Wisetack vs Sunbit: Customer Financing for Stone Shops Compared

Last October, Derek at a three-man fabrication shop outside Charlotte told me something I've heard a dozen times now, but he put it better than most. "Lady came in, loved the Cambria Ella, quote was $9,400 installed. She went quiet. I pulled up the financing screen, showed her $278 a month for 36 months, and she said 'Oh, that's nothing' and signed in the parking lot." Derek closed $147K in financed jobs in Q4 alone, on a shop doing maybe $600K a year total. His take: "Financing isn't a feature. It's half my close rate."

He's not wrong. A monthly payment turns a five-figure kitchen decision into something that feels like a car payment. The question isn't whether to offer financing. It's which lender to plug into the quote.

The two names that keep surfacing in stone shop circles are Wisetack and Sunbit. Both are point-of-sale lenders, both pay the shop in full within days, both run soft-pull credit checks that don't ding the customer. The differences are subtler, and they matter depending on the kind of work you do. This comparison sits in the Stone Shop Tech Stack & Integrations cluster under the Complete Guide to Countertop Fabrication.

The Basic Mechanics (Quick Version)

If you already know how POS financing works, skip ahead. For everyone else:

Customer reviews the quote in-shop or over the phone. Sales rep offers a monthly payment option. Customer taps a text link or scans a QR code, answers a few questions. The lender runs a soft credit check and decisions in seconds. Customer picks a term (3, 6, 12, 24, 36, or 60 months depending on the lender). The lender pays the shop in full, minus a merchant fee, typically 24 to 72 hours after install. Customer pays the lender directly. If the customer defaults, that's between them and the lender. The shop has zero exposure.

The merchant fee is the price of admission. Usually 3 to 9 percent of the financed amount, depending on promo terms and volume. Think of it as the cost of closing a deal that was about to walk out the door.

Wisetack: Built for Trades, Strong at the Top End

Wisetack launched in 2018 out of San Francisco and built its reputation in home services specifically: HVAC, plumbing, roofing, remodeling. The countertop fabrication footprint has been growing fast.

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The specs that matter for stone shops:

Loan amounts up to $25,000
Terms: 3, 6, 12, 24, 36, and 60 months
Customer APR: 0% to roughly 36%, credit-dependent
Soft pull only at application
Merchant fee: Typically 3 to 8%, varies by promo term and volume
Payout speed: Usually 24 to 48 hours post-install
No recourse, no chargebacks. The shop gets paid. Period.

Wisetack's interface is clean. That sounds like a minor thing until your sales rep is standing next to a homeowner watching them apply on their phone. Clunky apps kill momentum. Wisetack's doesn't.

Sunbit: Broader Approvals, Shorter Sweet Spot

Sunbit is older (founded 2016, Los Angeles) and cut its teeth in auto repair, dental, and optical before expanding into home services. The DNA shows in the product design: it's optimized for high approval rates across a wider credit spectrum.

The specs:

Loan amounts up to $20,000 in most channels
Core terms: 3, 6, and 12 months, with some longer options depending on the partnership
Customer APR: 0% to about 35.99%
Soft pull approval
Merchant fee: Typically 4 to 9%
Payout speed: 24 to 72 hours
Approval rate: Sunbit publicly claims 85 to 90% across its merchant base. That's genuinely high for the category.

The pitch is simple: more customers get approved. Some of those customers are paying higher rates, but they're paying rates they agreed to, and the shop closed the deal.

Where the Real Differences Show Up

Both products work for the typical stone shop ticket of $4,000 to $15,000. The divergence shows up at the edges.

Big jobs favor Wisetack. A $20K luxury quartzite install bumps up against Sunbit's cap. Wisetack's $25K ceiling gives you room. If your average ticket is creeping north, this matters.

Lower credit customers favor Sunbit. If you're in a market with a lot of first-time homeowners, FHA buyers, or rural areas where credit profiles skew lower, Sunbit's approval rate advantage is real. A customer who gets declined by Wisetack may sail through Sunbit.

Long terms favor Wisetack. A 36 or 60 month option drops the monthly payment dramatically on a $12K job. That psychological difference between $333/month and $200/month is what gets the signature. Sunbit's core product sits in shorter terms, which is great for smaller tickets but squeezes the monthly number on bigger ones.

Fees are close enough to negotiate. A shop doing $500K+ in annual financed volume can push Wisetack into the 3 to 5% range. Sunbit lands in a similar zone at scale. New shops with no history will pay more from both.

The customer-facing experience. Both use text-link applications. Both decision in under a minute. Trade forum consensus leans Wisetack on interface polish, but Sunbit has been improving steadily. Neither is going to embarrass you.

Software integration. Both plug into common shop platforms. Slabwise customers can run either alongside the quoting workflow, with the financing offer appearing right next to the job total.

