Rocket Loans Personal Loans: 2024 Review

Rocket Loans offers a wide range of loan amounts and fast funding for personal loans. The loan company accepts borrowers with fair credit or better (credit scores above 629).

Compared with other lenders, Rocket Loans lacks some convenient features, like the ability to choose your payment date or send funds directly to creditors with a debt consolidation loan. The lender also doesn’t have a mobile app, so borrowers who prefer to manage loan payments on their phones may want to consider other options.

» MORE: Best personal loans

Table of Contents

Rocket Loans at a glance

Where Rocket Loans personal loans stand out and fall short

Do you qualify for a Rocket Loans personal loan?

How to apply for a Rocket Loans personal loan

How Rocket Loans personal loans compare

How we rate Rocket Loans personal loans

Rocket Loans at a glance

• Disclosure from Rocket Loans

  All personal loans are made by Cross River Bank, a New Jersey state chartered commercial bank, Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender. All loans are unsecured, fully amortizing personal loans. Eligibility for a loan is not guaranteed. Please refer to our Disclosures and Licenses page for state-required disclosures, licenses, and lending restrictions. Borrower must be a U.S. citizen or permanent U.S. resident alien at least 18 years of age. All loan applications are subject to credit review and approval. Offered loan terms depend upon your credit profile, requested amount, requested loan term, credit usage, credit history and other factors. Not all borrowers receive the lowest interest rate. To qualify for the lowest rate, you must have excellent credit, meet certain conditions, and select autopay. Rates and Terms are subject to change at any time without notice. Please refer to www.RocketLoans.com and our Terms of Use for additional terms and conditions.

Where Rocket Loans personal loans stand out

Autopay discount. If you set up automatic loan payments from your bank account, you can receive a rate discount of 0.25 percentage points. Choosing autopay ensures on-time payments, and the rate discount lowers overall interest costs.

Wide range of loan amounts: Rocket Loans offers loans from $2,000 to $45,000, which allows borrowers to cover a variety of expenses like debt consolidation or home improvement projects.

Pre-qualify with a soft check. Before committing to a loan, Rocket Loans allows you to pre-qualify and check your rate with a soft credit pull, which doesn’t hurt your credit score. If you accept the offer, Rocket will verify your information with a hard pull, which can temporarily drop your score a few points.

Quick funding. The lender says it can offer same-day funding to borrowers. Approval can take less than five minutes, and borrowers who sign their loan documents before 1 p.m. ET Monday through Friday can receive same-day funding. The exact timing will depend on your bank and how easily the lender can verify your information.

» MORE: Fast personal loans

Where Rocket Loans personal loans fall short

Origination fee: Rocket Loans charges an origination fee that's taken from the loan proceeds before the money is sent to you. Though many online lenders charge an origination fee, some of Rocket Loans’ competitors do not.

No direct payment to creditors. Borrowers cannot have their loan funds sent directly to creditors when using a Rocket Loan for debt consolidation. This means borrowers must send the funds themselves, creating an additional step in the process.

No secured, co-signed or joint loans: Rocket Loans offers only unsecured personal loans, meaning you cannot secure the loan with collateral (like your car) or add a co-signer or co-borrower to your application. These options, offered by some of the lender’s competitors, can help you qualify for a lower rate or a larger loan.

» MORE: Best co-sign and joint loans

Limited repayment terms: Rocket Loans offers either a three- or five-year repayment term. Borrowers can’t choose a shorter term and pay less interest, or a longer one to lower their monthly payments.

» MORE: Best fair-credit lender

Borrowers can’t manage their loan with a mobile app: Unlike some competitors, Rocket Loans does not offer a mobile app to manage your loan.

Do you qualify for a Rocket Loans personal loan?

Rocket Loans doesn’t disclose all of its borrower’s minimum requirements, but the lender evaluates applicants based on factors like their credit score, monthly income, and existing debt. Borrowers must have a minimum credit score of 640.

To apply for a Rocket Loans personal loan, you must:

• Be at least 18 years old in most states.

• Be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.

• Have a valid Social Security number.

Borrowers commonly use a Rocket Loan personal loan for debt consolidation, credit card refinancing and home improvement.

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.

• Gather your documents. Rocket Loans requires income information, proof of address and as well as a Social Security number. Having these documents handy can speed up the application process.

How to apply for a Rocket Loans personal loan

Here are the steps to apply for a Rocket Loans loan.

1. Pre-qualify on Rocket Loans’ website. You’ll be asked what the loan is for, your employment status, as well as some personal information like your name, address and birthdate. The form will also ask for your Social Security number and email address before you can preview loan offers. There’s no hard credit pull at this stage.

2. Preview loan offers and accept the one that fits your budget. Once you accept a loan offer, you’ll submit a formal personal loan application. This could require more documents, like a driver’s license, pay stubs and bank statements, to confirm the information you gave during pre-qualification. Rocket Loans will also do a hard credit check when you apply, so your credit score could temporarily dip.

3. Make a plan to repay the loan. Rocket Loans reports payments to all three major credit bureaus, so on-time payments will help build your credit score, 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 Rocket Loans to other lenders

Personal loan providers offer different rates, loan amounts and special features, so it pays to weigh your options. The best personal loan is usually the one with the lowest APR.

Rocket Loans vs. SoFi

Rocket Loans and SoFi both offer fast funding, but there are differences. Rocket Loans has only two repayment terms and an origination fee that can affect the loan cost and amount.

SoFi doesn’t have any required fees and offers a wide range of repayment terms. To qualify for SoFi, you will need strong credit, while Rocket accepts lower credit scores.

» MORE: Read our review of SoFi

Rocket Loans vs. LendingClub

Rocket Loans and LendingClub offer similar loan amounts and terms, and both lenders charge an origination fee. But LendingClub can directly pay creditors with debt consolidation loans and offers a rate discount if the loan is used to pay off existing debt.

» MORE: Read our review of LendingClub

How we rate Rocket Loans 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 definitions

  Affordability (25%)

  An affordable loan has low rates and fees compared to other similar loans and may offer rate discounts.

  Customer experience (20%)

  A good customer experience includes allowing borrowers to choose and change their repayment date, a fully online application process, a mobile app to manage the loan and a customer service team with wide availability.

  Underwriting and eligibility (20%)

  The lender reviews borrowers’ credit reports and credit history and tries to understand their ability to repay a loan. It offers loans in most states and doesn’t restrict eligibility by requiring a pre-existing relationship.

  Application process (20%)

  Borrowers can pre-qualify to check their potential rate, loan amount, repayment term and APR without affecting their credit score. They can easily find answers to questions about the personal loan on the lender’s website. The application process is fast enough to allow funding within a couple of days or less.

  Loan flexibility (15%)

  A flexible loan is one that offers a wide range of loan amounts and repayment term options. It includes common features like additional loan types and direct payment to creditors on debt consolidation loans.

  Discretionary

  A lender’s star rating can be reduced if the lender is sued by a state or federal regulator for unfair consumer practices or has been accused by a reputable source of suspicious business practices.