Equipment Financing in Canada: published rates, terms, and eligibility

The providers below do not all quote cost the same way, and the differences matter more than the numbers themselves. This comparison contains 2 different quoting conventions. Costs stated on different bases are not directly comparable, and converting between them requires knowing the actual drawn amount, the repayment period, and the fee schedule.

Caplift shows the basis alongside every figure rather than reducing everything to one column, because that reduction is where comparison usually goes wrong. A fee that is charged once per trade cycle will annualise very differently depending on how many cycles a business runs in a year.

Across the 9 providers listed, 1 state a minimum trading history, with a median of 2 years. 3 providers require an existing banking relationship, which is a practical gate rather than a credit one: it rules the facility out unless the business is already a customer or is willing to move accounts. 5 providers publish no numeric criteria at all, which usually indicates case-by-case underwriting rather than an absence of standards.

Stated minimums are thresholds for consideration, not predictors of approval. A business that clears every published criterion can still be declined on concentration, industry, the quality of its records, or the lender's current appetite — and a business that misses one can still be funded where the rest of the file is strong.

The fastest published funding timeline in this set is 1–2 weeks (DLL Canada), and most providers publish timelines measured in days or weeks. Speed is rarely free: the providers that fund fastest generally price higher, secure differently, or underwrite on narrower information than those that take weeks.

If timing is the binding constraint, it is worth separating the deadline that is real from the one that is preference. Paying a materially higher cost of capital to compress a timeline by a week is sometimes correct and often not, and the answer depends on what the funds are for.

Equipment Financing is one structure among several, and the comparison that matters is not which provider is cheapest within this page but whether this product suits the underlying need at all. Matching the financing term to the life of what it funds is the single most useful discipline here: short-duration capital against a long-lived asset creates refinancing risk that no rate advantage compensates for.

Caplift's assessment works through the same inputs a lender will: capacity, purpose, existing obligations, and the evidence behind the numbers. It produces a readiness view and a structured comparison, and it leaves the decision with the business and its advisors.