Hearth vs Wisetack comes down to one number: your annual financed volume. Wisetack charges 3.9% per funded loan with no subscription, so it is cheaper if you finance less than about $46,000 in projects per year. Hearth charges a flat $1,799 per year on its Pro plan with no per-loan fees, so it wins above that line and pulls further ahead the more you finance. Loan size matters too: Hearth reaches $250,000, while Wisetack now reaches $65,000 through its LendingClub partnership.
Key takeaways
- Wisetack costs 3.9% per funded loan with no subscription; Hearth Pro costs $1,799 per year (plus a $99 setup fee) with zero per-loan dealer fees, per Hearth's pricing page.
- The break-even sits near $46,000 in annual financed volume: below it Wisetack is cheaper, above it Hearth is cheaper.
- Wisetack's long-standing $25,000 cap is outdated: since April 2026, LendingClub originates loans up to $65,000 through Wisetack, though Hearth still goes higher at $250,000.
- 0% APR promos flip the math fast: Wisetack adds 4.9 to 9.9 percentage points per promo loan, while Hearth includes promo options in the subscription.
- Both platforms rate well with users: roughly 4.6 out of 5 on Trustpilot for each as of mid-2026.
Quick verdict
There is no single winner, but there is a clear winner for each situation.
- Low-volume or new to financing (under $40,000 financed per year): Wisetack. No annual commitment, nothing to lose if homeowners never use it.
- High-volume or big-ticket work ($50,000+ financed per year, or jobs above $65,000): Hearth. The flat fee beats percentage fees at scale, and the $250,000 ceiling covers any residential project.
- Heavy 0% APR promo sellers: Hearth, at almost any meaningful volume. Wisetack's stacked promo fees can push a single loan's cost past 13% of the job.
- Service-call trades with $500 to $10,000 tickets: Wisetack. The instant text-to-apply flow fits fast, small transactions.
Hearth vs Wisetack at a glance
| Feature | Hearth | Wisetack |
|---|---|---|
| Contractor cost | $1,499 to $4,999 per year subscription, $99 setup | 3.9% per funded loan, no subscription |
| 0% APR promo cost | Included in subscription options | Additional 4.9% to 9.9% per promo loan |
| Loan amounts | $1,000 to $250,000 | $500 to $25,000 standard; up to $65,000 via LendingClub |
| Loan terms | 2 to 12 years | 3 to 120 months, varies by lender and amount |
| APR range | From about 4.9% to 35.99% | 0% to 35.9% |
| Advertised FICO floor | As low as 550 | No published minimum |
| Lender model | Marketplace of 18+ lenders | Lending partners incl. LendingClub |
| Decision speed | Prequalified offers in about 2 minutes | Decision in about a minute via text link |
| Trustpilot rating | About 4.6 from 1,000+ reviews | About 4.6 from 1,200+ reviews |
| Extras | Quotes, contracts, invoicing, payments | Financing only, integrates with FSM software |
Sources: Hearth's pricing and customer financing pages, Wisetack's consumer page and help center, and Trustpilot listings, all checked in July 2026.
Pricing model: subscription vs pay per loan
The pricing models are opposites, and this difference drives the whole decision. Wisetack takes 3.9% out of each funded job. Finance nothing in a slow month and you pay nothing. Hearth charges up front for the year: $1,499 for Essentials, $1,799 for Pro (the plan most contractors pick because it adds quotes, contracts, and automated reminders), or $4,999 for Elite, per Hearth's published pricing. After that, every financed job is fee-free to you.
Percentage fees feel painless until volume grows. A single $12,000 bathroom job through Wisetack costs you $468. Ten of them cost $4,680, which would have bought two and a half years of Hearth Pro. On the other side, a Hearth subscription that goes unused is $1,799 spent on nothing, and unused subscriptions are the most common complaint in Hearth's one-star Trustpilot reviews.
Winner: Wisetack below roughly $46,000 in annual financed volume, Hearth above it. The break-even table below shows the exact crossover.
The break-even math, dollar by dollar
The break-even calculation is simple division: Hearth Pro's $1,799 annual fee divided by Wisetack's 3.9% fee equals about $46,100 in financed volume. Here is what each platform costs you at different volumes, using standard (non-promo) loans.
| Annual financed volume | Wisetack cost (3.9%) | Hearth Pro cost | Cheaper option |
|---|---|---|---|
| $15,000 | $585 | $1,799 | Wisetack |
| $30,000 | $1,170 | $1,799 | Wisetack |
| $46,000 | $1,794 | $1,799 | Even |
| $75,000 | $2,925 | $1,799 | Hearth |
| $150,000 | $5,850 | $1,799 | Hearth |
| $300,000 | $11,700 | $1,799 | Hearth |
Two adjustments to keep the math honest. First, add Hearth's one-time $99 setup fee in year one. Second, if you only need bare financing, Hearth Essentials at $1,499 drops the break-even to about $38,400. For context on what those percentage fees do to margins across the industry, see our breakdown of dealer fees in contractor financing.
