How to Offer Homeowner Financing as a Contractor

Quick Answers

Homeowner financing lets your customer pay for a job over time through a third-party lender, while you get paid upfront.
Joist offers this through a partnership with Acorn Finance, a network of 30+ lenders, with loans up to $100,000 and terms up to 20 years.
There’s no cost or credit risk to you as the contractor. The loan sits between the homeowner and the lender, not you and the homeowner.
Checking financing options uses a soft credit check, so it doesn’t affect your customer’s credit score.
You turn it on inside Joist, and it appears directly on your estimates and invoices.
If a customer can’t repay, that’s between them and the lender. You’ve already been paid.

What Is Homeowner Financing?

Business concept on wooden blocks of financing available

Homeowner financing is a way for your customers to pay for a home improvement project over time instead of all at once, through a loan from a third-party lender rather than from you. You add the option to an estimate or invoice; the customer applies and is approved by the lender; and you’re paid the full job amount once funding comes through.

There are two ways contractors generally offer financing. The first is third-party financing, where a lender network funds the loan and you’re not involved beyond presenting the option. This is what Joist offers through Homeowner Financing. The second is contractor financing, where you personally fund the job and collect repayments from the customer over time. Contractor financing gives you more control over terms, but you’re carrying the cash flow gap and the repayment risk yourself. For most contractors, third-party financing is the lower-risk way to offer the same benefit: a bigger job, paid to you upfront.

This is also different from financing your own business. If you’re looking for a loan, line of credit, or equipment financing for your company rather than for a customer’s project, that’s business financing, which Joist offers separately through Business Lending. This guide is about the financing you offer to homeowners, not the financing you take out yourself.

Financing vs. Other Ways Homeowners Pay

Most homeowners still pay for home improvements out of savings, but a meaningful share turn to credit cards, personal loans, or home equity products. Each comes with trade-offs that third-party financing avoids. Knowing how these stack up helps you explain to customers why financing through you, rather than sourcing their own loan, is often the easier path.

Payment method	How it works	Common drawback
Savings	Customer pays in full upfront	Limits project size to what they’ve saved
Credit cards	Instant, you’re paid right away	High interest, low limits for larger jobs.
Personal loans	Customer borrows from a bank or lender	Approval depends on credit; application can be slow
Home equity loan or HELOC	Secured against the customer’s home	Can take weeks or months to approve; it risks the home as collateral
Cash-out refinance	Customer refinances their mortgage for extra cash	Comes with new mortgage rates; slow to arrange
Third-party financing (Joist + Acorn Finance)	Customer applies through the lender network on your estimate	Terms are set by the lender, not you.

Personal loans deserve a specific callout, since they’re the option customers most often compare to contractor-offered financing. Approval isn’t guaranteed: in Bankrate’s 2025 Credit Denials Survey, 48% of Americans who applied for a loan or financial product in the past year were turned down on at least one application (Bankrate). That figure covers all loan and credit applications, not home improvement financing specifically, but it illustrates why a fast, purpose-built financing option on your estimate is often more reliable for the customer than them going and finding their own loan.

If financing isn’t the right fit for a customer, splitting the job into stages is another way to make a large project easier to say yes to. See our guide on progress invoicing for how to bill in stages instead.

How Homeowner Financing Works With Joist

Financing works through a lender network, not through you. With Joist, that network is Acorn Finance, which connects your customer to 30+ lenders offering competitive rates on loans up to $100,000 with terms up to 20 years. The option sits directly on your estimates and invoices, alongside your other payment options. The customer applies with a soft credit check, so browsing options doesn’t affect their credit score.

When approved, funds are typically disbursed directly to the homeowner within one to two business days. The customer then uses those funds to pay your Joist invoice via card, ACH, or check. You receive your payment in full upfront, while the ongoing repayment relationship exists entirely between the homeowner and the lender.

That structure matters for two reasons. First, it means offering financing carries no cost or credit risk for you. Joist doesn’t charge you for the feature, and you’re not on the hook if the customer misses a payment later. Second, it means you don’t need to underwrite anything yourself. You’re not assessing creditworthiness or deciding loan terms. That’s the lender’s job.

How Financing Helps You Close Bigger Jobs

Financing gives customers a way to say yes to the job they want, instead of scaling it back to fit what they can pay upfront. When a bid comes in higher than expected, homeowners typically choose between cutting the scope or delaying the project. A financing option turns “that’s a lot” into a monthly payment they can commit to, keeping your price and scope intact. A $15,000 kitchen refresh, for example, becomes a manageable monthly payment instead of a number that sends the customer back to the drawing board.

The data on how homeowners pay for projects backs this up. In a 2,000-person Forbes Advisor survey, 63% of homeowners said they funded their most recent home improvement project with savings, while 9% used a personal loan and another 12% used a home equity product such as a HELOC or cash-out refinance (Forbes Advisor). That leaves a meaningful share of customers who either can’t or don’t want to pay entirely out of pocket, and financing is how you capture that demand instead of losing the job or shrinking it.

