Brokers ask what a normal decline rate is, hoping for a number to compare against. There is not a useful one: a broker who submits everything has a high rate and may be doing fine, and one who submits only perfect files has a low rate and is leaving deals unsubmitted.
Split them into two columns
| Unfixable — facts about the merchant | Fixable — facts about your process |
|---|---|
| Negative days | Unrealistic ask |
| Too many existing positions | Incomplete or illegible file |
| Under time in business | Wrong funder for that paper |
| Restricted industry | No context on an anomalous month |
| Balance too low for any ask | Undisclosed position found later |
Count them monthly, by column. That single number tells you where to spend the next month, and it is far more actionable than any market benchmark could be.
Ask for the specific reason, always
- A pattern across declines is worth more than any single answer.
- Record the reason as a structured field, not free text, or you cannot count it.
- Track it by funder too — a file declined by one and funded by another was a placement error.
- Diarise the ones that fail on time in business or a single bad month. Those become fundable later.
That last habit is where the return is. A decline on time in business is a calendar entry, not a dead file, and almost nobody follows up on them.
Questions brokers ask
What is a normal MCA decline rate?
There is no useful benchmark, because it depends entirely on what you submit. A broker submitting everything has a high rate and may be fine; one with a very low rate is probably not submitting deals that would have funded.
How should you measure declines?
Split them into declines caused by facts about the merchant and declines caused by how the file was prepared and placed, then count each column monthly. The ratio between them tells you where to spend the next month.
What does a high fixable-decline rate mean?
That your packaging and placement are the problem rather than your leads — which is good news, because it is the cheaper of the two to fix.
What does a high unfixable-decline rate mean?
That your qualification is letting through files that were never going to fund. That is a buying and screening problem rather than a process one.
Should you record decline reasons?
Yes, as a structured field rather than free text. You cannot count what you cannot group, and the pattern across declines is worth far more than any individual reason.
Alex Makowski
Founder, Infinite Bookings
Runs the lead generation operation behind Infinite Bookings — paid traffic, the funding application, and the delivery pipeline that puts records into brokers’ CRMs.
Reachable directly at alex@infinitebookings.com or 732-609-7182.