Paper grade is shorthand for how much risk a file carries: A paper is a clean, long-trading business with strong balances and no existing positions, and each grade down adds some combination of negative days, additional positions, shorter time in business, weaker balances or a harder industry. The grades are not standardised between funders, which is exactly why placement is a skill rather than a lookup.
No two funders draw the lines in the same place, so the letters describe a direction rather than a category. What they reliably encode is that price and term move together with risk: better paper gets a lower factor, a longer term and a larger advance, and everything else is a trade against one of those three.
| Grade | Typical profile | What it gets |
|---|---|---|
| A | 2+ years trading, strong balances, no positions, clean months | Lowest factors, longest terms, largest advances |
| B | Solid business, maybe one position or a couple of negative days | Moderate pricing, standard terms |
| C | Multiple positions, thinner balances, shorter time in business | Higher factors, shorter terms, smaller advances |
| D | Heavy stacking, frequent negatives, distressed | Expensive, short, and often better declined |
Very little, quickly. Paying off a position genuinely improves the file and is worth suggesting where the merchant can. Beyond that, the honest levers are resizing the ask to something the balance supports, providing context for an anomalous month, and waiting — a merchant three months from their two-year mark is a materially better file in three months.
This is also why lead quality shows up as paper quality. A feed screened to businesses over $30,000 a month with six months trading produces more B paper and less D than an unscreened one, and the difference lands in your average factor and your funded rate rather than in anything you would notice on the call.
A clean file — a business trading two years or more, strong average daily balances, no existing positions and no negative days. It earns the lowest factors, the longest terms and the largest advances.
No. Every funder draws the lines differently, so the letters describe a direction of travel rather than a fixed category. That is precisely why placement — knowing which funder writes which paper — is a real skill.
Additional positions, and more sharply than most brokers expect. After that, a pattern of negative days and a balance the proposed remittance would routinely empty.
Somewhat. Paying off an existing position genuinely helps, and so does resizing the ask to what the balance supports. Otherwise the honest answer is often time — a merchant approaching two years trading is a better file for waiting.
Indirectly and substantially. Better paper funds larger advances at longer terms, and points on a bigger advance are worth more, so a feed that produces better paper pays a broker twice over.
We will tell you straight up if we cannot help you. No commission deals, no free trials, no chasing you for three weeks.