More than 80% of small businesses that applied for financing in 2024–2025 found it difficult to access affordable Capital. Platforms, already embedded in their Merchants’ day-to-day operations, are uniquely positioned to fill that financing gap, and real-time performance data enables more accurate Underwriting than traditional lenders.
Stripe Capital enables platforms to offer their Merchants access to financing to help them navigate cash flow challenges or grow their Business. Platforms offering embedded finance products like Capital see a 40% increase in Customer Lifetime Value, and larger platforms on Stripe report 80% retention for embedded finance offerings.
This guide provides tools, benchmarks, and best practice to help platforms grow their Capital program through optimised messaging, targeting, and conversion.
Important note: This guide provides general background on regulatory and compliance considerations that may be relevant to platforms promoting Stripe Capital through emails, push messages, and in-app notifications. These channels may not be available in all regions due to varying legal opt-in consent requirements for marketing messages. Platforms that intend to send marketing messages should review applicable local laws or consult their legal counsel before marketing Stripe Capital to its users. Additional information can be found in our Stripe Capital compliance documentation.
How to position and message your financing program
Stripe data shows that businesses accepting Capital financing grow Revenue on Stripe an average of 27 percentage points faster than those that do not. Contextualising the impact of financing for your Merchants—whether that’s money for new equipment, marketing and advertising, or higher-Revenue services—gives them context to make a confident decision, not just consider an offer.
Pro tip: In every communication, specify the offer amount the Merchant is eligible for and tailor the message to the recipient. Platforms on Stripe find that personalisation can drive higher engagement than generic messaging.
How to identify and reach the right businesses
Here’s how to think about your key segments:
Highest opportunity: Newly eligible businesses
Capital eligibility is based on several key metrics, including processing volume, size of customer base, and history on your platform. Because 70% of Stripe Capital businesses weren’t actively looking for financing when they accepted their offer, this segment is unlikely to come to you on its own. You have to proactively reach them—via personalised email, in-app notifications, or our Capital embedded components, which are prebuilt UI elements that surface offers inside your product.
Pro tip: Businesses care about growth and cash flow. Lead every communication with the benefits of accepting financing rather than how the product works, and include specific offer amounts. For example, “Access up to $10K to grow your business” is more descriptive than “Access working capital with flexible payment terms.”
Highest intent: Incomplete applications
Businesses that started but didn’t finish a financing application drop off for a variety of reasons, but starting the process shows high intent. Re-engage them with “come back” messaging via push notifications, banners, and email. Stripe Capital lets you opt in to send co-branded emails to connected accounts.
Pro tip: Include a direct link to the exact spot where they left off to make it as straightforward as possible to resume their application.
Highest converting: Refills and repeat merchants
Platforms on Stripe find that 80% of merchants that accept a Capital offer take additional financing. Use a light-touch product notification to highlight a refill offer—additional financing for businesses that have substantially paid an existing balance—or new programme features, like borrowing through a flexible line of credit.
Pro tip: Refills aren’t enabled by default. Update your API integration to support refills and submit details for compliance review using the change request form.
Keep in mind that businesses can qualify for a new offer once every 30 days, at most. Time your campaigns accordingly to avoid messaging merchants before they’re eligible again.
How to choose the right channel to reach those merchants
Platforms on Stripe find it takes at least three different touchpoints to surface Capital financing offers. It’s important to consider promoting Capital across the business lifecycle and user experience to not over-rely on self-discovery. Here are some of the most effective channels.
Stripe’s co-branded emails are often the primary channel for platforms promoting a Capital campaign. Segment your audience to ensure the messaging and call to action (CTA) give businesses a clear next step, like filling out the application. Also, consider seasonal campaigns to capture additional demand. Try sending one-off emails when capital needs tend to spike: calendar year-end, tax season, and holidays.
How Stripe can help: Save time, improve conversion, and reduce compliance burden with Stripe’s email templates designed to drive merchants from awareness to activation. Keep emails as short as possible, and use bullets, numbers, and design callouts to keep them scannable.
Embedded components
The Capital promo tile, Capital financing, and Capital promotion embedded components are low-code ways to launch and customise your financing programme. Use these to surface offers on your dashboard or login page, but also in high-traffic locations, such as your home page. Platforms that use embedded components have seen a 30% higher conversion rate than those relying on email alone, per internal Stripe data.
