What moves, and how much
The factor: a few points, especially on amounts over $50,000 or for a customer the funder wants to keep. A funder pricing a file at 1.32 can often write 1.28; it will not write 1.15 for a C file, because the grade is the grade.
The term: often. A six-month offer can frequently be written at nine or twelve, at a slightly higher factor and a much smaller payment.
Payment frequency: weekly instead of daily is available at most funders simply for asking, and it costs nothing.
Fees: origination fees are reduced or waived more often than factors are cut. Ask for the fee and the factor together and let the funder choose which to move.
Early-payment discount: a clause that reduces the total if you repay inside a set window. Not standard, often granted, and worth real money to a business expecting a draw or a check.
The reconciliation clause: shall versus may. Ask for shall.
The amount: taking less than the offer usually improves the factor, because the payment-to-balance ratio improves.
The lever that works
A competing written offer. Funders price against each other and a term sheet from another shop is the one document that moves a factor more than a few points. This is the practical reason to apply through a marketplace that returns several offers rather than to one funder: the negotiation is built in. Two offers on the table and a polite question — can you meet this — is the whole technique.
What does not move, and when to stop
The grade. A funder will not price a C file as an A because you asked. The personal guarantee: nearly universal and rarely removed. And nothing moves after signing; a contract is the negotiation's end, not its start.
Stop when the offer is inside the range for your grade, the payment fits the account, and the funder has put every number on one page. A better factor on a worse contract is not a win.