Methodology
The whole value of an index is that the method is fixed before the results. Here is ours.
What gets a company into the index
- It provides factoring or receivables finance to US businesses.
- It has a verifiable operating presence — a real entity, not a lead-generation page.
- We can identify whether it is a direct factor or a broker. Both are listed; the distinction is published, because it determines who ends up holding your contract.
Inclusion is never paid and never requested. Companies do not apply.
How rate data is collected
- Advertised rate — taken only from the company's own published material, with URL and date recorded.
- Reported rate — from quotes we obtain directly, or contributed by operators and anonymised, specified for a 1–3 truck or comparable small operation.
- Verification — a field is marked verified only with a primary source attached. Everything else renders as Not published.
- No estimates, ever. We do not interpolate, average or infer a rate. A blank cell is information; a guessed cell is noise.
- Re-verification — monthly for the Rate Index. Stale figures are marked with their collection date.
How scoring works
Where we score, we score on five weighted criteria, and the weights change by carrier or business segment because the right answer for a one-truck new authority is not the right answer for a ten-truck fleet.
| Criterion | What we look at |
|---|---|
| Total cost | Modelled across a realistic month including minimums and per-transfer fees, not the headline rate |
| Contract terms | Term length, auto-renewal, notice window, termination fee, UCC release speed |
| Acceptance | Who they will actually take — authority age, fleet size, industry, volume floor |
| Risk tooling | Broker or customer credit checking, speed and accessibility |
| Advertised vs actual | The gap between the marketed rate and what operators report being quoted |
What gets a company removed or flagged
- A pattern of quoted terms materially different from advertised terms, with evidence.
- Refusal to confirm basic contract terms in writing when asked directly.
- Ceasing to operate, or ceasing to offer the product.
Removals are published with the reason and the date, not done silently.
Corrections
If something here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it and date the correction on the page. Companies are welcome to submit corrections about their own terms; we verify against primary sources before publishing, and we publish the fact that a company requested a change.
Three classes of evidence, kept separate
Most comparison sites present one undifferentiated number. We separate three, because they are not equally reliable and pretending otherwise is how this category became untrustworthy.
| Class | Source | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Advertised | The company's own published page, with URL and date | Verifiable, but it is the best case for the largest customer |
| Operator-reported | A public forum post where a named operator states what a named company charges them | Real experience, single data point, context-dependent. Labelled and linked. |
| Written quote | A quote obtained directly or contributed to us | Strongest. Slowest to accumulate. |
On the operator-reported class specifically: we searched several hundred public discussions to build the current set, and the yield was very low — most forum mentions of a factoring rate never name the company, and most that name a company never state a rate. Where we could not attribute a rate to a company with confidence, we published nothing. That is why this column is short.
On AI and this site
Drafting assistance is used. Every rate, term and factual claim is checked against a primary source before publication, and a claim that cannot be sourced is not published — it is left blank and marked. The blanks on this site are the honest part.