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The same advance paid daily or weekly: how much each payment is, how your cash flow feels, and what it does to the estimated APR.
Some MCAs debit your account every business day. Others debit once a week. The total you deliver back can be the same, but the schedule changes how the deal feels and what it costs.
Take an advance where you receive $50,000 and agree to deliver back $67,500 (a factor of 1.35). The funder offers two ways to collect it over about 120 business days, which is 24 weeks of five days. The inputs here are examples, not a typical offer.
A weekly payment is about five times a daily payment. That is simple. The less obvious part is what each schedule does to your bank balance and to the estimated yearly rate.
| Daily debits | Weekly debits | |
|---|---|---|
| How often | Each business day, 120 times | Once a week, 24 times |
| Size of each | $562.50 | $2,812.50 |
| Cash flow | Small, steady drain | Larger hit on one day |
| Overdraft or NSF risk | More chances to land on a thin day | Fewer chances, but each one is bigger |
| Good fit | Steady sales every business day | Lumpy sales, or a business that is closed some days |
The daily payment is $67,500 divided by 120, which is $562.50. The weekly payment is $67,500 divided by 24, which is $2,812.50. Over the whole term you hand back the same $67,500.
If your contract uses a specified percentage, the payment should follow your sales, and reconciliation should adjust it. A fixed daily or weekly figure is the funder's estimate of that. See How MCA reconciliation works.
Very little. Timing matters in principle: money returned sooner costs more than the same money returned later, and a daily schedule starts returning cash from day one while a weekly schedule waits until the end of each week. But the estimate also depends on how often the rate is compounded, so the two figures below land close together.
Treating the deal like a loan, with 120 daily payments the estimated APR comes to about 132%. With 24 weekly payments it comes to about 133%. The gap is only about 0.7 points in this example, and which one is higher depends on how the estimate is built. That is an estimate to compare offers, not the funder's stated rate; see Factor rate vs. APR. The factor rate and the term matter far more than the schedule.
Each debit that lands on a low balance can trigger a bank fee, a funder fee or both. Think of an example: your balance sits near $3,000, and you have 4 thin days in a month. A daily schedule of $562.50 gives 4 chances to fail. If a returned-item fee is $35 and three of those fail, that is $105 in fees in a month. Those amounts are assumptions for this example. A weekly schedule has fewer debits, but a single failure is a bigger amount.
A returned debit can also be a default under your agreement. Check the events of default and what the contract says about notice and a chance to fix it. See Events of default.
Most months have about 21 business days. Under the daily schedule, that is about 21 debits, which add up to $11,812.50 a month in this example. Under the weekly schedule, a month has a little over four debits, which add up to roughly $12,187.50. The monthly totals are close. What differs is the shape: many small pulls, or a few big ones.
Holidays also matter. If a debit date falls on a bank holiday, the debit may move to the next business day or be bundled with another one. Ask how your funder handles that, and look for it in the payment section of the agreement. A doubled debit on a thin day is a common surprise.
Whichever schedule you have, plan cash around the debit and not around your average. Some owners keep a small buffer in the funded account equal to a few days of payments, and move extra cash out of that account only after the debit clears. That is a cash-management habit, not a way to avoid the debit. Do not move deposits to another account to dodge a payment; many agreements treat that as a default.
A simple weekly check helps: list the next seven days of debits, list the deposits you expect, and see whether any day dips low. If one does, you can adjust bill dates or talk to the funder before it happens. See Talking to your funder.
Education, not financial advice. The APR figures are estimates from the example inputs. Your contract's terms control.
Connect your bank (read-only) and add your agreements. Your reconciliation report is usually ready the same business day.
Check my MCA →Education only, not legal advice. Agreements differ; your contract's exact wording controls.