Iwoca is a popular lender for small businesses with an impressive 4.8 customer rating on Trustpilot. We take a closer look.

Iwoca stands for instant working capital. The company was set up in March 2012 to provide flexible credit for small businesses. Since then, it’s become one of the fastest growing lenders for small business loans and has lent over £500 million to businesses across the UK.

In This Review

• Iwoca Business Loan: Overall Review
• Summary of loans
• Customer Reviews and Ratings
• How to contact Iwoca

Iwoca Business Loan Overall Review

Iwoca is a lending company designed with small businesses in mind. If you’ve struggled to get finance elsewhere then Iwoca may be right for you. We are impressed by their great customer reviews and easy to use website. Their application process is extremely straightforward and only takes a few minutes. Trustpilot reviewers comment on their excellent customer service and easy application process and rate them 4.8 out of 5 stars. They've helped over 90,000 small businesses get loans since 2012.

Our researcher used their website chat function and received a helpful and detailed response within 30 minutes from their customer service team. Iwoca also offers a dedicated account manager once your loan is accepted.

Iwoca used to only offer loans up to 12 months, but now you can get a loan up to 24 months. We view this as an improvement in their product offering, that will certainly be beneficial to some businesses.

On the downside, interest rates are on the high side, starting at 2% per month for a Flexi-Loan. Start-up companies, who have been trading for less than 12 months, may be limited to a loan of only £10,000, depending on their circumstances. This might not be enough for some growing businesses.

Bottom Line

Iwoca offers short term loans of up to 24 months that are designed for small businesses. The application process is quick and easy and you’ll receive a decision within 24 hours. It could be a great option if you’ve been refused business finance by a traditional bank. However, if you want a longer-term loan, you’ll need to look elsewhere.

Key features of Iwoca Business Loans

Types of business loan available from Iwoca

Iwoca currently offers one main type of flexible, small business loan. They've stopped offering their revenue based loans. Plus they have IwocaPay, which is a payment solution for B2B businesses who want to help their trade customers to spend more.

Here are some of their loans’ key features.

Iwoca’s loans in more detail

Flexi-Loan (Working capital loan)

Iwoca’s most popular loan is its Flexi-Loan which is a type of working capital loan. It’s a flexible loan that’s designed to help businesses with short term cash needs.

Businesses can borrow from £1,000 to £500,000 and the application process is quick and easy. Your credit limit is typically around one month’s revenue. You’ll be limited to a maximum loan term of 24 months.

Once you’ve paid back a third of your original credit limit, you’ll be able to apply for a top-up as needed—if your loand has a 12 month term. If it's longer, you only have to pay back 15% of your original loan amount to become eligible to top up. Iwoca will just need updated information about your business and will assess your application for a top up within a few hours.

If you own a start up business with no trading history, your loan may be limited to £10,000. For other businesses Iwoca will base your lending limit on your revenue and profit margin. Most businesses can borrow up to 10% of their turnover for the last 12 months.

To apply for a flexi loan you will need to know how much you want to borrow over what period. You will also need basic details of your business and your recent bank statements. You also have the option to link your business bank account to Iwoca through open banking. This means your application process will be quicker as you won’t need to submit bank statements.

Interest costs start at 2% per month and will depend on Iwoca’s assessment of your business[symbo:m-dash]please note, your rate may be higher than this so take note of what they're charging you before you sign up.

Take a look at our detailed article if you want to know more about how working capital loans work.

Quick summary

Flexible loan for up to 24 months with top up loans available. You can borrow up to 10% of your yearly turnover and interest costs start at 2% per month.

8 reasons to apply for a Iwoca Flexi-Loan

4 reasons not to apply for a Iwoca Flexi-Loan

Revenue Based Loan (Merchant cash advance)

No longer available.

IwocaPay (Buy now pay later)

IwocaPay helps businesses offer customers Pay Later options on their payments. Customers can choose between Pay Now or Pay Later options and click on a link to pay through IwocaPay.

The Pay Now option is interest free whereas the Pay Later option charges interest. You can choose for customers to pay interest at 3.33% per month or you can pay interest yourself at 3% per month.

If you use Xero accounting software you will be able to link it with IwocaPay. This means your customer payments process will be totally integrated with your accounts process, saving you time and money. Your invoices will automatically include an option so customers can pay using your IwocaPay account.

Quick summary

You can offer customers the option to spread their payments over 3 months. Iwoca will process the payments and charge you 3% interest per month on outstanding balances.

5 reasons to apply for IwocaPay (Buy now pay later)

3 reasons not to apply for IwocaPay (Buy now pay later)

How to apply

If you want to apply for an Iwoca business loan then it is a very simple application process that only takes a few minutes. Here is how it works:

Iwoca business loan Customer Service Reviews and Ratings

How do existing customers rate Iwoca business loans? To find out, we've combed through hundreds of online customer reviews to find out how customers rate their experience with Iwoca business loans.

Iwoca business loan Trustpilot

Iwoca has earned a very impressive 4.8 stars out of 5 at Trustpilot for its business loans. 90% of reviewers give Iwoca an "Excellent" 5 star rating and only 3% of the reviewers give Iwoca a “Bad” one-star review. This rating is based on nearly 6,000 reviews.

Many of the positive comments focus on how easy and efficient it is to apply for an Iwoca business loan, and how much support is received. Customers were also impressed by the customer service and help they received with their applications. Here are some of the recent reviews:

"It is so easy to work with IWOCA and they give me and my company just what I need. Excellent service with support and someone to chat to at any time you need. I would highly recommend to all customers." June 2023

"Very helpful, responsible lender that helps small businesses. Requests are dealt with promptly and efficiently. Very consistent with their professional service all through the years. Thank you very much!" June 2023

"The Team at Iwoca, Especially Matthew Wren & Hannah Menzies are, and continue to be so, extremely helpful and supportive during a very serious health issues. They returned call when asked, made time to fit in around my treatment, and were always to this first to ask how I was feeling and my treatment was progressing. I will always recommend the company. 100% first class service." May 2023

"I get sent/come across many offers of funding but they never seem to deliver what they say they are going to. Iwoca proved me wrong and did exactly what they said they were going to do easily and quickly. Very refreshing!." Feb 2022

"Incredibly quick and efficient service overseen by an excellent dedicated manager for the kind of personal touch long forgotten by standard lending organisations. Am really impressed." Feb 2022

"I was in the market for a small business loan. Having searched the market I chose Iwoca mainly because they were prepared to work with me. Once I had completed the online application I received follow-up emails from Kieran Smith who provided me with valuable additional information. I wasn't ready to pull the trigger upon first applying so I requested an extension which was granted to me without fuss. Once I was ready to go, the full application process was very easy to manage, everything facilitated as it was either via the Iwoca website or a third party app for the usual ID verifications. All documentation was signed electronically again saving huge amounts of time and bother. Funds hit my account within seconds of signing the credit and guarantor agreement. Iwoca seems [sic] to have identified a real niche and as such provide fuss-free interactions which is just what small business owners [sic] want. Kieran was flexible and professional from the outset. Great attention to detail and very easy to work with. I would recommend Iwoca to any small business that requires some extra working capital.." Feb 2022

How to contact Iwoca

If you need to contact Iwoca then they have a handy website chat facility. Our researcher asked a question about business loans using the chat facility and a customer service assistant emailed her a detailed answer within 30 minutes.

Contact information for Iwoca business loan