Cherry vs CareCredit vs PatientFi vs Sunbit: Patient Financing for Med Spas (2026)

For practice owners and operations teams. Updated September 30, 2026 · Prepared by Prospyr. Prospyr does not issue patient loans or make credit decisions, and this guide does not claim a Prospyr integration with any of them. Every provider fact links to that provider's own site, checked September 30, 2026. Terms change often; confirm current terms before you sign.

Which patient financing should a med spa offer first: Cherry, CareCredit or PatientFi?

There is no single right first choice; it depends on your patients and ticket sizes. If avoiding deferred interest matters most to you, Cherry publishes "no deferred interest, no compounding interest." If your patients already carry a healthcare card or want one they can use elsewhere, CareCredit is a revolving card that, by its own count, is accepted at more than 285,000 locations, with no-interest promotions that charge interest from the purchase date if not paid in full. PatientFi offers installment plans with promotional periods where interest is charged but waived if paid in full, plus fixed-rate plans. A card plus an installment plan covers more patients than two similar products.

How do Cherry, CareCredit, PatientFi, Sunbit and Alphaeon compare?

None of the five publishes its merchant fee. Where a provider's own pages disagree, we used the more specific disclosure: PatientFi's home page says "up to $60,000" and its aesthetics page says practices are "paid in full the next day"; Cherry's aesthetics page says "up to $50,000."

Which patient financing has true 0% APR without deferred interest?

Two of the five publish a 0% plan where no interest accrues: Cherry ("no deferred interest, no compounding interest") and Sunbit's "True 0% APR" plans, which Sunbit notes are not available at all merchants. CareCredit and Alphaeon promotions charge interest from the purchase date if the balance isn't paid in full; CareCredit says plainly that it "is not an interest-free credit card." PatientFi's promo plans and Sunbit's "Avoid Paying Interest" plans charge interest that is waived only if paid in full, so read their disclosures before describing them to patients as interest-free.

This matters to patients: the CFPB found that patients paid $1 billion in deferred interest on medical credit cards and loans from 2018 to 2020.

Which financing checks credit with only a soft pull?

All five let patients see offers or prequalify with a soft credit check that doesn't affect their score. What differs is the next step: CareCredit and Alphaeon use a hard inquiry for the full card application, and Sunbit notes that accepting an offer may affect credit. Tell patients which step is which.

Which patient financing has the lowest merchant fees?

No one can answer that from public information: none of the five publishes its merchant fee, and fees usually vary by the plan a patient chooses. CareCredit says its processing rate depends on which promotion is used; Cherry says its fee "varies based on your pricing settings." Ask each provider for a written fee schedule for the same three scenarios (for example a $500, $2,500 and $8,000 transaction on their most common plan) and compare your net settlement, not the headline rate.

What about approval rates?

Treat them as marketing claims with different qualifiers. Sunbit says "90% of customers approved"; Cherry publishes a 90% figure tied specifically to its Pay-in-4 loans, with other pages saying "80%+"; PatientFi says "approve 50% more patients" without a stated baseline; CareCredit and Alphaeon publish no rate. Your own approval rate depends on your patients and ticket sizes, so compare providers on your own consultations during a trial period.

Is a healthcare credit card or an installment plan better for a med spa?

They suit different patients, so offering one of each covers more of your patients than two similar products.

• Healthcare credit card (CareCredit, Alphaeon): a revolving line the patient can reuse for future treatments and at other providers. Promotions are usually deferred-interest, so patients must understand the payoff date.
• Installment plan (Cherry, Sunbit, PatientFi): a fixed schedule for one purchase. Terms and whether interest accrues during a promotion differ by provider and plan.
• Practice-managed payment plan or membership: not a lending product. A membership or prepaid package spreads cost without credit underwriting, but it creates receivables and policy questions of its own.

What are the best PatientFi alternatives?

For a practice comparing PatientFi, the closest alternatives are the other installment providers: Cherry, if you want a 0% plan with no deferred interest and Allē integration, and Sunbit, if you want terms up to 72 months and True 0% plans where offered. CareCredit and Alphaeon are the card alternatives. PatientFi's published differentiators are its reusable wallet, Galderma ASPIRE integration and fixed-rate plans up to 84 months in its examples.

A proposal worksheet for your operations team

Copy these fields into your vendor comparison, with one column per proposal and the source and date of every answer:

• Provider, legal contracting entity, product name and proposal date.
• Eligible treatments, transaction limits and any package or prepayment restrictions.
• Patient APR, promotion mechanics (accrued, waived or deferred interest) and approval process.
• Merchant fee for each plan type, other charges, settlement timing and reconciliation export.
• Who carries the credit risk if a patient doesn't pay. CareCredit describes its program as non-recourse; ask every provider to state it in the agreement.
• Refunds: who initiates them, how settlement is adjusted and any time limit. Cherry, for example, says plans older than 60 days are ineligible for full refunds through its platform.
• Team training, implementation steps, support escalation and exit terms.

Work a net-settlement example

Illustrative arithmetic, not a vendor quote: on a $1,200 transaction with an assumed 6% merchant fee and no other charges, the fee is $72 and the expected settlement is $1,128. Then ask how the calculation changes after a $400 partial refund; do not assume the fee is returned proportionally unless your agreement says so.

Explain financing to patients accurately

Keep the clinical recommendation separate from the financing decision. Give the patient a clear treatment estimate, point them to the lender's actual disclosures, and never describe a plan as "interest-free" unless no interest accrues. The CFPB's guidance for patients explains how deferred interest works if a promotional balance isn't paid in full.

Test the whole workflow before launch

1. Document a normal approved transaction and the references needed to reconcile it.
2. Walk through a cancellation before service and a partial refund after some services have been delivered.
3. Confirm who can initiate or approve refunds and where the patient gets lender support.
4. Reconcile the payment reference, treatment record, merchant statement and bank deposit, without copying financial details into marketing tools.
5. Assign an owner for statement review and unresolved discrepancies.

Where Prospyr fits

Prospyr runs payments, memberships, packages and the patient record for aesthetic practices. Bring your financing workflow to a practice demo, including how external financing references should be recorded and reconciled; confirm any integration you need before purchasing. For related decisions, see how platforms compare on payments and memberships.

Editorial scope

Provider facts come from each provider's own website and the CFPB, checked September 30, 2026 with AI-assisted research; we excluded providers that don't market to aesthetic practices. This is not a credit recommendation, a rate quote or legal or financial advice. Read our methodology or report a correction.