What you need to know about Upgrade personal loans: $1,000 to $50,000!
I’m going to cover everything you need to know about Upgrade’s personal loans. We’ve spent years working in the lending industry and we track dozens of lenders. I am going to break down Upgrade so you can make a decision whether you would want to use them to consolidate credit card debt, make a big purchase, or just cover a monthly shortfall.
The first question is, how much can you borrow from Upgrade. Upgrade’s minimum loan amount is $1,000. That’s great is you are looking for just a little bit of money to cover a monthly shortfall. But, if you are looking for a more substantial amount of money, Upgrade will lend as much as $50,000. There are a couple of lenders that will lend up to $100,000, but $50,000 is generally one of the highest amounts offered.
Loans from Upgrade range from 2 to 7 years.
The length of your term will be heavily dependent on the size of your loan. If you are only borrowing $1,000, don’t take even two years to pay it back. That’s a long time to be paying interest on a loan of that size. On the other side, 7 years is a long time to be in debt, even if you are borrowing a substantial amount of money. The longer term will keep your monthly payments down, but it will mean paying more in overall interest. No matter what your term length is, if you make extra principal payments at the beginning, you will save a lot of money on interest over the course of the loan.
Now let’s look at the cost of the loans.
Upgrade’s minimum APR is 8.49%. Their maximum APR is 35.99%. 36% is a pretty standard APR ceiling for lenders.
When it comes to origination fees, Upgrade charges between 1.85% and 9.99%. Any origination fee above 6% gets to be a little on the high side. But it’s important to remember that the origination fee doesn’t increase the overall cost of the loan. The APR includes the origination fee and the interest rate. A loan with a high origination fee but a low APR, is still a low-cost loan. If that’s the case, should you even care about the origination fee? Yes, especially if you plan on paying the loan off early. When you pay the loan off early, you save money on the interest that you would have paid, but you don’t get a reimbursement of the origination fee. Also, keep in mind that the origination fee will come out of the proceeds of the loan, so you need to borrow enough money to cover your financial emergency as well as the origination fee.
Upgrade offers three discounts that can help you lower the APR you pay. They will give you a discount if you sign up for Autopay, if you use their loan to consolidate other debt, or if you use your motor vehicle as collateral for the loan. Keep in mind that in order to get the autopay discount, you will need to attach your bank account at the time you accept the loan. If you sign up later, you will not receive the discount.
Upgrade targets borrowers who have Fair-to-Good credit scores.
I think their borrowers’ credit scores fall between 620 and 700. Of course, these are just guidelines. Lenders use a lot more than credit score to determine eligibility. They will also look at payment history, debt-to-income ratios, utilization, amount and type of income, and other financial information. A broad mix of these measures will determine the terms of the loan they offer you.
Upgrade offers unsecured as well as secured loans. If you have an *unsecured* loan, they can’t come after your assets if you have difficulty making the payments. Upgrade will allow you to secure a loan with collateral, in this case the title to your motor vehicle. Securing the loan can help your chances of being approved, getting more money, or getting a lower interest rate. But, if you run into trouble, they can come after your car. So, you have to decide whether the trade-off is worth it to you.
Upgrade will accept cosigners on their loan applications. A cosigner is someone who agrees to pay off your loan if you fail to repay it. If you have a spouse or loved one that has a stronger credit profile than you do, adding them as a cosigner might make all the difference in getting the loan you need. If you can qualify for the loan that you need on your own, don’t entangle a loved one in the process.
If you are using the loan to consolidate other debt, Upgrade will directly pay off those other creditors with the proceeds of the loan for you. Not only is this convenient, it shows that they know the new loan will replace your other debts and not just stack on top of them. Because it won’t make your debt-to-income ratio worse, it should make it easier to be approved with them.
If you are at least 15 days late on a payment, Upgrade will charge you $10. There are a bunch of personal loan companies that don’t charge a late fee at all. But for the ones that do, $10 is the lowest I have seen.
Upgrade will also charge you $10 if your payment fails. This can happen if you don’t have enough money in your account when they attempt to make an ACH withdrawal. That’s not a terribly high fee, but—again—not all lenders even charge this fee.
So, let’s summarize what we know about the personal loans offered by Upgrade.
Upgrade offers a decent range for personal loans, both a little money for short-term emergencies and larger sums for more significant needs. They have standard APRs, so whether you get a good rate will depend on your particular situation. But, they do offer a few different ways to make the loans cheaper. They have a pretty good suite of features that show that they are customer-centric. They do charge fees, but they aren’t egregious. I think Upgrade is a pretty good lender. They have developed the pretty good all-around product.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that they will offer you the money you need with the best terms. Every lender has a different algorithm for approving people. You could get denied by one lender only to receive a better offer from another one. That’s why it’s so important that you shop around before you accept an offer. You owe it to yourself to get the best deal you can in your circumstances.
At The Yukon Project, we’ve tried to make shopping around easy. If you visit our marketplace page, you can apply to any one of our other featured lenders. Behind the scenes, we will check your rate with up to 40 other lenders. Our partners use a soft credit check, so applying won’t hurt your credit score. We will show you all of the approved offers so you can pick the loan that’s best for you.
If you have any questions that we didn’t address, leave a comment below and we will try and answer it. If you found this video useful, please like it and subscribe to our channel. Thanks for watching.
Stop paying the high interest rates from carrying a monthly balance on your credit card!
Soft Credit Pull, Up To 40 Lenders at Once, See what you’re approved for!
