CareCredit vs Sunbit vs Cherry: Which Patient Financing Is Best for Your Dental Practice?

The approval rate gap most practices miss

Most practices think about financing backward — they negotiate merchant fees first and discover approval rates later. That's the wrong order.

CareCredit has dominated dental financing for decades, but Sunbit and Cherry are growing fast by offering higher approval rates and more patient-friendly terms. We reviewed 91 practitioner and vendor sources to cut through the marketing noise. For a deeper head-to-head on the two newcomers, see our Sunbit vs Cherry comparison.

What 91 practitioner and vendor sources show

The deferred interest problem

This is the single biggest differentiator — and the one most practices don't fully understand until a patient complains.

CareCredit offers "0% interest if paid in full" during a 6-24 month promotional period. But this is deferred interest, not true 0% APR. If a patient doesn't pay off the entire balance by the end of the promo period — even if they're one day late — interest at 32.99% APR is charged retroactively on the entire original balance from the date of purchase.

A patient who finances $5,000 for implants on a 12-month promo and has $200 left at month 12 could owe over $1,000 in retroactive interest. This creates reputational risk for the practice that recommended CareCredit.

This isn't a hypothetical risk. Synchrony Bank, CareCredit's issuer, paid a $34.1M settlement related to deferred interest practices, according to BBB records. That context matters when you're the one presenting financing options to patients who may not read the fine print on their promotional period.

Sunbit uses fixed-rate installment plans with no deferred interest, no late fees, and no surprise charges. Cherry offers true 0% APR on plans up to 24 months — if the patient completes payments within the promotional window, there's genuinely no interest. Cherry's longer-term plans do carry interest, but the terms are disclosed upfront.

Approval rates: why they matter more than merchant fees

Many practices focus on merchant fees when choosing a financing partner. That's understandable — paying 14% to CareCredit on a long promo stings. But approval rate has a bigger impact on your bottom line.

If CareCredit approves 60% of applicants and Sunbit approves 87%, that's 27 additional patients per 100 who qualify for financing. To put rough numbers on it: assuming a $3,000 average case value and a 60% treatment acceptance rate among approved patients — both estimates; adjust these inputs to match your actual case mix and patient volume — switching from CareCredit alone to Sunbit alone would represent approximately $49K more in financed production per 100 applicants. The merchant fee difference doesn't close that gap.

Sunbit achieves higher approval rates through soft credit checks (no hard inquiry on the patient's credit report) and a wider credit acceptance range. Cherry takes a similar approach with soft checks and reports 80%+ approval. One geographic note: Sunbit is not available in Vermont, West Virginia, or U.S. territories — if you operate in those markets, Cherry is your installment option.

Approval rate averages are drawn from a vendor's full book of business nationally. A practice with an older patient population, or in a lower-income area, may see materially different rates than those company-reported averages. Ask each vendor for approval rate estimates specific to your zip code or patient demographic before you commit.

What happens when a patient stops paying

This question doesn't come up in vendor demos, but it matters more than approval rates in a small community.

CareCredit: Defaults and collections are handled by Synchrony Bank, not your practice. If a patient goes delinquent, Synchrony pursues the debt — your relationship with that patient stays separated from the recovery process. Your front desk doesn't get pulled into a dispute, and the patient doesn't associate your practice with collections calls.

Sunbit: Charges patients zero late fees and zero penalties. According to sunbit.com, the practice bears no default risk — Sunbit pays the practice the next business day and assumes the collection risk entirely. The patient-facing experience has no surprise charges, which means fewer patients who feel blindsided enough to blame your practice.

Cherry: Passes penalties directly to patients — $15 late fee, $15 NSF fee, and a 29.99% penalty APR on missed payments, as of October 2025 per withcherry.com. A patient hit with a $15 NSF fee and 29.99% APR on a dental bill is likely to associate that frustration with your practice, not Cherry. Cherry has also reportedly terminated merchant accounts for approving too many low-credit patients. Before signing, ask Cherry what their credit threshold is for your patient mix, and what happens to your merchant account if your approval rate falls below their threshold.

When a patient gets declined: the denial workflow

Choosing a financing stack is the easy part. None of the three platforms publishes scripts or training materials for handling declines — but the denial moment is where front desks fumble most often, and it's where a second financing option earns its keep.

If a CareCredit application returns denied and you have Sunbit or Cherry available, the front desk script is straightforward: "We also work with [Sunbit/Cherry] — would you like to see if you qualify with them?" Because both Sunbit and Cherry use soft credit checks, applying won't affect the patient's credit score. That removes the most common reason patients decline a second try.

Before signing with any of these vendors, get answers to these questions from each rep:

• What is the estimated decline rate for my patient demographics?
• Do you provide front desk training or denial workflow guidance for practices offering multiple financing options?
• Does Sunbit support a pre-qualification check before the patient is seated — so the front desk knows in advance whether financing is likely to go through?

None of the three vendors publishes this information openly. Get answers before you commit, not after your first declined patient.