Homeowners also prefer financing through the contractor directly rather than securing a loan themselves. In a 2021 Modernize.com survey of over 3,100 homeowners planning roofing, siding, window, HVAC, and solar projects, more than 25% of those planning to finance said they’d prefer to get that financing through their contractor (ACHR News). Offering financing yourself, rather than leaving customers to find their own loan, is often what keeps them from shopping the job to a competitor who does.

Contractors who track this trend are seeing the same shift from their side. In a 2023 MarketSharp survey of its remodeling and home improvement contractor users, roughly half reported increased customer interest in financing options, even though it isn’t yet the most common way those contractors get paid (MarketSharp). That’s a small, self-selected sample rather than a broad industry study, but it points in the same direction as the homeowner-side data: interest in financing is growing.

One widely cited figure claims financing increases close rates by 18% and average job size by 30%. That number traces back to a 2018 industry article in which an EnerBank USA executive referenced internal studies showing the effect (Journal of Light Construction).

Financing tends to matter most on higher-ticket jobs, where the gap between “what it costs” and “what’s in the bank” is widest. That’s why it shows up so often in roofing, HVAC, general contracting, residential construction, and larger landscaping projects, where a single job can run into the tens of thousands of dollars. If you work in one of those trades and don’t currently offer financing, it’s likely costing you jobs you’re not seeing lost, because the customer never came back with a smaller ask. They just went quiet.

Financing can also feed your reputation. Customers who get to do the job they wanted, rather than a scaled-down version, tend to leave better reviews. If you’re using Joist’s review management tools to request feedback after payment, a financed job that hits the customer’s original vision is often the one worth following up on first.

How to Talk to Customers About Financing

The way you introduce financing matters as much as whether you offer it. A few things to keep in mind:

Call it a payment option, not financing. Some customers respond warily to the word “financing,” but “payment options” describes the same thing without the friction. Include it on the estimate itself so it reads as a normal part of how you get paid, not a separate pitch.
Mention payment flexibility during your initial walkthrough before presenting the final price. Framing it early ensures it reads as a standard business option rather than a last-resort closing tactic.
Keep the first mention simple. You don’t need to explain APRs, terms, or lender names upfront. A short line like “we also offer flexible payment options if that’s helpful” is enough. Save the details for when the customer asks.
Have answers ready for the questions customers most often ask: whether it affects their credit, whether you’re the one they owe money to, and what happens if they can’t pay. Those are exactly the ones covered in the FAQ below, so it’s worth being familiar with the answers before the conversation comes up.

Once a customer is approved, follow up quickly while the project is still front of mind. If you’re tracking clients in Joist’s client management tools, a financing approval is a natural trigger to reach out and get the job scheduled before their enthusiasm cools.

How to Set Up Financing in Joist

Setting up homeowner financing in Joist takes a few minutes and doesn’t require any application or approval on your part. Turn on the “Show Homeowner Financing” option in your account settings, and the option appears automatically on your estimates and invoices in the future. You’re also in full control of when it shows: you can switch it on or off for any individual estimate, or set your default preference for all new ones.

When you send a document to a customer, they’ll see the option to explore financing and can apply directly through Acorn Finance’s lender network. Once your customer is approved, you’ll get notified, which is a useful cue to follow up while the job is fresh in their mind. From there, funding can be available in as little as one business day, and you’re paid once the customer draws on those funds. The whole process runs inside the same estimate-to-invoice workflow you’re already using in Joist, so there’s no separate system to manage.

FAQs: Homeowner Financing for Contractors

Here are the questions contractors most often ask before offering homeowner financing.

How does homeowner financing work for contractors?

You add a financing option to an estimate or invoice, your customer applies through the lender network, and once approved, they use the funds to pay you. You’re paid in full and don’t take on any of the repayment risk.

How do I offer financing to a homeowner through Joist?

Turn on the “Show Homeowner Financing” option in your Joist settings. It then appears automatically on your estimates and invoices, and customers can explore loan options through Acorn Finance when you send the document.

Do I get paid the full amount upfront?

Once your customer is approved and funding is in place, they use those funds to pay your invoice, so you’re paid in full rather than in installments. Approvals are typically fast, and funding can be available in as little as one business day.

Is there a cost for me to offer financing?

No. There’s no cost to you to offer financing through Joist. Your customer works directly with the lender, and you’re not charged for enabling the feature.

Will I be responsible if the customer doesn’t repay the loan?

No. The loan is between the homeowner and the lender. You have no repayment obligation or involvement if the customer defaults.

Does offering financing make me a lender?

No. You’re not extending credit yourself. You’re giving customers access to a network of lenders through Acorn Finance, and the lending relationship is between them and the lender, not you.

Who do I invoice?

You still invoice the client as normal. Once they’re approved and funded, they use that money to pay your invoice, just as if they’d paid by any other method.

Will checking financing options affect my customer’s credit score?

No. Customers explore loan options using a soft credit check, which doesn’t affect their credit score.

Is homeowner financing the same as financing my own business?

No, they’re separate. Homeowner financing is money a customer borrows to pay you for a job. If you need financing for your own business, such as covering materials, payroll, or gaps between jobs, that’s a different Joist feature: Business Lending.