The Fee Math, Spelled Out

Here's a real example. $10,000 countertop job, customer takes the 24-month option at 0% APR.

Wisetack at 5.99% merchant fee: shop nets $9,401
Sunbit at 6.99% merchant fee: shop nets $9,301
If you'd offered a 3% cash discount instead: shop nets $9,700

So financing costs more than a cash discount in raw dollars. Obviously. The reason it still wins: you can't offer a cash discount to a customer who doesn't have the cash. If financing is the difference between closing a $10K job and losing it to the shop down the road that offers monthly payments, the $600 fee is nothing. It's a rounding error against a lost sale.

Here's the thing, though. The math flips when the customer was always going to buy from you regardless. Offering financing as the default to every walk-in trains people to ask for it on jobs they'd happily pay cash for. Use financing as a save tool, not the opening pitch.

The Play Most Shops at Scale Are Running

Many shops don't pick one. They run both.

The pattern looks like this: offer Wisetack first (cleaner terms, lower fees on higher credit). If the customer gets declined, pivot to Sunbit (higher approval rate on tougher credit profiles). It's the same dual-lender approach auto repair shops have used for years, and it works because the customer never needs to know about the second option unless they need it.

Wisetack tends to win for: high-ticket jobs ($15K+), customers with mid-to-high credit who want low monthly payments on long terms, and shops that care about interface quality.

Sunbit tends to win for: mid-range jobs ($4K to $12K), markets with weaker average credit, and shops that need maximum approval rates even at slightly higher fees.

Five Mistakes That Cost Shops Money

I see these constantly.

Making financing the default. If a customer walks in ready to write a check, let them write a check. Financing is a closing tool for hesitant buyers, not a blanket policy. Every time a cash buyer takes financing instead, you lose 4 to 8% in fees for nothing.

Burying the merchant fee. Some shops inflate the quote to cover the fee so "cash and financed price look the same." This violates most lender agreements and it's unnecessary. Just be transparent.

Skipping APR disclosure training. Federal lending disclosure rules apply to what your sales staff says. "Zero percent!" is fine if the offer is actually zero percent. Vague promises about rates are not. Train your people.

Not tracking the close-rate lift. Without data, you're guessing whether financing is paying for itself. Tag financed jobs in Slabwise or QuickBooks. Review quarterly. If financing isn't lifting close rate by at least the cost of the fees, something's wrong with how you're presenting it.

Committing to one lender on day one. Both companies negotiate on volume. Get quotes from both. Run both for a quarter. Then concentrate volume with whichever one is winning on approval rate and net fee for your specific customer mix.

How This Fits the Slabwise Workflow

Slabwise isn't a lender. Slabwise is the shop platform. Financing is one of the integrations the platform supports because, bluntly, it closes more kitchens for our shop customers.

The right pattern: build the quote in Slabwise, present the financing option next to the total ("Or $278/month for 36 months with approved credit"), let the customer apply right there, and track whether the financed job converts. The data tells you whether your financing program is earning its fee or eroding your margin.

For the broader Wisetack review for stone shops, the standalone article covers the full feature set.

FAQ

Which is cheaper, Wisetack or Sunbit? Merchant fees overlap heavily. For most shops, the difference is within one percentage point. Sunbit tends to run slightly higher on average; Wisetack tends to negotiate down faster once you show volume.

Can a stone shop run both at once? Yes. Many shops do exactly this, offering one as the primary and the other as the backup for declined customers.

Does customer financing affect my QuickBooks? Yes. The financing fee is a deduction from the gross sale. Set up a "Financing Fees" expense account in QuickBooks and code the fee there so your gross margin reporting stays clean.

Do my customers' credit scores get hurt by applying? No. Both Wisetack and Sunbit run a soft pull at application. Hard pulls only happen later if and when the customer accepts the loan and it begins reporting to credit bureaus over time.

What is the typical approval rate? Sunbit publicly cites approval rates near 85 to 90 percent across its merchant network. Wisetack's approval rate varies more by customer credit profile. Both decision in under a minute.

Is there a minimum volume to qualify? Both companies onboard shops at any volume. The merchant fee tends to start higher for low-volume shops and improve at scale. Most shops can get reasonable terms once they prove out a few quarters of consistent financing volume.

Can I offer 0 percent customer APR? Yes, both lenders offer 0% customer-APR promos. The shop pays a higher merchant fee in exchange. Same math as always: a bigger fee for an offer the customer finds very hard to refuse.

Stone fabrication generates respirable crystalline silica dust. Shops must follow OSHA 29 CFR 1926.1153 standards, which set a permissible exposure limit of 50 μg/m³ over an 8-hour shift. Wet-cutting methods, ventilation, and respiratory protection are not optional.