Your PAYDEX score is one of the most-checked numbers in business lending — and one of the least understood. Here's exactly how it's calculated, and how quickly a new business can get one.
A note on terminology used on this page: BCC Supplies does not lend money. A BCC Supplies membership is a commercial installment contract, reported to the business credit bureaus as a business installment tradeline — some pages also describe this as an "installment loan" in a descriptive sense, not a cash loan from a lender. See how this is structured →
Ask any founder who's applied for a business loan, a lease, or even certain vendor terms, and you'll hear the same thing: at some point, someone checked their D&B PAYDEX score. It's one of the most widely referenced numbers in business lending — and yet most business owners have never seen their own.
Here's what it is, how it's actually calculated, and how quickly a business without an existing file can get one.
PAYDEX is Dun & Bradstreet's proprietary business credit score. Unlike personal credit scores, which weigh many factors, PAYDEX measures one thing specifically: how promptly your business pays its bills, based on payment experiences reported by your vendors and creditors.
PAYDEX scores run from 1 to 100. Here's roughly how the bands break down:
Most lenders and larger vendors consider an 80+ score a strong indicator of reliability — it signals payments are consistently made on time or early, across the trade lines D&B has on file.
D&B generally needs at least three trade references actively reporting payment experiences before it will calculate a PAYDEX score. Once qualifying accounts are active and reporting, a score can often appear within one to two reporting cycles.
The bottleneck for most new businesses isn't payment history — it's simply not having enough reporting trade lines yet. That's the exact gap a reported business tradeline is designed to close.
Every BCC Supplies Momentum or VIP plan, starting at $39/mo, reports automatically to Dun & Bradstreet every billing cycle — one of the trade references that count toward a PAYDEX calculation. Both also report to Experian Business; VIP adds Equifax Business on top for the broadest file. (Foundation reports to Experian Business only — see our guide to Experian's Intelliscore Plus for how that builds your file.)
Because reporting happens automatically under your EIN, there's nothing extra to submit — your payment history starts counting toward that file from your very first cycle.
Get started with BCC Supplies for $19/mo — reporting to D&B starts your first cycle.
Start with Momentum →If you don't yet have three trade references reporting to D&B, that's the first gap to close. See exactly what gets reported each cycle, or compare Foundation, Momentum, and VIP plans to find the right starting point.
Sources: [1] Dun & Bradstreet, "Business Credit Scores and Ratings"
See our Press Founder Questions Editorial Standards for how we research, source, and correct the information on this page.
