Hearth and Foundation Finance Company both help home improvement contractors offer monthly payments, but they charge you in opposite ways. Foundation Finance is free to enroll and takes a per-job fee when you sell discounted-rate or promotional loans, while Hearth charges a flat $1,499 to $1,799 per year (plus a $99 setup fee) with zero per-job fees. Below roughly $30,000 in annual financed volume, Foundation Finance usually costs less. Past that line, Hearth's flat fee wins, and the gap widens with every funded job.
Key takeaways
- Hearth's 2026 pricing page lists Essentials at $1,499 per year, Pro at $1,799, and Elite at $4,999, plus a one-time $99 setup fee, with no dealer fees on funded jobs.
- Foundation Finance Company is free to join with no monthly charges or volume requirements; its costs show up as per-job fees on rate buydowns and Same-As-Cash promotions.
- Both platforms accept homeowner FICO scores starting around 550. The old claim that Foundation Finance needs 600+ is outdated; its site advertises second-look approvals on up to 69 percent of deals other lenders decline.
- Foundation Finance offers terms up to 240 months on loans up to $100,000; Hearth's 18-lender network reaches $250,000 but tops out around 12-year terms.
- Cash flow differs: Hearth loans typically fund the homeowner before work starts, while Foundation Finance pays the dealer a couple of days after the job is complete.
Quick verdict
Hearth wins for contractors financing more than about $30,000 a year who want to be paid up front. The flat subscription replaces per-job fees entirely, the 18-lender marketplace stretches to $250,000, and the homeowner is funded like a cash customer before you order materials.
Foundation Finance Company wins for low-volume shops and for contractors who sell payment size over speed. Free enrollment means no risk while you test homeowner uptake, and 240-month terms produce monthly payments no 12-year personal loan can match on a big remodel.
One correction worth making up front, because older comparisons (including the earlier version of this article) understated it: Foundation Finance is not a prime-only lender with a 600+ floor. Its program pages advertise credit approvals with FICOs as low as 550 and first and second look underwriting, which changes the "Hearth approves people Foundation declines" argument into a much closer contest.
Hearth vs Foundation Finance at a glance
| Feature | Hearth | Foundation Finance Company |
|---|---|---|
| Cost to contractor | $1,499 to $4,999 per year plus $99 setup | Free enrollment; per-job fees on buydowns and promos |
| Fee model | Flat subscription, no dealer fees | Dealer fee varies by loan product and promotion |
| Loan amounts | $1,000 to $250,000 | Up to $100,000 |
| Maximum term | 2 to 12 years | 12 to 240 months (20 years) |
| Minimum FICO | From 550, varies by lender | As low as 550, first and second look |
| Lender structure | Marketplace of 18 lending partners | Single in-house lender and servicer |
| Who gets funded | Homeowner, often within about 24 hours of final approval | Dealer, within a couple of days of job completion |
| Promotional products | Depends on lender offers (including 0% intro cards) | Same-As-Cash, deferred payment, rate buydowns |
| Trades served | All home improvement trades | Home improvement, windows, roofing, siding, remodeling, HVAC, turf, water treatment |
| Bundled tools | Quotes, contracts, invoicing, payments | Financing only, with dealer portal and training |
Cost structure and the break-even math
Cost is where these two programs genuinely diverge. Foundation Finance charges nothing to join: no enrollment fee, no monthly minimum, no volume requirement, per its become-a-dealer pages. You pay when you sell promotional products. Interest rate buydowns, Same-As-Cash windows, and deferred payment offers each carry a dealer fee on the funded amount, and Foundation Finance does not publish those percentages publicly. Industry per-job fees commonly run from about 3 percent on standard products to 15 percent or more on aggressive promotions, and one testimonial on Foundation Finance's own site describes a contractor who had been paying 19 percent elsewhere. Notably, its Tier 1 program (FICO 725+) offers an 11.9 percent consumer rate at no cost to the dealer, so a shop that sells only standard-rate loans to strong-credit homeowners can pay very little.
Hearth inverts the model: one flat subscription, then $0 per funded job forever. Using Hearth Pro at $1,799 per year and a blended 6 percent dealer fee as the alternative, the break-even is $1,799 divided by 0.06, which is about $30,000 in financed volume per year. Average 8 percent in fees and the break-even drops to roughly $22,500, which is one mid-size bathroom remodel. Sell mostly no-fee standard-rate loans, though, and Foundation Finance can stay cheaper at almost any volume. We walk through the general math in dealer fees in contractor financing and the full Hearth fee breakdown in how much Hearth costs contractors.
Winner: Hearth once your promo-heavy financed volume clears about $30,000 a year. Below that line, or on a standard-rate-only book, Foundation Finance costs less.
