Cherry

Cherry is the installment lender to look at first if your practice does large cases. It approves with a soft credit check, finances far more than most competitors, pays the practice in two to three business days, defaults patients into an interest-free 4-payment plan, and is rated very highly by the patients who use it.

What you cannot see in advance is the cost to the practice. Cherry does not publish merchant fees — it only claims savings of "up to 50%" against unnamed competitors — so get the schedule in writing for every plan length you plan to offer, and compare it directly against Sunbit and CareCredit before you sign.

What Cherry is

Cherry is a point-of-sale financing platform used in dental, medical aesthetics, veterinary and other practices. It is a technology and underwriting platform rather than a bank: payment plans are extended under agreements with partner lenders, not directly by Cherry.

Patients get a fixed installment plan rather than a revolving credit card. The default option shown on Cherry's own marketing is four payments over six weeks at 0% APR; longer plans run up to 60 months, with qualifying patients getting 0% and others seeing interest-bearing rates that Cherry's site now lists as starting around 5.99% APR. That structure keeps the cost predictable for the patient — a fixed payment count rather than CareCredit's deferred-interest model, where missing the promotional window triggers retroactive interest from the purchase date.

Patient terms

What it costs the practice

Cherry charges the practice a percentage of each financed transaction and does not publish the schedule. Its marketing claims practices can cut merchant processing fees by as much as 50% compared with unnamed competitors, and separately claims a 50% increase in case acceptance and a 67% increase in average ticket size for practices that offer it — all vendor figures we could not independently verify, so treat them as a starting point for your own 90-day measurement, not a guarantee.

Ask for the fee at each plan length, and at both 0% and interest-bearing tiers — as with any point-of-sale lender, a longer 0% promotional window generally costs the practice more in merchant fees. Confirm in the merchant agreement that funding is non-recourse, including for disputed or refunded treatment, since Cherry pays the practice upfront and then collects from the patient itself.

Where Cherry is strong

• Ceiling. $50,000 covers full-arch and full-mouth cases that lenders capped at $20,000 cannot.
• Approval experience. A roughly 35-second phone application with a soft check means more patients are willing to try, and a high share are offered something.
• A genuine no-interest default. The headline plan is four payments over six weeks at 0% APR, not a deferred-interest promotion that can turn punitive if a deadline is missed.
• Patient satisfaction. About 90% of roughly 1,900 Trustpilot reviews are five-star, and Cherry replies to nearly all negative ones.
• Extras. Our database records that Cherry also administers membership plans, which suits practices with many uninsured patients.

Where it falls short

• Fee transparency. No published merchant rates — only a marketing claim of savings against unnamed competitors.
• Down payment. Collected at checkout, which can surprise patients who expected to pay nothing today.
• Credit reporting starts early. Activity is typically reported to the bureaus after just 30 days, sooner than some competitors, so a rocky start on a long plan shows up on the patient's credit quickly.
• Integrations. We could not confirm direct integrations with named practice management systems, so expect to post payments manually unless the vendor shows otherwise in your demo.
• No real B2B review trail. We found no Cherry listing on G2 and no meaningful body of practice-side reviews anywhere — almost everything public is patient feedback or Cherry's own marketing.
• Approval and lift claims. "About 90%" approval and the 50%/67% case-acceptance and ticket-size figures are marketing; measure your own numbers over the first 90 days before you lean on them.

Cherry alternatives to compare

• Sunbit: lower ceiling, a published fee floor, states no late fees. Cherry vs Sunbit.
• CareCredit: a credit card many patients already hold, with a deferred-interest model instead of Cherry's fixed installments. CareCredit vs Cherry.
• Proceed Finance and LendingClub Patient Solutions for even larger amounts.

All three main options side by side: CareCredit vs Cherry vs Sunbit. For implant cases specifically: dental implant financing options.

Bottom line

Cherry is a strong second lender next to CareCredit, and a strong first choice for practices focused on high-value treatment where a fixed, no-deferred-interest plan is easier to explain at the chair. Sign up only after you have the fee schedule, the recourse terms and a clear script for explaining the down payment — and verify the case-acceptance and ticket-size lift for your own patients rather than taking the vendor's averages at face value.

What users say about Cherry

These are consumer (patient) reviews: about 1,900 on Trustpilot with a TrustScore of 4.8 out of 5 (roughly 90% five-star, 3% one-star), read on September 30, 2026 (Trustpilot blocked automated re-verification on November 4, 2026; figures are carried over from our last successful read, not re-confirmed on that date). We found no G2 listing for Cherry and no substantial body of public reviews from dental practices. Themes are paraphrased, not quoted.