Shopify Capital, Amazon Lending, and Square Loans now originate more SMB e-commerce credit than the entire MCA channel — and at materially better pricing.
Platform-native lending products from Shopify, Amazon, Stripe, and Square have aggregated to dominate e-commerce SMB credit. Combined origination across these platforms is estimated at $14B+ annually, exceeding the entire third-party MCA channel for the segment.
The pricing is competitive: 1.08–1.18x repayment vs the 1.25–1.40x typical of third-party MCA. The structural advantage is data — platforms underwrite against full revenue history with zero application friction.
Larger ticket sizes ($500K+), multi-platform sellers needing consolidated capital, and operators who've maxed platform-native facilities. Specialty inventory and ad-spend financing also remain underserved by platform lenders.
Twelve-month default rates on 2026 originations are tracking 80 bps below the 2023 vintage at the same seasoning point, with the largest improvement in services and B2B.
Funders that adopted soft-pull pre-qualification in 2025 are reporting 2.3x higher application-to-funding conversion and materially lower CAC than peers still gating with hard pulls.
Falling SBA fees and faster PLP processing have changed the math. For tickets under $500K with weaker collateral, 7(a) is now structurally cheaper than conventional term once total cost of capital is measured.