Merchant fee transparency

All three companies are less transparent about fees than their marketing suggests:

• CareCredit: 5-14% per transaction. The fee increases with longer promotional periods — a 6-month promo might be 5%; a 24-month promo could be 14%. The most predictable fee structure of the three, but also the highest.
• Sunbit: Published starting rate is 2.4%, but your actual rate is tier-dependent — it varies based on the patient's credit tier and your transaction volume. Sunbit doesn't publish volume thresholds publicly; the rate you're quoted at signup depends on the volume you project. Across the practitioner accounts we reviewed on Reddit and BBB, rates span the full 2.4%+ range. Get your specific rate schedule in writing before signing. Also ask whether the agreement includes an exclusivity clause — some Sunbit partnership agreements have included them in certain markets.
• Cherry: Advertises "starting at 1.9%" — and certain tiers start as low as 1.7% according to withcherry.com — but fees vary significantly by plan type and term length. Sunbit claims Cherry's fees can reach 13.9% for certain plans. Cherry disputes this. When getting a Cherry quote, ask specifically what the fee is for 12-month, 18-month, and 24-month plans. Get it in writing.

The vendor-vs-vendor attack marketing between Sunbit and Cherry is aggressive. Both publish content claiming the other's real fees are much higher than advertised. Don't trust either company's claims about the other — get your own quotes and compare them directly.

Contract terms and exit clauses

Contract exit terms are not publicly documented for Cherry or Sunbit — which is a problem, because practices have signed exclusivity agreements without fully understanding what they restrict.

Before signing with either, get direct answers to these questions:

• What is the minimum commitment period?
• Is there a transaction volume minimum? What happens if you fall short of it?
• If Sunbit's exclusivity clause applies to your agreement, can you still accept CareCredit cards from patients who already have them?
• What are the early termination terms?

The exclusivity question is the critical one. Some Sunbit agreements prevent you from actively promoting competing financing options — but whether that also covers passively accepting existing CareCredit cards depends on specific contract language. Get the answer in writing before you sign, not after.

PMS integration: what to ask before you sign

None of the three platforms publishes a clear list of which practice management systems they integrate with natively. We couldn't find comprehensive integration documentation for CareCredit, Sunbit, or Cherry with Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Curve, or Open Dental — so you'll need to ask directly during your demo.

Ask your reps the same question directly: does the financing application launch from within your PMS treatment plan, or does your front desk need a separate tablet or browser window? A manual handoff — open a separate app, hand the patient a tablet, re-enter the treatment amount — adds 3-5 minutes per patient at checkout. At high volume, that friction compounds.

Ask your PMS rep and your financing rep independently. If both confirm an integration exists, request a live demo of the integrated workflow before you commit. Integrations that appear in documentation sometimes require a separate browser tab in practice.

HIPAA and patient data

Patient financing applications collect sensitive data: income, Social Security numbers, contact information. Practices are HIPAA-covered entities, and these platforms receive patient PII through every application. We found no publicly documented BAA policies for CareCredit, Sunbit, or Cherry.

Before signing with any of the three, ask directly: do you provide a signed Business Associate Agreement? What patient data is shared with third parties? Is application data deleted if a patient is declined? For CareCredit specifically, ask whether patient data flows into Synchrony's broader financial network — the Synchrony relationship is a legitimate data governance question, not just a collections one.

Multi-location and DSO practices

This page assumes a single-location practice throughout. Multi-location groups face a different calculation. None of the three platforms publicly documents volume pricing for DSOs or multi-location practices — but a 10-location group processing $500K+ annually in financed cases has real negotiating leverage on merchant fees. Exclusivity clauses also hit differently when they apply across six locations rather than one.

Get a custom quote from each vendor if you're managing multiple locations. Don't accept the single-location rate sheet as your starting point.

Who should choose what

Choose CareCredit if:

• Many of your patients already carry a CareCredit card — patients who've used it at a dentist, dermatologist, or vision provider can apply their existing credit without a new application
• Brand familiarity matters in your market — CareCredit's recognition reduces the patient education burden at the front desk
• You want the practice insulated from collections dynamics — Synchrony handles all delinquency, your staff stays out of it

Choose Sunbit if:

• Maximizing case acceptance is your top priority — 87% approval rate is the highest in the category
• You want zero patient fees (no late fees, no NSF fees, no prepayment penalties) and next-business-day practice payout for the cleanest patient experience
• Your average case size is under $20,000, and you're not in Vermont, West Virginia, or a U.S. territory

Choose Cherry if:

• You do high-value cases (implants, full-mouth rehabs, orthodontics) — Cherry's $50,000 cap handles large treatments that Sunbit can't
• True 0% APR matters to your patients — Cherry offers genuine zero-interest terms for up to 24 months
• You've asked about Cherry's merchant termination thresholds and are confident your patient mix won't trigger them

Consider offering two options

The strongest setup for most practices is CareCredit plus one installment lender — CareCredit for patients who already carry the card, Sunbit or Cherry for patients who are new to financing or who get declined by CareCredit.

Practices running two options alongside each other typically present them sequentially: lead with the option the patient is most likely to recognize (usually CareCredit), then introduce the second if the first is declined. Because Cherry and Sunbit both use soft credit checks, running a second application after a CareCredit denial won't affect the patient's credit score — which is the reassurance that lets your front desk confidently offer a second try rather than treating the first decline as a dead end.

Disclosure obligations for offering multiple financing options aren't complex, but confirm with your practice's attorney that your patient consent language covers all active financing options you present. We break down the optimal combinations by practice type in our best patient financing guide.

For large cases: Proceed Finance

If you do more than a couple of $20K+ cases per month, Proceed Finance belongs in the conversation. Proceed offers up to $75,000 with terms up to 144 months — the highest ceiling in the category. The trade-off: Proceed always carries interest (3.99-18.99% APR) and requires satisfactory credit, so it's not a replacement for any of the three options above. Proceed's team will walk you through volume minimums — call them directly rather than applying cold.