Best Egg Personal Loans: 2023 Review
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Our Take
4.5
Best Egg is worth considering for borrowers looking for a secured loan or to consolidate debt, but the loans come with an origination fee.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Option to pre-qualify with a soft credit check.
- Wide range of loan amounts.
- Secured loan options.
- Direct payment to creditors with debt consolidation loans.
- No late fees.
Cons
- Origination fee.
- No rate discounts.
- No option to choose initial payment date.
- No mobile app to manage loan.
Compare to Other Lenders
Full Review of Best Egg
Best Egg is an online lender that offers unsecured and secured personal loans for borrowers with fair to good credit.
Best Egg personal loans come with an option to have loan funds sent directly to up to 10 creditors. Most borrowers use their loans for debt consolidation, according to the lender. Best Egg also allows borrowers to use permanent fixtures in their home or their car as collateral on secured personal loans. However, borrowers can expect to pay an origination fee.
Table of Contents:
Best Egg personal loans at a glance
Minimum credit score | 600. |
APR | 8.99% - 35.99%. |
Fees | Origination: 0.99% to 8.99%. |
Loan amount | $2,000 to $50,000. |
Repayment terms | 3 to 5 years. |
Time to fund after approval | 1 business day. |
Loan availability | Loans not available in IA, VT, WV or Washington, D.C. |
- Disclosure from Best Egg
*Trustpilot TrustScore as of December 2022. Best Egg loans are personal loans made by Cross River Bank, a New Jersey State Chartered Commercial Bank, Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender or Blue Ridge Bank, N.A., Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender. The Best Egg Credit Card is issued exclusively by First Bank & Trust, Member FDIC, Brookings SD pursuant to a license by Visa International. Visa is a registered trademark, and the Visa logo design is a trademark of Visa International Incorporated. “Best Egg” is a trademark of Marlette Technologies, LLC. Offers may be sent pursuant to a joint marketing agreement between Cross River Bank, Blue Ridge Bank, First Bank & Trust and Marlette Marketing, LLC, a subsidiary of Best Egg, Inc. The term, amount, and APR of any loan we offer to you will depend on your credit score, income, debt payment obligations, loan amount, credit history and other factors. Your loan agreement will contain specific terms and conditions. About half of our customers get their money the next day. After successful verification, your money can be deposited in your bank account within 1-3 business days. The timing of available funds upon loan approval may vary depending upon your bank’s policies. Loan amounts range from $2,000– $50,000. Residents of Massachusetts have a minimum loan amount of $6,500 ; Ohio, $5,001; and Georgia, $3,001. For a second Best Egg loan, your total existing Best Egg loan balances cannot exceed $100,000. Annual Percentage Rates (APRs) range from 8.99%–35.99%. The APR is the cost of credit as a yearly rate and reflects both your interest rate and an origination fee of 0.99%–8.99% of your loan amount, which will be deducted from any loan proceeds you receive. The origination fee on a loan term 4-years or longer will be at least 4.99%. Your loan term will impact your APR, which may be higher than our lowest advertised rate. You need a minimum 700 FICO® score and a minimum individual annual income of $100,000 to qualify for our lowest APR. For example: a 5‐year $10,000 loan with 9.99% APR has 60 scheduled monthly payments of $201.81, and a 3‐year $5,000 loan with 7.99% APR has 36 scheduled monthly payments of $155.12. To help the government fight the funding of terrorism and money laundering activities, Federal law requires all financial institutions to obtain, verify, and record information that identifies each person who opens an account. What this means for you: When you open an account, we will ask for your name, address, date of birth, and other information that will allow us to identify you. We may also ask to see your driver’s license or other identifying documents. Best Egg products are not available if you live in Iowa, Vermont, West Virginia, the District of Columbia, or U.S. Territories. TO REPORT A PROBLEM OR COMPLAINT WITH THIS LENDER, YOU MAY WRITE OR CALL– Operations Manager, Email: [email protected], Address: P.O. Box 42912, Philadelphia, PA 19101, Phone: 1-855-282-6353. This lender is licensed and regulated by the New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department, Financial Institutions Division, P.O. Box 25101, 2550 Cerrillos Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87504. To report any unresolved problems or complaints, contact the division by telephone at (505) 476-4885 or visit the website https://www.rld.nm.gov/financial-institutions/
Where Best Egg personal loans stand out
Offers direct payment to creditors on debt consolidation loans: Best Egg sends loan payments directly to creditors on debt consolidation loans. This feature takes the work of paying individual creditors out of borrowers' hands and eliminates any temptation to spend the money elsewhere.