Winner: whoever runs this table against last year's numbers. At $100,000 financed, Hearth saves you over $2,000 a year; at $20,000 financed, Wisetack saves you about $1,000.
Loan size limits: the $25,000 cap is gone, but Hearth still goes higher
Loan ceilings changed in 2026, and most comparisons have not caught up. Wisetack historically capped loans at $25,000, which locked it out of big remodels. In April 2026, LendingClub began underwriting and originating home improvement loans through Wisetack with amounts up to $65,000, per the joint announcement carried by PR Newswire and Wisetack's own press page. Availability varies by merchant and borrower, but the hard $25,000 wall no longer defines the platform.
Hearth still holds the size advantage. Its lender marketplace offers personal loans from $1,000 to $250,000 with terms from 2 to 12 years, per Hearth's loan pages. If you sell $80,000 kitchen gut renovations or whole-home exterior packages, Hearth is the only one of the two that covers the full ticket. Kitchen and bath remodelers running big tickets should read how Hearth works for kitchen remodelers and for bathroom remodelers.
Winner: Hearth. The gap narrowed from $225,000 to $185,000, but it is still a gap that decides deals.
Approval speed and the homeowner experience
Speed at the kitchen table favors Wisetack. The homeowner gets a text link, answers a short application, and typically sees a decision in about a minute, with no app to download. Hearth's flow is also fast: homeowners see prequalified offers from multiple lenders in about two minutes with a soft credit pull, and Hearth advertises funding in as little as 24 hours. The practical difference is that Wisetack feels like a payment step, while Hearth feels like comparing loan offers.
Neither delay is long enough to lose a sale on its own. What loses sales is presenting financing badly, which is a pitch problem, not a platform problem. Our kitchen table guide to pitching financing covers the wording that works.
Winner: Wisetack, narrowly, for the fastest and simplest homeowner flow.
0% APR promotional financing costs
Promo financing is where the platforms separate hard. Wisetack lets you offer 0% APR promos, but partner documentation (including the Contractor+ help center) lists add-on fees of 4.9% for a 6-month promo, 6.9% for 12 months, and 9.9% for 24 months, stacked on top of the 3.9% base. A $15,000 job on a 24-month 0% promo can cost you around 13.8%, roughly $2,070, on that one loan.
Hearth folds promotional options into the subscription, so offering 0% APR does not add a per-loan charge. If "no interest for 12 months" is a core part of your close, the subscription pays for itself after one or two promo jobs. For the mechanics and the fine print homeowners will ask about, see our guide to how 0% APR contractor financing actually works.
Winner: Hearth, decisively, for anyone who sells promo financing regularly.
Approval odds and credit reach
Approval reach depends on how many lenders see the application. Hearth routes one prequalification form to a marketplace of 18+ lenders and advertises options for FICO scores as low as 550, which gives thin-credit and fair-credit homeowners more chances at a yes. Wisetack works with a smaller set of lending partners, publishes no minimum credit score, and quotes APRs from 0% to 35.9% based on creditworthiness, per its consumer page.
In the field, both approve a healthy share of mainstream borrowers, and neither publishes an audited approval rate, so treat any specific percentage you read as marketing. If your customer base skews toward challenged credit, the multi-lender model gives more shots on goal. Details on the low end of the range are in our piece on Hearth's 550 FICO minimum, and Wisetack's side is covered in Wisetack's credit score requirements.
Winner: Hearth, for breadth of lenders and a published entry point at 550.
Software and everything beyond financing
Hearth is trying to be more than a financing button. The Pro plan bundles quotes, contracts, invoicing, digital payments, and automated payment reminders, which can replace a couple of small software subscriptions if you are not already on a field service platform. Wisetack does the opposite: it stays a pure financing layer and plugs into tools contractors already run, including Jobber and Housecall Pro.
Which approach is better depends on your stack. If you already run a full platform (see our HVAC software stack guide for an example), Wisetack disappears neatly into it. If you are still quoting from a notepad, Hearth's bundled tools carry real value beyond the loans.
Winner: Hearth for contractors who need the business tools; Wisetack for contractors whose software stack is already set.
Commitment and risk
Risk allocation is the quiet difference between these two. Wisetack carries none for you: no contract, no setup cost, and a fee only when a loan funds. Hearth asks for the year up front, and its unhappy reviews on Trustpilot cluster around exactly that: contractors who paid $1,600 to $2,200, financed little or nothing, and got no refund. That is not a scam, it is a subscription working as designed, but it means Hearth punishes wishful thinking about your volume.
