ELFA's 2026 Survey of Equipment Finance Activity shows that lender processing costs per booked small-ticket lease or loan rose more than $300 per contract in 2025, while volumes fell.

FAIRPORT, N.Y., Oct. 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Total processing and overhead cost per booked small-ticket equipment finance transaction rose to $2,729 in 2025, up $322 from $2,407 a year earlier, according to a QuickFi® analysis of data compiled and recently released by the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association (ELFA) in its 2026 Survey of Equipment Finance Activity.

Among lenders in this year's ELFA annual benchmarking survey, small-ticket sales, general and administrative expenses rose about 7%. The number of small-ticket transactions booked fell about 7%. On that like-for-like basis, total processing cost per booked transaction in 2025 rose about 14%.

The ELFA figures include total lender processing and overhead costs and exclude credit losses. The $2,729-per-transaction cost metric measures operating overhead — sales, staff, technology, and general administration — divided by the number of transactions lenders booked, so the cost of applications that never close is carried by the deals that do.

"The industry isn't experiencing a staffing problem or a technology-budget problem," said Bill Verhelle, CEO of QuickFi. "It's an operating model problem. When employees must touch every application, significant cost reduction isn't possible." Embedded lending technology costs a fraction of the expense required to operate the traditional business model.

Methodology — The per-transaction figures are QuickFi's calculations from recently published ELFA annual survey data, not figures reported directly by ELFA: 2025 small-ticket segment sales, general and administrative expense of $1.796 billion (2026 Survey of Equipment Finance Activity, Figure 17f) divided by 658,070 small-ticket applications booked and funded or sold (2026 Small-Ticket Survey of Equipment Finance Activity, Figure 13a) equals $2,729. The 2024 figure of $2,407 applies the same calculation to the 2025 editions; the 2026 edition restates 2024 for its respondent group at $2,387. ELFA defines small-ticket transactions to include leases and loans with an equipment cost between $25,000 and $250,000 each. Provision for credit losses is excluded. ELFA data is used for industry benchmarking only; ELFA has not reviewed or endorsed this analysis or QuickFi.

About QuickFi
QuickFi's patented, AI-powered model has earned a 4.9/5 Trustpilot customer rating. QuickFi serves global manufacturers and banks throughout the U.S. and Canada and has patents issued or pending in ten countries.

QuickFi costs $799 per booked transaction, with no additional charge for credit declines or pre-booking services. As QuickFi continues to gain scale, it expects per-transaction pricing to fall below $500 per lease or loan by 2028, even as industry costs continue to rise.

As a system of action — not a traditional system of record — QuickFi enables banks and global OEMs to directly and cost-efficiently serve SMB borrowers with embedded lending solutions at the moment and location of equipment sale completion, 24/7/365. QuickFi partners employing the award-winning technology deliver a highly differentiated customer buying experience.

For more information, visit https://quickfi.ai.

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SOURCE QuickFi