» COMPARE: Best debt consolidation loans
Wide loan amount range: Best Egg loan amounts are from $2,000 to $50,000, which gives them the flexibility to cover small expenses like car repairs or larger costs like home improvement projects.
Secured loans: Borrowers can use their home’s fixtures or vehicle as collateral for a secured loan with Best Egg. The homeowner-secured loan is similar to a home equity loan, but it uses permanent fixtures like built-in cabinets and shelving, bathroom vanities or lighting as collateral instead of your entire house. The auto-secured loan requires your car as collateral. Best Egg offers annual percentage rate (APR) discounts and larger loan amounts for secured loans, but if a borrower fails to repay the loan, the lender can take the collateral.
» MORE: Best secured personal loans
Financial health tool: Best Egg’s Financial Health tool is a free resource that provides access to credit reports, alerts to changes in credit score and budgeting calculators. It also has a credit simulator that shows you the potential impacts of financial decisions. This tool is available for borrowers and nonborrowers.
Where Best Egg personal loans fall short
No rate discounts: Best Egg doesn't offer an additional rate discount for setting up automatic payments or for paying off other creditors directly. Other lenders can discount interest rates by 0.25 percentage points or more for choosing these options.
Origination fee: Best Egg charges an origination fee from 0.99% to 8.99%, and borrowers can choose how they pay it. The lender will either add the fee to the loan — increasing the borrowed amount — or deduct it before sending funds, reducing the loan amount. Not all lenders charge an origination fee, and Best Egg’s range is somewhat high compared with other lenders that charge one.
No mobile app: Best Egg doesn't offer a mobile app to manage your loan. Many online lenders have mobile apps where borrowers can make payments and track the progress of their loan repayment.
Do you qualify for a Best Egg personal loan?
Best Egg says its target audience is borrowers with good to excellent credit, but those with fair credit may also qualify.
Here are Best Egg's borrowing requirements.
Minimum credit score: 600.
Minimum credit history: Two years.
Minimum annual income: $3,500. Best Egg accepts income from employment, alimony, retirement, child support and Social Security payments.
Minimum debt-to-income ratio: 40% or 65% including a mortgage.
Must be a U.S. citizen.
Here are details about Best Egg’s average borrower, according to the lender:
Average credit score: 669.
Average borrower income: $78,020.
Average loan size: $14,600.
Average debt-to-income ratio: 39%.
Most common loan term: Five years.
Before you apply
Check your credit. You can get your free credit report on NerdWallet or at AnnualCreditReport.com. Doing so will help you spot and fix any errors before you apply.
Calculate your monthly payments. Use a personal loan calculator to determine what APR and repayment term you’d need to get a loan with affordable monthly payments.
Make a plan to repay the loan. Review your budget to see how the loan’s monthly payments impact your cash flow. If you have to cut other expenses in order to repay the loan, it’s better to know that before you borrow.
Get ready to apply. The Best Egg application is entirely online and asks for information like your name, birthdate, address and employment. You will be required to provide supporting documents if the lender cannot verify the information provided.
How to apply for a Best Egg personal loan
Here are the steps to apply for a Best Egg loan.
Pre-qualify on Best Egg’s website. You’ll be asked how much you want to borrow, what the funds are for, and some personal information like your name and email address. There’s no hard credit pull at this stage. Pre-qualifying with Best Egg is more like a preapproval because the results are firm loan offers.
