A decline rate on its own is close to meaningless, because it depends entirely on what you submit. The useful measurement is the split between declines caused by facts about the merchant — negative days, positions, time in business — and declines caused by how the file was prepared and placed. If most are in the second column, the fix is cheap and entirely yours.
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.
| 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
We will tell you straight up if we cannot help you. No commission deals, no free trials, no chasing you for three weeks.