If you've started looking into peer-to-peer lending apps, you've almost certainly run into SoLo Funds and Lenme. They get lumped together constantly, and they shouldn't be — they solve genuinely different problems, and the differences matter a lot depending on whether you're the one borrowing or the one putting money in.
We build Peernet, so treat our own section with the skepticism it deserves. The comparison below sticks to what each platform publicly states about how it works. Where we're pre-launch and don't have a track record, we say so.
The short version
| SoLo Funds | Lenme | Peernet | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Loan size | $50–$575 | $50–$5,000 | $50–$1,000 (planned) |
| Typical term | Days to ~35 days | Weeks to 12+ months | 7–35 days (planned) |
| Borrower cost model | Voluntary tip (0–15%) + voluntary donation | Interest rate set by the investor | Voluntary tip (0–20%) |
| Who funds loans | Individual members | Individuals and institutional investors | Individual members |
| Investor minimum | No stated minimum | Around $50 | $500 (planned) |
| Best understood as | An alternative to a payday advance | A short-term loan marketplace | Pre-launch; see below |
SoLo Funds: small, fast, and priced as a tip
SoLo Funds is the most well-known name here, and it's built for one specific job: covering a small shortfall before payday.
Loans are capped at $575, and new borrowers typically start in the $50–$100 range, working up as they build repayment history. Terms are short — usually a couple of weeks, up to about 35 days.
The pricing is the genuinely interesting part. There's no mandatory interest. Instead, borrowers set a voluntary tip to the lender (0–15%) and an optional donation to the platform. In principle a SoLo loan repaid on time with both set to zero costs nothing.
In practice it isn't usually zero. SoLo's own published figures put the average Total Cost Rate around 17% — roughly 10.4% in tips and 6.2% in donations — and they note the ceiling reaches about 36% once you include late-payment scenarios alongside maximum voluntary amounts.
Two things worth knowing before you sign up:
- It's structured around an Evolve Bank account, so the onboarding is more involved than a typical cash advance app.
- Because tips are technically voluntary but strongly influence how fast you get funded, a "0% tip" request can sit unfunded. The cost is optional in the legal sense more than the practical one.
SoLo Funds makes sense if you need a few hundred dollars quickly, you'll repay within a month, and you're comparing it against an overdraft fee or a payday lender — where a 17% total cost rate on a two-week loan can genuinely be the cheaper option.
Lenme: bigger loans, real interest, real terms
Lenme is a different animal. Loan amounts run $50 to $5,000, and terms stretch out to a year or more. There's no tipping fiction — investors set an interest rate, borrowers accept or decline, and there's typically an origination fee around 1%.
The structural difference that matters most: Lenme's funding isn't purely peer-to-peer anymore. Alongside individual investors, institutional lenders participate. For borrowers that means more available capital. For individual investors it means you're sometimes competing with better-capitalized, better-modeled players for the good loans.
On the investing side, Lenme has effectively no minimum — you can start around $50 and spread it across small loans. You choose which borrowers to fund and at what rate.
You'll see claims of returns "up to 40%" attached to Lenme in various places. Read that the way you'd read any advertised ceiling: it's the top of a range achieved by taking on borrowers with a correspondingly high chance of not paying you back. Your realistic return is a function of your default rate, and your default rate is a function of how aggressive you were reaching for yield.
Lenme makes sense if you need more than $575, you want a defined term and a defined rate rather than a social-pressure tipping model, or you're an investor who wants to set your own prices.
Peernet: what we're building, and what we can't claim yet
Here's the honest framing: Peernet is pre-launch. We have a waitlist, not a track record. Any platform that shows you a default rate or an average return before it has originated loans is showing you a projection, and you should read ours that way too.
What we're building, and why:
- $50–$1,000 loans, sitting deliberately between SoLo's $575 ceiling and Lenme's $5,000. The gap between "payday shortfall" and "real personal loan" is where we think the underserved case is.
- A voluntary tip model (0–20%) rather than stated interest — but with the thing we think SoLo gets wrong fixed: showing borrowers the actual funding rate at each tip level before they commit. If a 0% tip means your request realistically won't get funded, you should see that up front instead of discovering it by waiting.
- Individual lenders only, with no institutional order flow competing against retail lenders for the best loans.
- A planned $500 lender minimum, higher than Lenme's, because lending $50 across two loans isn't diversification — it's a coin flip, and we'd rather not encourage it.
What we can't tell you: our default rates, our actual returns, or our repayment rate. We haven't earned those numbers yet. When we have them, they'll be published whether they're flattering or not.
Which one should you actually use?
If you're borrowing under $575 and repaying within a month — SoLo Funds is the established option with real volume. Set a realistic tip; a lowball request may not get funded.
If you need $1,000–$5,000, or a term longer than a month — Lenme is the only one of the three built for it.
If you're investing and just want to start — Lenme lets you begin small today. Diversify across far more loans than feels necessary. Twenty loans is not a portfolio.
If you're investing seriously — read our guide to what P2P returns actually look like before you commit anything. The advertised numbers on every platform in this category, ours included, are gross of defaults.
Frequently asked questions
Is SoLo Funds cheaper than Lenme?
For very short loans, usually yes — a 17% total cost rate over two weeks is different from a 17% APR over a year. But the comparison is unfair in both directions, because they're priced on different clocks. Convert both to the actual dollars you'll pay on your specific amount and timeline before deciding.
Can you really borrow with no interest on SoLo Funds?
Legally, yes — tips and donations are voluntary and can be set to zero. Practically, requests with no tip compete for lender attention against requests with one, so a zero-cost loan may take significantly longer to fund or not fund at all.
Are peer-to-peer lending apps safe for lenders?
The platform's security is rarely the risk. The risk is borrower default, and it's real on every P2P platform. Money you lend is not FDIC-insured, and there's no recovery mechanism comparable to a bank's. Diversification across many small loans is the only meaningful protection.
What's the difference between P2P lending and a cash advance app?
Cash advance apps (Dave, Earnin, Brigit) front you money against your own incoming paycheck — the company is the counterparty. In P2P lending, another individual funds your loan and takes the loss if you don't repay. That's why P2P platforms can offer more than a paycheck-sized advance, and why they care more about repayment history.
This article is general information, not financial advice. Peer-to-peer lending carries real risk of losing your principal, and loans are not FDIC-insured. Platform terms change — verify current details with each provider before making a decision. Peernet is a pre-launch platform; statements about Peernet describe our intended product, not delivered results.