Preview loan offers and find the one that fits your budget. Compare the loan APRs, repayment terms and monthly payments to identify one that fits comfortably within your monthly budget. The loan with the lowest APR will be the cheapest option.
Submit an application. Once you find a loan offer that works for you, you’ll submit a formal personal loan application. Best Egg will do a hard credit check at this stage, which will cause your credit score to dip a few points.
Make a plan to repay the loan. Best Egg reports payments to all three major credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax and TransUnion) so making on-time payments will help build your credit, but missed payments will hurt it. Setting up automatic payments and keeping an eye on your budget are two ways to manage your loan payments.
Compare Best Egg to other lenders
Compare Best Egg with other lenders to decide which is right for you. Lenders offer different rates, loan amounts and special features, so it pays to weigh alternatives.
You can pre-qualify on NerdWallet to compare offers from multiple lenders at once.
Best Egg vs. Prosper
Prosper’s loan amounts and repayment term options are similar to Best Egg’s, and both lenders charge an origination fee. However, unlike Best Egg, Prosper doesn’t offer secured loans or pay other creditors directly when you get a debt consolidation loan.
» MORE: Prosper personal loan review
Best Egg vs. Upstart
Like Best Egg, Upstart boasts quick funding and the ability to pre-qualify online. Upstart has a minimum loan amount of $1,000. The lender also uses alternative data, like work and education history, to evaluate loan applicants. Upstart does not have a minimum education requirement to qualify for a loan. Best Egg offers more options for repayment terms and may charge a lower origination fee.
» MORE: Read our review of Upstart
How we rate Best Egg personal loans
NerdWallet writers rate lenders against a rubric that changes each year based on how personal loan products evolve. Here’s what we prioritized this year.
Category | Star rating |
|---|---|
Affordability | |
Underwriting | |
Transparency | |
Loan flexibility | |
Customer experience | |
Overall |
- Category definitions
Affordability (30%) An affordable loan has low rates and fees compared to other similar loans and may offer rate discounts.
Underwriting and eligibility (25%) The lender reviews borrowers credit reports and credit history, and tries to understand their ability to repay a loan, before making a final application decision.
Loan flexibility (20%) A flexible loan is one that lets users customize terms and payments. That means offering a wide range of repayment term options, allowing the borrower to change their payment date, offering loans in most states and funding it quickly.
Customer experience (15%) A good customer experience can include a fully online application process, financial education on the lender’s website and a customer service team that’s available most of the time and can be reached multiple ways.
Transparency (10%) A transparent lender makes information about the loan easy to find on its website, including rates, terms and loan amounts. Transparency also means allowing users to pre-qualify online to preview potential loan offers and reporting payment information with the major credit bureaus.
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Find the Best Personal Loan
NerdWallet’s review process evaluates and rates personal loan products from more than 35 technology companies and financial institutions. We collect over 50 data points from each lender and cross-check company websites, earnings reports and other public documents to confirm product details. We may also go through a lender’s pre-qualification flow and follow up with company representatives. NerdWallet writers and editors conduct a full fact check and update annually, but also make updates throughout the year as necessary.
Our star ratings award points to lenders that offer consumer-friendly features, including: soft credit checks to pre-qualify, competitive interest rates and no fees, transparency of rates and terms, flexible payment options, fast funding times, accessible customer service, reporting of payments to credit bureaus and financial education. Our ratings award fewer points to lenders with practices that may make a loan difficult to repay on time, such as charging high annual percentage rates (above 36%), underwriting that does not adequately assess consumers’ ability to repay and lack of credit-building help. We also consider regulatory actions filed by agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. We weigh these factors based on our assessment of which are the most important to consumers and how meaningfully they impact consumers’ experiences.
NerdWallet does not receive compensation for our star ratings. Read more about our ratings methodologies for personal loans and our editorial guidelines.
Frequently asked questions
- Can I pay off a Best Egg loan early?
Yes, you can pay off a Best Egg loan early with no prepayment penalty.
- Can you have a co-signer with Best Egg?
Best Egg doesn't let you add a co-signer to your loan application. Other online lenders offer co-signed personal loans.
