimistic sales forecast. Review any minimum-volume or renewal commitments in the provider agreement.

Yes. Each plan includes a fixed recurring annual charge and a separate one-time setup cost. By default, the headline comparison shows first-year cost, which includes the setup amount. The tool also shows steady-state annual cost without that one-time charge. This prevents a low-looking annual subscription from winning the comparison while an expensive onboarding fee goes unnoticed. It also prevents you from treating a one-time fee as if it recurs every year. If a provider charges monthly, convert the recurring monthly amount to a full-year estimate before entering it. For multi-year agreements, rate increases, minimum funding fees, or early termination charges, examine the contract separately; the calculator is a one-year model, not a discounted-cash-flow or legal contract review.

Yes. The same financing cost arithmetic applies to roofing, HVAC, plumbing, electrical work, remodeling, flooring, and other home-service projects when customers borrow from a financing partner and the contractor pays program charges. The inputs matter more than the trade label: project price, financed share, funded volume, fee schedule, and project profit before financing. A roofing company with a few large projects may cross a subscription break-even point sooner than a service business with many small tickets, even if both finance the same number of jobs. However, not every lender supports every trade, project type, consumer credit profile, or loan amount. Confirm actual provider eligibility, funding practices, promotional terms, and legal requirements before treating the lowest calculated fee as a feasible choice for your business.

Ask for the current written merchant fee schedule for standard and promotional loans; whether percentages apply to funded amounts; all setup, subscription, minimum-volume, per-transaction, and termination charges; and the exact event that triggers payment. Also ask how refunds, chargebacks, partial disbursements, cancellations, and change orders are handled. On the customer side, clarify which lender offers the credit, what borrower information is collected, how applications and disclosures are presented, and whether the financing terms can be advertised in your marketing. Ask when your company receives its funds and what happens if the customer disputes the work. Then test the quoted fees using your own recent job prices and funded-loan expectations. A calculator is most useful when it lets you interrogate a contract with specific dollar questions rather than simply selecting the cheapest percentage on a website.