Loan sizes and term length
Term length is Foundation Finance's strongest card. Its installment plans run from 12 up to 240 months on loans up to $100,000, with no prepayment penalties, per its program overview. Twenty-year amortization does something no personal loan can: on a $50,000 remodel, stretching from 12 years to 20 years cuts the quoted monthly payment by roughly a quarter at the same rate. For high-ticket bath and kitchen work sold on payment size, that is a real closing tool, the same dynamic we cover in Hearth financing for bathroom remodelers.
Hearth counters with ceiling, not length. Its lender network funds projects from $1,000 up to $250,000 with terms of 2 to 12 years and advertised rates starting near 7.99 percent APR, per Hearth's financing pages. The higher ceiling matters for additions and whole-home projects, but most residential jobs fall under Foundation Finance's $100,000 cap anyway, so the practical edge sits with the longer term more often than the bigger maximum.
Winner: Foundation Finance. A 240-month term changes more kitchen-table conversations than a $250,000 ceiling does.
Credit approvals and lender reach
Approval odds are closer than most older comparisons suggest. Hearth's marketplace sends one soft-pull application to 18 lending partners and accepts FICO scores from about 550, so a homeowner one lender declines may still get offers from another; our breakdown of how Hearth's 18-lender network works covers the mechanics. Foundation Finance is a single in-house lender, but it built its business on less-than-perfect credit: its pages advertise approvals with FICOs as low as 550 and claim up to 69 percent approval on second-look deals that other lenders decline.
The structural difference still favors the marketplace. One lender means one underwriting box, however generous, while 18 lenders mean 18 boxes with different appetites for score, income, and loan size. What a lower score costs the homeowner in rate is a separate question on both platforms; see FICO scores and contractor financing for what to tell customers.
Winner: Hearth, narrowly, on breadth of underwriting rather than on any credit-floor gap.
Funding speed and your cash flow
Cash flow may be the most underrated difference here. Hearth's loans are unsecured personal loans that typically fund the homeowner directly, often within about 24 hours of final approval, per Hearth's financing pages. The homeowner then pays you like a cash customer, which means you can collect a deposit before ordering materials and are never waiting on a finance company to release your money.
Foundation Finance works like a traditional dealer program: it pays the dealer within a couple of days of the completed job, per its dealer pages. That is fine on quick installs, but on a six-week remodel you are carrying materials and labor until completion paperwork clears. For a shop running thin working capital, that timing difference is worth more than a point or two of fees.
Winner: Hearth. Homeowner-funded loans put money in play before the work starts instead of after it ends.
Promotional products: Same-As-Cash and buydowns
Promotions are where Foundation Finance behaves like the specialist it is. Dealers can offer Same-As-Cash windows, deferred payment starts, and interest rate buydowns, and the fee schedule scales with how aggressive the promo is. A disciplined salesperson can deploy a buydown only when a deal is stalling, which turns the dealer fee into a targeted closing cost instead of an always-on tax. How those low-rate offers really work is covered in our guide to 0% APR contractor financing.
Hearth's promotional inventory depends on whatever its partner lenders are offering a given borrower, which can include 0 percent intro credit card offers for qualified applicants but is not something you control deal by deal. You present the offers the marketplace returns; you cannot buy the rate down to rescue a close.
Winner: Foundation Finance. Merchant-funded promos you can aim at a specific stalled deal beat offers you cannot influence.
Business tools beyond the loan
Software is a one-sided category. A Hearth subscription bundles quotes, contracts, invoicing, payment collection, and a pre-qualification dashboard that shows who applied and for how much, which is half the reason the subscription costs what it does; the tier differences are in our Hearth Pro vs Starter comparison. Foundation Finance provides a dealer portal, paper and online credit apps, free training, and marketing materials, but no estimating, contract, or payment software. If you already pay for a CRM that handles documents and payments, this gap matters less; if you are stitching together free tools, it matters a lot.
Winner: Hearth. It replaces two or three other subscriptions; Foundation Finance replaces none.
Pricing at each level
| Plan or product | What you pay | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Hearth Essentials | $1,499/yr + $99 setup | Financing marketplace, basic tools |
| Hearth Pro | $1,799/yr + $99 setup | Adds quotes, contracts, payments; most popular tier |
| Hearth Elite | $4,999/yr + $99 setup | Multi-user features for larger teams |
| Foundation Finance standard products | $0 to low fee per funded job | Tier 1 (FICO 725+) at 11.9% costs the dealer nothing |
| Foundation Finance promos | Per-job fee, scales with promo | Same-As-Cash, deferred payment, rate buydowns |
Pros, cons, and what users say
Foundation Finance's reputation splits by audience. Contractor-facing signals are solid: the company reports 12,000+ enrolled dealers, has been BBB accredited since 2013, and its dealer testimonials emphasize second-look approvals and support. Consumer sentiment is rougher; WalletHub's several dozen borrower reviews skew negative on interest rates and payment handling. That gap is typical for subprime-capable lenders, but it means you should set homeowner rate expectations honestly before the application, not after.