The honest test: if you did not finance at least $40,000 last year and do not have a concrete plan to, do not buy the subscription yet. Our assessment of whether Hearth is worth it for small contractors digs into that decision.
Winner: Wisetack. Zero commitment is the safer default until your numbers prove otherwise.
What users actually say
Review platforms rate the two closely. Hearth sits around 4.6 out of 5 on Trustpilot across roughly 1,000 reviews as of mid-2026, with 84% five-star ratings driven by praise for support and the multi-offer comparison, and a 13% one-star block dominated by unused-subscription complaints. Wisetack also lands around 4.6 on Trustpilot across 1,200+ reviews (some snapshots run higher), with reviewers highlighting the fast application and clear terms, and it holds 4.6 from 24 business reviews on G2. Neither platform shows the pattern of systemic complaints that shows up around some legacy dealer-fee lenders.
Choose Hearth if
- You financed, or will realistically finance, more than about $46,000 in projects this year.
- Your tickets regularly land above $65,000, where Wisetack still cannot go.
- 0% APR promos are part of your standard pitch and you refuse to eat 10%+ per promo loan.
- You want quoting, contracts, and invoicing bundled instead of buying them separately.
- Your customers span a wide credit range and you want 18+ lenders competing for the approval.
Choose Wisetack if
- You are new to offering financing and want zero commitment while you learn what homeowners take.
- Your financed volume is under about $40,000 per year, where 3.9% simply costs less.
- Your jobs are mostly service work and small installs between $500 and $25,000.
- You already run Jobber, Housecall Pro, or similar software and just need a financing layer inside it.
- Approval speed during the in-home visit matters more to you than squeezing the last dollar of fee savings.
Final verdict
Start with Wisetack, graduate to Hearth. That is the pattern that fits most contractors, because Wisetack is free to try and Hearth's flat fee only makes sense once your financed volume clears roughly $46,000 a year at the Pro price, or $38,000 on Essentials. High-ticket remodelers and heavy promo sellers should skip straight to Hearth: the $250,000 ceiling and fee-free 0% APR options are worth the subscription from day one. Both are legitimate platforms with strong user ratings, so the decision is arithmetic, not trust.
If you want the wider field before deciding, our four-way comparison of Hearth, Wisetack, GreenSky, and Improvifi covers the alternatives. Ready to run Hearth's numbers against your own book? Get started with Hearth here.
How we put this together
We compared published pricing from Hearth's pricing and loan pages against Wisetack's consumer site, help center, and partner documentation, confirmed the LendingClub loan expansion through the April 2026 announcement on PR Newswire and Wisetack's press page, and pulled ratings from Trustpilot and G2. Break-even figures are straight arithmetic from those published fees. All numbers were last verified in July 2026; both companies change pricing, so confirm current terms before signing.
Frequently asked questions
Can I offer both Hearth and Wisetack at the same time?
Yes, nothing stops you from running both, and some contractors do: Wisetack for small service tickets, Hearth for large projects and promo offers. The only cost of overlap is Hearth's subscription, so dual-running mainly makes sense once your volume already justifies Hearth.
Does Wisetack still cap loans at $25,000?
Not as a hard platform-wide limit anymore: since April 2026, LendingClub originates loans up to $65,000 through Wisetack, per the companies' joint announcement. Standard Wisetack financing still runs $500 to $25,000, and the higher tier's availability varies by merchant and borrower, so confirm your account's limit before quoting it.
Which is cheaper for a contractor financing under $40,000 a year?
Wisetack, clearly. At $40,000 in funded loans you would pay about $1,560 in 3.9% fees, versus $1,799 plus a $99 setup fee for Hearth Pro, and the gap widens the less you finance.
Does Hearth charge dealer fees per loan?
No, Hearth charges no per-transaction dealer fees; the annual subscription is the whole contractor cost, per Hearth's pricing page. Homeowners pay the interest on whatever loan they accept, which ranges from about 4.9% to 35.99% APR depending on credit.
What credit score do homeowners need for each platform?
Hearth advertises lender options for FICO scores as low as 550, while Wisetack publishes no minimum and evaluates credit history, income, and loan amount together. Both use a soft pull to prequalify, so checking offers does not ding the homeowner's score.
How fast do homeowners get a decision?
Wisetack typically returns a decision in about a minute through its text-based application, and Hearth shows prequalified offers from its lender network in about two minutes. Funding differs more than approval: Hearth advertises money in as little as 24 hours, while Wisetack pays out after the work milestone you set.
