The prime rate fell to 7.50% by December 2024, and if your credit line prices off prime, every $50,000 drawn costs $500 less per year than it did in September — here is how and when the change lands.
Isabel Duarte · August 28, 2026A $52,000 salary is not the cost of a $52,000 employee: employer payroll taxes alone add 7.65%, and the fully loaded total typically lands between 1.25 and 1.4 times base pay, per BLS employer-cost data.
Tanya Brooks · August 26, 2026
The SBA's pandemic-era fee relief on 7(a) loans expired September 30, 2023, and the upfront guarantee fee returned at up to 3.75% of the guaranteed portion — several thousand dollars on a typical $500,000 loan.
Tanya Brooks · August 24, 2026
The Fed held rates on July 29, 2026, keeping the prime rate that prices many small-business loans at 6.75% — here is how that number actually reaches a line of credit or an SBA 7(a) loan.
Tanya Brooks · August 21, 2026
Mixing personal and business money — commingling — costs you in audit exposure, LLC protection, tax prep fees, and hours you never bill for.
Priya Vaithilingam · July 23, 2026The personal-finance rule of three to six months translates badly to a business — the right reserve depends on how fast your revenue can stop.
Tanya Brooks · June 30, 2026An LLC is not a tax classification — it is a liability shell that borrows someone else's — and the distinction decides what you file, and what you owe.
Tanya Brooks · June 7, 2026
The monthly employment situation is a national wage-setting event — the participation rate and average hourly earnings move your labor market whether you follow it or not.
Tanya Brooks · May 2, 2026
The Federal Reserve left its benchmark rate unchanged on July 29, keeping SBA 7(a) borrowing pinned to a 6.75% prime rate and leaving open the chance the next move is up, not down.
Priya Vaithilingam · August 12, 2026
Investors triage decks in minutes — the survive-or-die slides are the problem, the traction, and the arithmetic of the ask.
Priya Vaithilingam · July 27, 2026
Venture money buys speed with ownership and control; bootstrapping buys independence with time — the honest comparison is priced in years and percentage points.
Tanya Brooks · July 5, 2026
Before you sign anything, the franchisor owes you a 23-item disclosure document, on a clock — and the parts that matter most are items 5, 6, 7, and 19.
Priya Vaithilingam · June 12, 2026
The federal guarantee behind an SBA 7(a) loan protects the lender's exposure, not the borrower's balance — here is what it does and doesn't change.
Isabel Duarte · August 15, 2026
Lenders extend liquidity in good quarters and ration it in bad ones — the undrawn line you set up this year is next year's crisis tool.
Tanya Brooks · August 10, 2026The math is rate savings against fees and term extension — the discipline is knowing which of the three you are actually buying.
Isabel Duarte · July 18, 2026Up to 20 percent of qualified business income, tax-free — if your business clears the service-business tests or stays under the income thresholds.
Isabel Duarte · June 25, 2026
The Fed left its target range unchanged on a 9-3 vote, keeping the prime rate that indexes most small-business credit lines flat for now.
Michael Hayes · August 19, 2026
Banks post the prime rate, the Fed publishes it, and your note decides when it lands. The spread and the reset date do more work than the headline number.
Michael Hayes · August 17, 2026When input prices swing, the businesses that survive are those whose contracts specify who bears the swing — indexed pricing, bands, and hedges beat hope.
Michael Hayes · August 1, 2026Eight times a year, three paragraphs of committee prose move your borrowing costs — the signal is in what changes between statements, not in the words themselves.
Michael Hayes · July 9, 2026
SBA 7(a) variable-rate loans are capped at the prime rate plus a size-based spread, and a 2026 rule change gave lenders new base rates to peg them to — here's how to read your own note.
Isabel Duarte · August 10, 2026
Escalation language decides who absorbs the next cost shock — the index, the trigger, the cap, and the notice period are the four terms worth fighting for.
Isabel Duarte · August 5, 2026The FTC's labeling rule requires that all or virtually all of the product be U.S.-made — and unqualified claims now carry civil penalties per violation.
Isabel Duarte · July 14, 2026"Small" in federal procurement is a measured number — employees or revenue by industry code — and being under it unlocks contracts the big primes cannot bid.
Isabel Duarte · June 21, 2026