A forklift that is down is not a maintenance problem. It is a throughput problem. Every shift it sits, your dock-to-stock time stretches, your receiving dock backs up, and your order pickers are standing around waiting for product to land in the aisle. The cost is not abstract, it is countable in cases per hour. We fund lift-truck fleets because the desk that understands duty cycles writes better deals than the desk that only reads a credit score.
We finance forklifts from a $50k floor, new or used, across every class and fuel type: electric, LPG, diesel, IC cushion, pneumatic, reach trucks, order pickers, turret trucks. The sweet spot is $100k to $150k and up, which covers a single machine or a multi-unit refresh. Application-only approval is available up to roughly $400k, which means recent operating statements gets the deal moving, no tax returns required for most transactions. We fund in seven to fourteen days. Purchase, lease,sale-leaseback, andrefinanceare all on the table. B and C credit is fine. We underwrite the operation, not just the score.
The Operators Who Use This Program
The operators we work with most are not the ones chasing the lowest rate on a brand-new Toyota. They are the ones with a fleet decision that has a deadline attached. A 3PL whose peak season is twelve weeks out and whose oldest machines are overdue for retirement. Afood and beverageplant running three shifts and carrying trucks that are a breakdown away from missing a production window. A contract warehousing operation that just won a new account and needs two more counterbalances on the floor before the pallet racks go up.
We also work with operators rebuilding credit after a slow year, newer operations with eighteen months of financials instead of three years, and buyers pulling equipment out of an auction yard or picking up a fleet from a company that shut down. If the machine moves product and the business has a track record, the deal is worth a conversation.
What We Finance and How We Think About the Machine
Forklifts sit in a financing category that most banks approach like generic collateral. We do not. A four-year-old Crown sit-down electric with 4,000 hours on a planned maintenance program holds value differently than a propane counterbalance from the same year with 8,000 hours and no service records. The machine tells you a lot about the deal, and we read the spec sheet before we read the credit file.
Capacity plate ratings, mast height, tire type, and fuel source all affect residual value and therefore the structure of the deal. Apneumatic-tire outdoor machinegoing into a lumber yard is a different collateral story than a narrow-aislereach truckgoing into a high-bay DC. We take that into account. Used equipment is not a problem, as long as the hours are realistic and the machine is serviceable. We have funded machines with significant hours when the buyer had a maintenance plan and the price reflected the condition.
For newer operations or fleets with mixed credit,application-only financingup to $400k is often the fastest path. Pull recent operating statements and a one-page application, and we can have a decision back quickly, usually within a business day. If the deal is larger or the credit picture has complexity, we go deeper into the financials, but the process stays direct.
How the Deal Gets Structured
Most forklift transactions land in one of four structures. A standard purchase loan puts ownership in your name from day one and builds equity the same way a vehicle loan does. A lease keeps the machine off the balance sheet and preserves working capital, with a buyout option at the end of the term. A sale-leaseback lets you pull equity out of trucks you already own, cash that goes back into the operation while the machines stay on the floor. Refinancing pays off an existing note, usually to extend the term, lower the monthly, or release equity that has built up.
Terms typically run 24 to 72 months depending on the machine, the amount, and the structure chosen. The payment is a monthly cost per truck, which is how we frame it, because that is how a fleet manager actually evaluates whether the deal makes sense. A single electric counterbalance in the $30k to $50k range used might close around a $700 to $900 monthly cost depending on term and structure. A newer Toyota or Crown in the $60k to $80k range lands differently. We walk through the numbers before anyone signs anything.
Operators who runwarehousing and distributionoperations often time their fleet refreshes around contract renewals or peak season planning cycles. If that describes your situation, reach out before the window closes. Deals that need to close in a specific month are handled better when we start three to four weeks ahead.
Ready to Move the Fleet Forward
Tell us the machines, the amount, and the timeline. We will have a deal structure back to you fast, with no runaround and no waiting on a committee that has never seen a forklift.Equipment loansand leases both available. B and C credit welcome. Funding generally lands within seven to fourteen days.