When a patient is ready to move forward with treatment but cost is standing in the way, the financing option a practice recommends can be the difference between a yes and a walk-out. More providers than ever are evaluating their options — and two names that surface regularly in that conversation are LendingPoint and Cherry Payment Plans.

On the surface, both give patients a way to break up the cost of care into manageable monthly payments. But spend a little time under the hood and the differences become hard to ignore. LendingPoint is a general-purpose personal loan lender that happens to be usable for medical expenses. Cherry was designed from the ground up for healthcare, with the specific goal of removing the financial friction that keeps patients from saying yes. Here's how they compare.

What is LendingPoint?

Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Kennesaw, Georgia, LendingPoint is an online lender offering unsecured personal loans to consumers across a range of credit profiles. Its AI-driven underwriting model factors in income, debt-to-income ratio, and other data points alongside credit score — giving it more flexibility than many traditional lenders.

LendingPoint serves a broad range of borrowing needs: debt consolidation, home improvement, car repair, medical expenses, and more. Loans are funded by FinWise Bank, Coastal Community Bank, and LendingPoint itself depending on the state. It's worth noting upfront: LendingPoint is not a healthcare financing company. Patients can use a personal loan to pay for a procedure, but the platform has no integration with medical practice workflows, no dedicated healthcare support, and no mechanism for paying providers directly.

How Does LendingPoint Work?

For Patients

Getting started with LendingPoint begins with a prequalification step that uses a soft credit inquiry — so checking eligibility won't affect a borrower's credit score. Applicants provide basic identifying information, including their Social Security number, annual income, and the loan amount they're looking for, and receive available loan offers within seconds.

If a borrower decides to move forward and submits a full loan application, LendingPoint conducts a hard credit inquiry, which will appear on their credit report and may temporarily lower their credit score. Approval is based on creditworthiness, including credit history, FICO score, debt-to-income ratio, and income verification. A minimum annual income of $35,000 is required, and LendingPoint does not accept co-signers.

Key terms for LendingPoint personal loans:

• Loan amounts from $1,000 to $36,500
• APR ranging from 7.99% to 35.99%
• Repayment terms from 24 to 72 months
• Origination fee of up to 10%, depending on state of residence
• No prepayment penalties
• No late fees
• Funding as soon as the next business day via ACH deposit to the borrower's bank account

Borrowers manage repayment through LendingPoint's mobile app or online portal, and the company reports payment activity to the major credit bureaus — Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax — meaning on-time payments can help build credit history over time.

For Providers

Here's where a meaningful limitation emerges for healthcare practices considering LendingPoint as a patient financing solution: there isn't really a provider-facing product. LendingPoint is a direct-to-consumer lender. Patients apply on their own, funds are deposited into their personal bank account, and the practice collects payment just as it would from any other patient — separately, and on its own timeline. There's no enrollment process for providers, no upfront payment, no marketing toolkit, and no dedicated account support. The practice bears the collection risk entirely.

What is Cherry Payment Plans?

Cherry is a buy now, pay later financing platform built specifically — and exclusively — for healthcare providers. More than 60,000 providers rely on Cherry as their financing partner, spanning dental and orthodontic offices, medspa practices, plastic surgery centers, dermatology clinics, veterinary hospitals, vision centers, and hearing care providers. At practices where Cherry competes alongside other financing options, it's offered first more than 80% of the time.

How Does Cherry Work?

For Patients

The application process can be completed in 35 seconds. Patients submit a short application — at the front desk, in the treatment room, or from their phone before they arrive — and receive an instant approval decision. Cherry uses a soft credit check at every stage of the process; there is never a hard inquiry, which means applying carries zero risk to the patient's credit score.

Key terms for Cherry financing:

• Loan amounts up to $65,000
• Repayment terms from 1 to 60 months
• True 0% APR available for qualified borrowers — no deferred interest, ever
• No origination fees, no hidden fees, no prepayment penalties
• Approval rates up to 90% across all credit profiles
• Patients manage payments online via debit card, credit card, or ACH

For Providers

Once enrolled, Cherry becomes a seamless part of the practice's financial workflow. Staff can initiate financing at the point of care, and Cherry handles everything from underwriting to repayment servicing — the practice is never on the hook if a patient doesn't pay. Payment arrives upfront, typically within 2-3 business days, and Cherry's merchant fees are the lowest in the healthcare financing industry.

Practices also receive a full marketing toolkit — in-office signage, social media templates, email copy, and a shareable pre-approval link — to promote financing across every patient touchpoint. A dedicated support team with healthcare-specific expertise is available by phone, email, and chat.