Hearth's Trustpilot profile sits near 4 stars across roughly 1,200 reviews as of mid-2026. Contractors praise the in-estimate workflow and support staff, while the recurring one-star theme is billing: annual auto-renewal charges and cancellation friction. If you sign up, calendar the renewal date, a caution we also raise in our honest assessment of Hearth for small contractors.
Choose Hearth if
- You finance more than about $30,000 a year in jobs that would otherwise carry promo dealer fees.
- You want the homeowner funded up front so deposits and draws follow your normal cash schedule.
- Your quotes sometimes exceed $100,000 and you need the $250,000 ceiling.
- You want estimates, contracts, and payment collection bundled instead of paying for separate software.
Choose Foundation Finance if
- You are new to offering financing and want a zero-cost way to test homeowner uptake first.
- You sell large bath, kitchen, window, siding, or roofing projects on monthly payment size, where 240-month terms shine.
- Your buyer pool includes plenty of sub-650 credit and you want a lender that leads with second-look approvals.
- You prefer paying a fee only on the specific deals where you deploy a promo, not a flat fee in slow years.
Final verdict
Foundation Finance Company is the better on-ramp, and Hearth is the better engine. Free enrollment, genuine subprime reach, and 20-year terms make Foundation Finance a low-risk way to start closing payment-driven deals, especially in the bath, window, and roofing trades it was built around. Once financing is part of every estimate and your promo-fee spend approaches $2,000 a year, Hearth's flat subscription, up-front homeowner funding, and bundled sales tools take over, which is why it stays our pick for growth-mode contractors. Since neither program requires exclusivity, plenty of shops run both: Foundation Finance for long-term promo deals, Hearth for everything else. For how the same trade-off plays against another dealer-fee program, see our Hearth vs Service Finance comparison.
Want to run the numbers on your own volume? Get started with Hearth here and compare its quote against what your last year of dealer fees would have cost.
How we put this together
We compared published pricing, loan terms, and credit criteria from Hearth's pricing and financing pages (gethearth.com) and Foundation Finance Company's program overview, dealer, and FAQ pages (foundationfinance.com), then checked sentiment on Trustpilot, WalletHub, and BBB profiles. Figures were verified in July 2026. Foundation Finance does not publish its dealer fee percentages, so our break-even examples use stated industry ranges; confirm your actual fee schedule with a Foundation Finance rep before deciding.
Frequently asked questions
Is Foundation Finance Company free for contractors?
Yes, enrollment in Foundation Finance's dealer network is free with no monthly charges or volume requirements, per its become-a-dealer pages. You pay per-job dealer fees only when you sell promotional products such as rate buydowns or Same-As-Cash, and its Tier 1 standard-rate product (FICO 725+) costs the dealer nothing.
What credit score does a homeowner need for Hearth vs Foundation Finance?
Both programs advertise acceptance starting around a 550 FICO. Hearth reaches low scores through a marketplace of 18 lenders with different underwriting boxes, while Foundation Finance underwrites in-house with first and second look programs and claims up to 69 percent approval on deals other lenders decline.
When does the contractor actually get paid on each platform?
Hearth pays sooner in the project cycle: its personal loans typically fund the homeowner within about a day of final approval, and the homeowner then pays you like a cash customer. Foundation Finance pays the dealer directly, but only within a couple of days after the completed job is verified, so you carry the project costs until then.
What dealer fees does Foundation Finance charge?
Foundation Finance does not publish its dealer fee percentages; they vary by loan product, promotion, and term. Standard-rate Tier 1 loans can carry no dealer fee at all, while Same-As-Cash and buydown promotions carry fees that scale with the offer, so ask for the current fee schedule and read our primer on dealer fees in contractor financing before comparing.
Can a contractor use Hearth and Foundation Finance at the same time?
Yes, neither program requires exclusivity. A common setup keeps Foundation Finance for large projects where a 240-month term or Same-As-Cash promo closes the deal, and uses Hearth as the default on everything else so most jobs fund without a per-job fee.
Which is better for jobs over $100,000?
Hearth is the only option of the two above $100,000, since its lender network funds projects up to $250,000 while Foundation Finance caps installment plans at $100,000. For six-figure remodels and additions, quote through Hearth or split the scope; below that ceiling, compare monthly payments, because Foundation's 240-month term often produces the lower number.
