Soft review versus hard pull
A soft review checks your file without recording an inquiry. It does not affect your score, and no other lender sees it. This is what happens when you apply through a marketplace or check what you qualify for.
A hard pull records an inquiry and can move your score by a few points. It typically happens at the point of accepting a specific offer, not at application.
Many revenue-based funders never run a hard pull at all, because they are underwriting on bank deposits rather than credit history.
Where the real risk is
Applying separately to several lenders in a short window. Each may run its own pull, and a cluster of inquiries is a pattern underwriters read as distress.
That is the practical argument for applying once to a network rather than four times individually — not convenience, but that it stops the inquiry pile-up.
The question worth asking any funder
Ask directly: is this a soft or hard pull, and at what point does it change? A funder who cannot answer plainly is telling you something.
Get it before you submit anything, not after.