Cherry vs LendingPoint: Quick Comparison

The Biggest Differences Between LendingPoint and Cherry

1. One Was Built for Healthcare. The Other Wasn't.

This is the defining distinction, and everything else flows from it. LendingPoint is a strong product for what it was designed to do — give consumers across a range of credit profiles fast access to personal loan funds for almost any purpose. But "almost any purpose" is not the same as purpose-built.

Cherry was designed around a single use case: helping patients afford care at the moment they need it, inside a healthcare practice. That focus shapes every aspect of the product — the 35-second application, the point-of-care workflow, the upfront provider payment, the healthcare-specialist support team. LendingPoint patients go home with funds in their account and a separate task on their to-do list. Cherry patients walk out the door already financed, and the practice is already in the process of being paid.

2. True 0% APR vs. Interest on Every Loan

Every LendingPoint loan carries an interest rate. There are no 0% APR options — the lowest rate available starts at 7.99% and is reserved for the most creditworthy applicants, with rates climbing as high as 35.99% depending on credit profile. Add an origination fee of up to 10% on top of that, and the total cost of borrowing can be substantially higher than the loan amount itself.

Cherry offers true 0% APR for qualified borrowers across a range of plan lengths — with no deferred interest. That distinction matters: deferred interest financing, common among healthcare credit products, appears interest-free but can retroactively apply accumulated interest if the balance isn't paid off in time. Cherry doesn't use deferred interest. For patients who qualify for a 0% plan, the amount they borrow is the amount they repay — nothing more.

3. A Hard Inquiry vs. No Hard Inquiry — Ever

LendingPoint's two-step credit process — soft pull to prequalify, hard inquiry to finalize — is standard for personal lenders. But in a healthcare setting, where patients are already managing the stress and cost of treatment, an unexpected credit impact can introduce friction at exactly the wrong moment.

Cherry never performs a hard credit inquiry. The same soft check used at prequalification is the only check that ever runs, regardless of whether the patient is approved for $500 or $50,000. For patients with credit sensitivities, or those who are actively managing their credit report, this distinction can be meaningful — and for practices, it removes a potential objection at the point of care.

4. Providers Get Paid Upfront — or They Don't

With LendingPoint, the practice isn't part of the transaction. The patient receives funds in their bank account and pays the practice separately. If the patient doesn't follow through, the practice absorbs the loss. There's no enrollment, no integration, and no guarantee of payment on any particular timeline.

Cherry eliminates that uncertainty entirely. The practice is paid within 2-3 business days of the patient's approval, and Cherry takes on all repayment risk from that point forward. For high-volume practices or those financing larger cases, that cash flow certainty — combined with the industry's lowest merchant fees — has a meaningful effect on the bottom line.

5. Loan Amounts and How Far They Go

LendingPoint personal loans max out at $36,500. For many procedures, that's sufficient — but for higher-ticket treatments like full-mouth restoration, mommy makeovers, or complex surgical cases, it may fall short. Cherry's ceiling of $65,000 covers the full range of what most healthcare practices offer, including major elective procedures that other financing platforms can't accommodate.

The repayment window also differs. LendingPoint offers loan terms from 24 to 72 months, with a minimum term of two years. Cherry's range starts at just one month and extends to 60 months, giving patients more control over how they structure payments — including short-term interest-free plans for smaller balances that LendingPoint's minimum term would stretch unnecessarily.

6. The Real Cost of an Origination Fee

LendingPoint's origination fee — which can reach 10% — is deducted from the loan proceeds or added to the principal, depending on the borrower's preference. Either way, it increases the effective cost of borrowing. A patient approved for $10,000 who is charged a 10% origination fee either receives $9,000 in disbursed funds or repays $11,000 in principal before interest.

Cherry charges no origination fee. What patients are approved for is what they receive, and what they agree to repay is what they owe — with no upfront deductions and no compounding surprises. They’ll know the total amount due before they sign.

The Bottom Line

LendingPoint is a legitimate and well-established online lender with a track record of serving borrowers who need fast, accessible personal loans. For patients who are comfortable managing a general loan independently — handling the application outside the practice, receiving funds in their bank account, and paying the provider separately — it can work.

But for healthcare providers whose goal is to increase treatment acceptance, reduce collection risk, and offer a financing experience that's as smooth as the care itself, Cherry is a different category of solution. Higher loan amounts, broader approvals, no origination fees, no hard credit inquiry, true qualifying 0% APR options, and a direct payment to the practice — all from a platform that was built for healthcare and nothing else.

Find out why practices offer Cherry first over the competition more than 80% of the time. Claim your personalized demo today.