How Stripe can help: Embed the Capital promo tile directly in your Dashboard or login page. Home-service platform Jobber saw a 100% increase in Capital originations after adding the promo tile to its User Dashboard. Also, consider surfacing Capital offers outside a dedicated financing page. For example, try embedding tiles where Merchants are thinking about business cash flow, such as payouts or reporting pages.
In-app banners and notifications
Some platforms prefer to build native in-product experiences to surface offers using the Capital API. Target high-traffic pages like the home screen or payments Overview, and use dynamic fields to display personalised offer amounts and Expiry dates. Aim for a 2.5% click-through rate (CTR) for a well-placed, well-timed banner.
How Stripe can help: Use the Capital API to pull prequalified offer amounts and expiration dates dynamically, so every banner reflects a valid, personalised offer. This keeps messaging relevant and timely without manual updates on your end.
Landing page
A dedicated landing page can educate prospective users on the product and also convert them. Optimise the page for both SEO and AEO by incorporating high-intent search terms—signals from businesses that are actively researching solutions—like “small business financing options,” “business funding,” and “merchant cash advance requirements.”
How Stripe can help: Use Stripe’s organic engagement benchmarks to track progress: a 37% bounce rate, over two minutes in average time spent on page, and approximately 2.7K average monthly page views for branded traffic.
How to navigate common Capital programme challenges
Address common friction points
Some advice for how to handle common questions and pushback:
Business not yet eligible: Businesses may proactively ask about financing before they’re eligible. Post a help centre article on eligibility criteria and share the link. You can also equip support teams with recommendations to help businesses qualify.
Offer amount too low: Explain that accepting an initial offer builds a track record, and share recommendations that can help businesses qualify for larger offers over time.
Application abandonment: If businesses don’t complete the application, try running a nurture campaign with dashboard reminders to pick up where they left off. For high-value accounts, consider one-off emails educating them on the benefits for their specific business.
Additional financing asks: For merchants asking for new offers before they’re eligible, educate them that refill offers are evaluated when they’ve paid about 85% of their current financing.
Pro tip: Treat these moments as opportunities to build trust, not just close a ticket. Merchants that ask about eligibility, abandon an application, or push back on offer size may be more likely to convert in the future.
Use the right terminology to avoid compliance violations
Financing is a highly regulated space. The wrong terminology can lead to costly compliance violations, as well as merchant confusion. For example, a merchant cash advance (MCA) is different from a traditional loan, and the two terms can’t be used interchangeably: while MCAs provide capital, they are not loans since the payment structure, cost calculation, and legal framework are fundamentally different.
As part of the compliance process, user-facing material referencing Stripe Capital must be approved by Stripe and its financial partners before publishing. To reduce revision requests and accelerate time to market, use Stripe’s approved templates—for email, landing pages, blogs, FAQs, and in-app content—to build your marketing materials. Custom copy can require additional review and approval from Stripe.
Pro tip: Market your Capital programme under the broad “financing” umbrella to avoid having to distinguish between different financing options, such as MCAs, loans, or lines of credit.
theCut’s Capital playbook: From launch to scaling adoption
When theCut cofounder and CEO Obi Omile explored financing options for his barbershop platform, Stripe Capital stood out for its speed and simplicity. That experience shaped how theCut rolled out financing to thousands of barbers. Omile started lean, distributing financing offers via email. Within 24 hours, 167 barbers had accepted $788,000—some within minutes. The overall acceptance rate was 20%.
“Since we launched Stripe Capital, we continue to hear the same three things from our barbers: Capital helps them grow their business, build resilience, and expand,” Omile said.
But Omile noted the email-only approach had a ceiling. Barbers who missed the email didn’t know they were eligible. An embedded experience, Omile said, would fix that—surfacing offers in-product, showing how transaction activity affects eligibility, and building trust through transparent payment terms.
Watch: Get more advice for launching and scaling a financing programme in our 2026 Sessions breakout.
Grow your Capital programme today
Download the “Embedded finance playbook: Implementation strategies for SaaS platforms” to learn more about launching financing, storage, and card issuing programmes for your merchants. To accelerate growth of your Capital programme, join the Stripe Partner Ecosystem and access strategies, tools, and market development funds to boost adoption.
Stripe Capital offers financing types that include loans and merchant cash advances. All financing applications are subject to review prior to approval. In the US, Stripe Capital loans are issued by Celtic Bank, and YouLend provides Stripe Capital merchant cash advances.
Stripe Capital loans have a minimum amount due each payment period. If the amount that you pay through sales doesn’t meet the minimum required, your bank account will be automatically debited the remaining amount at the end of the period.