RISE Review

RISE is an online installment lender for people with damaged or thin credit who need between $500 and $5,000 and would otherwise be looking at a payday loan. It is run by Elevate Credit, Inc. You repay in fixed installments over 7 to 36 months instead of one lump sum, and RISE charges no application fee, no origination fee, and no prepayment penalty. That repayment structure is a real improvement on a two-week payday loan.

The price is the catch. RISE’s own site puts its APRs at about 60% to 299% depending on the state, and its Texas and Florida pages both quote 99% to 199%. At those rates a loan that covers one emergency can cost as much in interest as you borrowed. Read this review with that in mind, and look at payday loan alternatives and bad-credit installment loan options before you apply. RISE alternatives lines up the other lenders in this bracket and what to check if RISE declined you.

How RISE works

RISE lends in two ways, depending on your state. In some states it makes the loan itself under state law. In others, RISE says its loans are underwritten, approved, and funded by a bank partner, Quill Bank (formerly Capital Community Bank) or FinWise Bank. RISE does not say which states use which arrangement. The bank-partner arrangement is the same one OppLoans uses, and regulators watch it closely for the same reason: a bank can export its home state’s rate rules to borrowers in states with tighter caps.

Either way, the product is an unsecured installment loan. You borrow a fixed amount and repay it in scheduled payments with no balloon at the end. RISE says you can choose a payment schedule within the terms it approves, and paying early costs nothing extra and reduces the interest you owe.

Rates, fees, and what a loan really costs

RISE’s personal loans page lists APRs of about 60% to 299%, varying by state; the Texas and Florida pages each state 99% to 199%. RISE charges no application fee, no origination fee, and no prepayment penalty. It does not publish its late fee or returned-payment fee; it says those are disclosed in your loan agreement, so read that section before you sign.

To put the rate in dollars, take a $1,500 loan repaid monthly over 12 months:

APR	Monthly payment	Total repaid	Interest
99% (low end, TX/FL)	About $202	About $2,420	About $920
149%	About $247	About $2,962	About $1,462
199% (high end, TX/FL)	About $296	About $3,548	About $2,048

These figures are our own amortization math for illustration, not a quote; your agreement’s Truth in Lending box states your actual APR, finance charge, and total of payments. At 149%, the interest nearly equals the amount borrowed within a year. Paying ahead of schedule is the one lever that lowers that number, because interest accrues on the balance and there is no prepayment penalty. How installment loan interest works explains why.

Who qualifies

RISE does not publish a minimum credit score. It says it bases the decision on what it judges you can afford, your application, your credit history, and the amounts and terms offered in your state. The published requirements are a valid checking account, a valid email address, income above a minimum that varies by state, and residence in a state RISE serves.

Checking whether you pre-qualify is a soft inquiry with no FICO score impact. Submitting a complete application places a hard inquiry with Clarity Services, an alternative credit bureau that most mainstream lenders do not check. RISE reports payment history to one or more credit bureaus, so on-time payments can help a thin file, and late payments can hurt it.

Applying and getting funded

The application is online, and RISE says a decision comes in minutes once the application is complete. Applications processed and approved before 6 p.m. Eastern time are typically funded the next business day by direct deposit; a paper check by mail takes 7 to 10 days.

One protection worth knowing: RISE says you may rescind an online loan by contacting support before 5 p.m. Eastern time on the fifth business day after the origination date. If you borrow and then find a cheaper option, that window lets you undo it.

Where RISE is available

RISE lists 30 states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. The rate range and loan amount can differ by state; RISE’s state pages show the terms for each. Our payday loan laws by state guide covers what each state allows. For four of the states RISE lists, our Texas, Missouri, Utah, and Wisconsin guides show what a payday loan costs there for comparison and what each state’s law allows.

How RISE compares

RISE sits in the same bracket as OppLoans and NetCredit: triple-digit installment loans for borrowers with weak credit, with fixed payments instead of a payday balloon. RISE’s advantages are the long end of its term range and the five-day rescission window; its drawbacks are a 30-state footprint and a published top rate near 300% in some states. Against a personal-loan lender such as Upgrade or Avant, RISE costs several times as much, but those lenders expect steadier credit. If yours might clear that bar, check a rate there first; it is a soft inquiry too. Installment loans vs. payday loans explains why a longer term can cost more in total even at a lower rate.

Is RISE Credit legit? Complaints and reputation

RISE is a legitimate lender: a direct lender under state license where it lends in its own name, and the servicer of bank-originated loans from Quill Bank or FinWise Bank elsewhere. It publishes its APR range by state and reports to the credit bureaus. The BBB rates RISE’s Fort Worth profile A+ but lists it as not accredited. The larger mark on the record is regulatory. In 2020 the District of Columbia’s attorney general sued Elevate Credit, alleging that it marketed RISE installment loans at 99% to 149% APR and Elastic lines of credit at 129% to 251% to DC residents despite the District’s 24% cap. In February 2022 Elevate settled for nearly $4 million: at least $3.3 million in refunds to more than 2,500 DC consumers, over $300,000 in waived interest, and $450,000 to the District, and it agreed to stop charging DC residents above the cap. RISE no longer lists the District among the places it lends.

What the CFPB complaint database shows

We pulled the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s public complaint database for Risecredit, LLC on October 7, 2026. The CFPB publishes every complaint it forwards to a company, along with the issue the consumer selected and how the company responded, so the figures are a record of consumer-filed complaints, not findings of wrongdoing.

• 18 complaints in the twelve months ending September 30, 2026, down from 22 the year before. For a lender with a 30-state footprint that is a small number: OppLoans drew 830 over the same period and Possible Finance 1,493.
• Debt collection led with 10, then loans with 8. The most common issues were “attempts to collect debt not owed” (5), “charged fees or interest you didn’t expect” (3), and “took or threatened to take negative or legal action” (3).
• All 18 were closed with explanation and all 18 were answered on time, an improvement on the prior year, when 3 of 22 were late. “Closed with explanation” means the company replied without offering relief; it is not a finding either way.
• By state, Mississippi led with 4, followed by Ohio, South Carolina, and Utah with 2 each.

One caveat makes this count a floor rather than a total. Risecredit, LLC is the entity for loans RISE makes in its own name; the database has no entry for Elevate Credit, and a complaint about a bank-originated RISE loan may be filed under Quill Bank or FinWise Bank instead. Even allowing for that, nothing in the public record points to the collection and credit-reporting volume that some competitors show. If a RISE problem is not resolved directly, you can file with the CFPB, or with your state’s financial regulator if the loan was made under a state license.

For how RISE’s record compares with 16 other online lenders over the same twelve months, see our CFPB complaints by lender report.

Bottom line

RISE is a real, established lender with some borrower-friendly features: no origination fee, no prepayment penalty, terms up to 36 months, and five business days to change your mind. It is also priced like emergency credit, with APRs in the triple digits in most of the states it serves. Treat it as a last-resort option after cheaper credit is ruled out, borrow the smallest amount that solves the problem, and pay it down early if you can.