What you need to know about Upgrade personal loans: $1,000 to $50,000!

I'm going to cover everything you need to know about Upgrade's personal loans. We've spent years working in the lending industry and we track dozens of lenders. I'm going to break down Upgrade so you can make a decision whether you want to use them to consolidate credit card debt, make a big purchase, or just cover a monthly shortfall. The first question is how much can you borrow from Upgrade? Upgrade's minimum loan amount is $1,000. That's great if you are looking for just a little bit of money to cover a monthly shortfall. But if you're looking for a more substantial amount of money, Upgrade will lend as much as $50,000. There are a couple of other lenders out there that will lend up to $100,000, but generally $50,000 is the max. Loans from Upgrade range from two to seven years. The length of your term will be heavily dependent on the size of your loan. If you are only borrowing $1,000, don't take even two years to pay it back. That's a long time to be paying interest on a loan of that size. On the other side, seven years is a long time to be in debt, even if you are borrowing a substantial amount of money. The longer term will keep your monthly payments down, but it will mean paying more in overall interest. No matter what your term length is, if you make extra principal payments at the beginning, you will save a lot of money on interest over the course of your loan, and you'll get out of debt faster. Now let's look at the cost of the loans. Upgrade's minimum APR is 8.49%. Their maximum APR is 35.99%. 36% is a pretty standard APR ceiling for lenders. When it comes to origination fees, Upgrade charges between 1.85% and 9.99%. Any origination fee above 6% gets to be a little on the high side, but it's important to remember that the origination fee doesn't increase the overall cost of the loan. The APR includes the origination fee and the interest rate. A loan with a high origination fee, but a low APR is still a low-cost loan. If that's the case, should you even care about the origination fee? Yes, especially if you plan on paying the loan off early. When you pay the loan off early, you save money on the interest you would have paid, but you don't get a reimbursement for the origination fee. Also, remember that the origination fee comes out of the proceeds of the loan. So when you borrow money, make sure you're borrowing enough for the emergency as well as the origination fee. Upgrade offers three discounts that can help you lower the APR you pay. They will give you a discount if you sign up for AutoPay, if you use their loan to consolidate other debt, or if you use your motor vehicle as collateral for the loan. Keep in mind that in order to get the AutoPay discount, you will need to attach your bank account at the time that you accept the loan. If you sign up later, you will not receive the discount. Upgrade targets borrowers who have fair to good credit scores. I think their borrower's credit scores fall between 620 and 700. Of course, these are just guidelines. Lenders use a lot more than credit score to determine eligibility. They will also look at payment history, debt to income ratios, utilization, amount and type of income, and other financial information. A broad mix of these measures will determine the terms of the loan they offer you. Upgrade offers unsecured as well as secured loans. If you have an unsecured loan, they can't come after your assets if you have difficulty making the payments. Upgrade will allow you to secure a loan with collateral, in this case, the title to your motor vehicle. Securing the loan can help your chances of being approved, getting more money, or getting a lower interest rate. But if you run into trouble, they can come after your car. So you have to decide whether the trade-off is worth it to you. Upgrade will accept co-signers on their loan applications. A co-signer is someone who agrees to pay off the loan if you fail to repay it. If you have a spouse or a loved one that has a stronger credit profile than you do, adding them as a co-signer might make all the difference in getting the loan that you need. If you can qualify for the loan that you need on your own, don't entangle a loved one in the process by adding them as a co-signer. If you are using the loan to consolidate other debt, Upgrade will directly pay off those other creditors with the proceeds of the loan for you. Not only is this convenient, it shows that they know that the new loan will replace your other debts and not just stack on top of them. Because it won't make your debt-to-income ratio worse, it should make it easier to be approved with them. If you are at least 15 days late on a payment, Upgrade will charge you $10. There are a bunch of personal loan companies that don't charge a late fee at all, but for the ones that do, $10 is the lowest that I've seen. Upgrade will also charge you $10 if your payment fails. This can happen if you don't have enough money in your account when they attempt to make the ACH withdrawal for your monthly payment. That's not a terribly high fee, but again, not all lenders even charge this fee. So let's summarize what we've learned about the personal loans offered by Upgrade. Upgrade offers a decent range for personal loans, both the little money for short-term emergencies and larger sums for more significant needs. They have standard APRs, so whether you get a good rate will depend on your particular situation, but they do offer a few different ways to make the loan cheaper. They have a pretty good suite of features that show that they are customer-centric. They do charge fees, but they aren't egregious. I think Upgrade is a pretty good lender. They have developed a pretty good all-around product. Of course, this doesn't mean that they will offer you the money that you need with the best possible terms. Every lender has a different algorithm for approving people. You could get denied by one lender only to receive a better offer from another one. That's why it's so important that you shop around before you accept an offer. You owe it to yourself to get the best deal that you can in your circumstances. At the UConn Project, we've tried to make shopping around easy. If you visit our Marketplace page, you can apply to any one of our featured lenders. Behind the scenes, we will check your rate with up to 40 other lenders. Our partners use a soft credit check, so applying won't hurt your credit score. We will show you all of the approved offers so that you can make the best decision for your circumstance. If you have any questions that we didn't address, leave a comment below and we'll try to get it answered. 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