SoFi Personal Loan Review: Rates, Perks and Who It’s Best For
- Good-to-excellent credit borrowers
- Large loan amounts
- Additional member perks
Got a good credit score and looking for a loan? SoFi personal loans may be right for you.
For those who qualify, SoFi offers large unsecured personal loans, competitive rates and member perks you won’t find at most lenders. But there are some catches — the minimum loan amount is high at $5,000 and these loans are only available for those with good-to-excellent credit.
In our independent review of SoFi personal loans, we’ll go over rates, perks, eligibility, alternatives and more.
What is Sofi?
SoFi (Social Finance) launched in 2011 as a student loan refinancer. Today, it’s a full FDIC-insured digital bank — SoFi Bank, N.A. — that funds its own personal loans. It’s a direct lender, not a marketplace.
And while SoFi serves good-to-excellent credit borrowers, it uses a holistic underwriting approach, meaning it evaluates an applicant’s complete financial profile, focusing on employment history, career trajectory and free cash flow as opposed to just considering traditional credit scores.
In addition to unsecured personal loans, SoFi also offers banking, investing and other products; this review focuses on its personal loan.
How a SoFi Personal Loan Works
A SoFi personal loan works just like other lenders. Here’s what the process looks like:
- Check your rate with a soft-pull prequalification. This has no impact on your credit score.
- Review your offers.
- Submit necessary documents and complete your application. This will trigger a hard credit pull.
- Get funded, potentially on the same day.
Unlike some lenders, SoFi does offer joint loan options. However, co-borrowers must live together and joining applications take longer to process.
SoFi Rates, Terms, and Fees
While it does not specify a minimum credit score, SoFi serves folks with good-to-excellent credit over 2-7 loan periods. Loan APRs range from 6.99% to 35.49%, its best rates reserved for those with the best credit. The lowest APR includes SoFi’s rate discounts. You can get .25% rate discounts for autopay and direct deposit.
As for fees, SoFi has an unusual structure. There are no required fees — no prepayment fees or late fees. You can choose to pay an origination fee in exchange for a lower rate. These fees range from 0-7%.
SoFi Member Benefits
As a SoFi member, you get some perks at no additional cost to you. These include:
- Financial planning and advice from advisors
- Referral bonuses
- A $300-$500 credit at closing on your first home loan
- 20% off an estate plan
- Unemployment Protection, which allows eligible borrowers temporarily pause monthly loan payments, keep good credit standing and access career support services
- Access to offers on flights, hotels and rental cars through SoFi Travel
SoFi also has a paid membership program, SoFi Plus. For $10, a month, you get perks like:
- Unlimited financial planing
- Up to 4.50% APY on up to $20,0000 in your SoFi savings account
- A 1% match on eligible deposits in SoFi Invest accounts
- 10% boost on cash back rewards rates for all eligible purchases made with a SoFi Unlimited 2% Card
Who Qualifies for a SoFi Personal Loan?
To qualify for a SoFi personal loan, you’ll need to meet some basic requirements.
- Be 18 or older
- Be a U.S. citizen, an eligible permanent resident, or an eligible non-permanent resident with valid current documentation
- Live in the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, or the Northern Mariana Island
- Provide a U.S. residential address; P.O. boxes are not accepted
- Have employment, sufficient income, or an offer of employment within 90 days
In addition to the baseline requirements, SoFi lends to borrowers with good-to-excellent credit. While it doesn’t publish a hard minimum credit score, a benchmark around the high 600s is commonly cited. However, the average borrower skews higher.
Note that SoFi personal loans start at $5,000 and can’t be used for education, securities, real estate or business.
Pros and Cons of a SoFi Personal Loan
Here’s a look at the pros and cons of SoFi personal loans:
Pros
- No required fees (origination optional)
- Large loan amounts up to $100,000
- Stackable rate discounts
- Member perks (unemployment protection, career coaching, financial planning)
- Fast/same-day funding
- Joint-loan option
- An FDIC-insured direct lender
Cons
- A high $5,000 loan minimum
- Good-to-excellent credit generally required
- No secured loan option
- Reported marketing follow-up calls after applying
Is SoFi Legit?
Yes — SoFi is a legitimate, publicly traded company whose banking arm (SoFi Bank, N.A.) is an FDIC-insured national bank.
It has an A- rating with the Better Business Bureau, scored above average in J.D. Power’s lending-satisfaction study, and has many positive Trustpilot reviews.
However, SoFi also has around 6,500 complaints lodged against it with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, mostly about their checking and savings accounts. Relatively speaking, though, it’s a small number of complaints for a large bank.
SoFi Alternatives
SoFi isn’t for everyone. If you need a smaller loan, have less-than-stellar credit or want to compare other offers, there are better fits for you.
For example,soft-pull marketplaces like Pennie Personal Loans and MoneyLion help connect borrowers with lenders based on their circumstances.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. SoFi is a legitimate, publicly traded financial company, and its banking arm — SoFi Bank, N.A. — is an FDIC-insured national bank that funds its own personal loans. It holds a strong Better Business Bureau rating, scored above average in J.D. Power’s consumer lending study, and has a large number of positive customer reviews. Like any big lender it has some complaints on file with the CFPB, mostly around fees and payments, but nothing that undermines its legitimacy.
SoFi doesn’t publish an official minimum credit score, but it’s aimed at good-to-excellent-credit borrowers — a score in the high-600s is a commonly cited benchmark, and the average approved borrower tends to score higher. SoFi also weighs your income, employment, and overall financial picture, not just your score. The no-risk way to see where you stand is to prequalify with a soft credit check, which won’t affect your score.
SoFi charges no required origination fee, no prepayment penalty, and no late fee — which sets it apart from many lenders. It does offer an optional origination fee: you can choose to pay one in exchange for a lower interest rate, or skip it and take a slightly higher rate. SoFi also offers up to three stackable rate discounts (for autopay, being a member/direct deposit, and having it pay your creditors directly on a consolidation loan), though its lowest advertised rate assumes you qualify for all of them.
SoFi personal loans are flexible and commonly used for debt consolidation, home improvements, and other major expenses. There are limits, though: SoFi loans generally can’t be used to pay for post-secondary education, to buy securities or investments, for real estate, or for business purposes. And because the minimum loan is $5,000, it’s not the right choice for small expenses — a lender offering smaller loans would fit better.
Katie Sartoris is a Certified Educator in Personal Finance and an award-winning journalist with more than a decade of reporting and editing experience in the industry. She joined the Penny Hoarder from Gannett, where she was a local news editor in Central Florida. Katie lives in Leesburg with her husband and cats, and is working on restoring and updating her original mid-century home.
