Once you've found an online business to buy, the next question is how you'll actually pay for it. Two things determine that: what loan covers the bulk of the purchase price, and how much of that price the seller agrees to carry themselves. Every option below is either debt or equity, and which one you're looking at changes what you're actually agreeing to.
The bank loan most online business buyers use
Most acquisitions get financed with a bank loan sized specifically for buying an existing business, rather than a general small-business or startup loan. In the U.S., that's most often an SBA 7(a) loan, the Small Business Administration's flagship acquisition-financing program. Outside the U.S., look for your own country's equivalent, whether that's a government-backed small-business lending program or a bank's dedicated acquisition-financing product, since the underwriting logic below applies broadly even where the specific program doesn't. Lenders underwrite the loan around three things: the business's historical cash flow (can its earnings service the debt with room to spare), your relevant industry or management experience, and the equity injection you're bringing, typically around 10%, sometimes met partly through seller financing.
Expect the process to take 60 to 90 days from application to close, longer if the target's books need cleanup before a lender will underwrite them. Acquisition loans lean on the business's existing cash-flow history as collateral, something a startup loan can't offer, which is often why they move through underwriting with fewer open questions despite the larger loan sizes involved.
What's different when the business is online
Most online businesses don't come with real estate, inventory, or equipment to pledge as collateral. Lenders lean almost entirely on earnings history and, to a lesser extent, on intangible assets like the domain, the codebase, or the customer list. That has two practical effects.
First, not every lender is comfortable underwriting a deal with no hard collateral. Some banks active in traditional small business acquisition lending simply don't have a process for evaluating a Shopify store or a SaaS product, so part of your prep work is finding a lender with actual experience closing online business deals, not just one that technically offers acquisition loans.
Second, many lenders cap how much of a loan can be secured mainly by intangible assets (goodwill) before requiring a bigger equity injection. In the U.S., the SBA caps this at roughly $500,000 in intangible assets under current rules, typically bumping the required equity injection from around 10% up to around 25% above that threshold. Since most of an online business's value is intangible, this kind of threshold matters more here than in a deal with a warehouse or equipment behind it. Confirm the current figures and rules with your own lender, since they vary by country and do get updated.
Documentation looks different too. Instead of point-of-sale reports and a commercial lease, expect to hand over Stripe or payment-processor statements, Google Analytics or platform traffic data, and ad account histories to back up the numbers on the seller's profit and loss statement.
How seller financing fits into the deal
Seller financing shows up in a large share of small business acquisitions. The seller acts as a lender for part of the purchase price, getting paid over time instead of entirely at closing. A few real reasons sellers agree to it:
- It often gets the deal done at all. Many buyers can't finance 100% of a purchase price through a bank alone. A seller note bridges that gap.
- It signals confidence. A seller willing to carry paper is implicitly betting on the business (and on you) continuing to perform, which banks read as a positive signal too.
- It can support a better overall price. A seller who wants a higher headline price may accept part of it as a note rather than losing the deal over an all-cash requirement they can't get met.
- Acquisition loans sometimes require it. Depending on deal structure, a seller note on standby can be part of how the lender's required equity injection gets satisfied (this is explicitly the case under SBA rules in the U.S., and a common expectation with other lenders too).
Seller notes commonly land somewhere in the range of 5% to 20% of the purchase price, with the rest split between the buyer's equity injection and the senior bank loan. Larger notes do happen, typically when the seller is especially motivated to see a successful transition rather than maximize cash today. Terms usually get negotiated alongside size: interest rate, repayment period (often 5 to 10 years), and whether it goes on full standby (no payments for a period, common when it's counted toward the lender's required equity injection). A seller note in a bank-financed deal is almost always subordinated to the bank loan, meaning the bank gets paid first if things go badly.
When you ask, frame it as shared risk, not a favor: the seller's payout is partly tied to the business continuing to perform under your ownership, which aligns both sides' incentives. Come with a specific number and term already anchored to what your lender needs, rather than asking the seller to name a figure first, and raise it early in your offer rather than as a late add-on after terms are otherwise agreed.
Bringing in a business partner, or family and friends
Your equity injection doesn't have to come entirely out of your own pocket. Two common ways solo buyers cover part of it: bringing in a business partner, or turning to family and friends.
A business partner typically contributes capital in exchange for real equity and, usually, a say in how the business gets run. That reduces your own cash outlay and adds a second set of skills to the deal, but it also means splitting future profits and decisions for as long as you both own the business. Put the partnership terms (ownership split, roles, what happens if one of you wants out) in writing before you close, not after a disagreement forces the issue.
Family and friends money doesn't have to be equity at all. It's often simply a personal loan, informal or documented, that you owe directly to that person rather than a stake in the business. Either way it's usually a passive arrangement: people backing you rather than evaluating the deal the way a bank or a partner would. That trust is exactly why it needs more care, not less. Anyone putting money in, whether as equity or a loan, a business partner or a family member, needs to go in with clear eyes about the risk: the business can underperform or fail, there's no guaranteed return, and they should only invest what they can genuinely afford to lose. Treating a family loan casually because "it's just family" is how a bad outcome turns into a damaged relationship on top of a financial loss.
Why debt is riskier than it sounds on your first deal
Be cautious about it. Both a bank loan and a seller note are leverage: money you're personally obligated to repay regardless of how the business performs. An acquisition loan almost always requires a personal guarantee, which puts your personal assets, not just the business, on the hook if things go wrong. A seller note carries the same obligation, just owed to the seller instead of a bank.
For a first acquisition, that's a real risk worth naming plainly. If the business underperforms after closing, whether from something diligence missed or something that simply changes (a platform update, a lost customer, a shift in the market), you still owe the debt. In a bad-enough case, that obligation can push a first-time buyer into personal bankruptcy, not just a failed business.
That's not a reason to avoid leverage altogether. Most buyers use some. It's a reason to size your first deal conservatively: borrow less relative to the business's earnings than the maximum a lender will approve, keep a real cash cushion beyond the closing table, and don't lean on optimistic projections to make the debt service work. The safer version of your first deal is usually the smaller, more conservatively financed one, not the one that stretches every dollar of leverage a lender or seller will offer.
The same caution applies to the cash you personally put in, not just the debt. "Only invest what you can afford to lose" is a basic investing mantra for a reason, and it holds here as much as it does in the stock market. Even a business with years of clean financials, a loyal customer base, and no red flags in due diligence still carries real risk after you own it: a platform can change its algorithm, a key employee can leave, a competitor can undercut your pricing, or a market can simply shift. No amount of diligence eliminates that risk. It only reduces it. Treat your equity injection the same way you'd treat any other investment: as money you could genuinely lose, not money you're confident you'll get back.
Putting the pieces together
A typical online business acquisition's capital stack looks like this: a bank loan covering most of the purchase price, a seller note covering part or all of your required equity injection, and the rest of that equity injection coming from your own cash, a business partner, or family and friends.
Next: it's worth understanding just how small that personal cash contribution can get, and where "no money down" pitches oversell what's realistic.