How we work, and how we get paid.

Legally, we are 4 Pillar Consulting LLC, doing business as 4 Pillar Funding, headquartered in Saratoga Springs, New York. Functionally, we sit between operating companies and a network of funding partners — banks, SBA lenders, factors, asset-based lenders, equipment lenders, and revenue-based funders — and our job is matching the situation to the structure and the structure to the right partner.

That model has an honest tradeoff worth naming. Because we are not lending our own balance sheet, we do not control credit decisions — a funding partner can decline a deal we believe in. What the model buys in exchange is range: a direct lender can only ever recommend its own product, whereas our recommendation can move between a bank line, an SBA structure, a receivables facility, or fast non-bank capital depending on what the situation actually needs. When the best answer is your existing bank, we say so; a client sent to the right place remembers who sent them.

On most placements, the funding partner pays us — a placement fee or commission from their side of the transaction, which is the standard economics of commercial finance brokerage. On revenue-based financing specifically, there is no client-paid fee of any kind: the quote you receive is the quote you pay, and our compensation comes entirely from the funder.

On certain complex engagements — larger asset-based structures, acquisition stacks, multi-lender workouts — a client-paid advisory or placement fee may apply, reflecting work that goes well beyond a standard placement. When it does, it is disclosed in writing, with the amount and the trigger, before you commit to anything. You will never discover a fee at closing that you did not agree to at the start.

Two implications of this model are worth stating plainly. First, lender-paid compensation means our interests are not perfectly neutral in theory — which is exactly why we show our work: side-by-side offer comparisons with effective costs computed, so the recommendation can be checked rather than trusted. Second, we get paid when transactions close and clients return, not when applications are submitted — an economics that rewards placing you correctly the first time.