Upgrade Personal Loans Review

Upgrade is an online personal finance company, offering a range of consumer financial products via partner banks. It was founded in 2017, initially offering only unsecured personal loans. It has expanded into credit cards, auto loans and even checking accounts. Upgrade remains a popular option for people in the market for a personal loan due to their low minimum credit score requirements and good loan flexibility. Well qualified applicants may be turned off by their origination fees and interest rates that are significantly higher than some competitors.

Loan Options

• Upgrade offers unsecured and secured (vehicle as collateral) personal loans between $1,000 and $50,000, with some states carrying higher minimum loan sizes.

• Loan lengths range from 2 to 7 years.

• Upgrade may allow coborrowers on loans, which could improve your chances of approval, as the legal responsibility to repay the loan will be shared by multiple people.

Interest & Fees

• APR: Upgrade personal loans have fixed rates from 7.74 to 35.99% (lowest rates are reserved for borrowers who satisfy discount criteria- see below).

• Origination Fee: Upgrade will charge an origination fee of 1.85%-9.99% of the approved loan amount, which will be automatically deducted from the loan proceeds.

• Prepayment Penalty: Borrowers do not incur any fees if they wish to pay off their loan early.

• Late Payment: Upgrade will impose $10 fee if the full payment is not received within 15 calendar days of the payment due date.

• Unsuccessful payment: Upgrade will charge you $10 if bank transfers (ACH) or checks are returned or fail. This fee may be on top of charges that are imposed by your banking institution.

• Discounts: Upgrade state that borrowers will receive discounts if they accept Autopay and, in the case of debt consolidation loans, to agree for Upgrade to pay your creditors directly with at least half of the loan proceeds. The exact value of those discounts has not been publicly disclosed.

Loan Eligibility

While they do not explicitly publish a hard minimum limit, third-party platforms and industry reviews consistently list 580 as their minimum credit score requirement. Additional requirements can be found here.

Income Requirements

Similar to credit score requirements, online disclosures make no reference to any minimum income requirements.

Are they legit?

Yes. Upgrade is a financial technology company that matches individuals with credit products offered by their partner banks, which now includes personal loans, credit cards and checking accounts. According to their website, in the last eight years, they have made over $47 billion of credit available to their customers.

Reviews & News

At the time of writing, Upgrade had approximately 82% 5-star reviews on Trustpilot from a total of just over 56,000.

On their A+ accredited BBB profile, they have an average rating of 4.27/5 from nearly 1000 reviews, with just under 500 complaints closed in the last year.

Do They Report to the Credit Bureaus?

Yes. Upgrade report monthly snapshots of loan and payment status to the three major credit reporting agencies: Equifax, Experian and Transunion. Regular on-time payments in your credit file will likely increase your credit score and improve your chances of qualifying for credit in the future. However, failure to satisfy your repayment obligations could damage your credit score, making it more difficult to borrow again.

Get in touch

For customer support related to your personal loan, you can contact Upgrade at (844) 899-9931, which is available 5AM-6PM PST (Monday-Friday) and 6AM-5PM PST (Saturday/Sunday) You can also try their online chat resource, which is available 24/7 to help identify and fix your problem—or connect you with an agent during working hours.

What we like?

Loan Flexibility: Upgrade personal loans cater for all types of borrowers. With loans between $1,000 and $50,000, they can be used to overcome short-term emergencies and longer-term projects. Unlike many competitors, Upgrade offer cosigned loans and loans secured with collateral. Each of these options could improve your approval chances or land you a better rate.

Multiple Discounts: Borrowers can reduce their APR by setting up autopay and, in the case of debt consolidation loans, allowing Upgrade to send part of the loan proceeds directly to existing creditors. Upgrade does not publicly disclose the exact size of these discounts.

Check your Rate: Borrowers can check their rate on the Upgrade website and app, without any impact to their credit score. Even if you have an offer elsewhere, it might be worth seeing if Upgrade can beat it.

Well-Rated App: The free Upgrade app makes it easy to manage your account- you can make payments, receive updates on your loan and even track your credit score. You can also seamlessly browse additional financial products, such as checking accounts and credit cards. The app is available for both Apple and Android.

What we don't like?

Origination Fees: Upgrade will charge origination fees of 1.85%-9.99% on the approved loan amount. Origination fees are automatically paid at the time of funding. For example, if you are approved for $10,000 loan with a 5% origination fee, you'll only receive $9,500 in your bank account. Many lenders don't charge origination fees, so you may wish to look elsewhere to avoid them.

Limited discount transparency: Upgrade advertises interest rate discounts for borrowers who enroll in autopay or use their loan for debt consolidation, but the exact size of these discounts is not publicly disclosed. This makes it difficult to compare offers against competitors that clearly advertise their rate reductions upfront.

Summary

With flexible loan structures, secured loan options and risk-free prequalification, Upgrade is one of the more versatile lenders in the personal loan space. Borrowers should still pay attention to origination fees, which can meaningfully increase the total cost of borrowing.