This is the second in our series of lender spotlights, where we break down each financing partner available through 1LOOK® Financing from One Click Contractor.
Aqua Finance has been financing customer purchases through dealers and contractors since 1986. It started in Wausau, Wisconsin, when founder Robert Chadwell, a water treatment dealer with a banking background, saw his own customers struggling to find financing. Aqua expanded into home improvement in 2011 and now works with more than 5,000 dealers, contractors, and retailers.
Aqua works only through dealers and contractors, never directly with consumers. That focus shows up in how it supports your team: credit decisions typically come back within seconds, reps can apply and e-sign from the customer's kitchen table, and Aqua's dealer support staff can be reached by phone when a deal needs a closer look.
Aqua also approves a wider range of credit profiles than many bank-backed programs, including what it calls the underserved middle market. For contractors, that often means saving deals that would otherwise end with a decline.
Aqua's home improvement program covers a wide range of jobs:
The application is digital. Reps submit through Aqua's Dealer Portal or its Orbit mobile app, and contracts can be e-signed in the home on a tablet or phone, or sent to the customer by email. Paper documents are still available on request. Contractors on One Click Contractor can also submit Aqua applications through 1LOOK® Financing, alongside other participating lenders, without leaving their sales workflow.
Aqua has changed ownership over the years. A Blackstone fund bought a majority stake in 2018, and in 2021 Athene and Apollo acquired a controlling stake at a valuation of about $1 billion, with Blackstone keeping a minority position. That backing gives the program the capital to keep funding loans at scale.
Aqua offers two core program types and runs promotional offers on top of them. Knowing the difference helps your reps present the right one.
Reps need to explain the promotional terms clearly so customers know exactly what they're signing up for. Promotions change over time, so check current offers with Aqua.
A few other mechanics worth knowing:
Aqua is built around the dealer relationship, and its dealer terms are worth knowing before you add it to your financing mix:
Aqua describes its offering as full-spectrum financing, serving a wide variety of credit profiles. One of its recent asset-backed deals was built on home improvement, marine, and RV contracts with prime and near-prime borrowers. That makes Aqua a strong fit for homeowners who are solid customers but don't fit a top-tier bank's credit box, for example because of a thinner file, a recent ding, or a higher debt load.
Aqua also shines on the jobs other lenders treat as edge cases. Septic systems, storm shelters, generators, concrete, and portable buildings are all named parts of its program.
Like any single lender, Aqua won't approve every applicant, and approvals for riskier profiles typically cost the dealer more. That's true of any lender serving a broader credit range, not a shortcoming specific to Aqua. It's also why many contractors pair a near-prime lender like Aqua with a prime lender rather than relying on either one alone.
Aqua Finance is one of the lenders available through 1LOOK® Financing from One Click Contractor. 1LOOK® Financing is built into the One Click Contractor sales platform, the same app your reps already use to build estimates and present quotes in the home.
That means your reps don't have to log in to Aqua's Dealer Portal as a separate step. When a homeowner wants to finance the job, the rep starts the financing application from inside One Click Contractor, and Aqua is one of several lenders behind that single application.
This is where a multi-lender setup, often called a lender stack, pays off. Every lender has its own approval criteria, so a homeowner who doesn't qualify with one lender may still qualify with another. In a stack, a prime lender covers customers with top-tier credit, a full-spectrum lender like Aqua covers the broad middle of the market, and other lenders sit behind them. If one lender declines, the application moves to the next one automatically, so credit declines stop ending appointments and the deal stays alive with the homeowner.
With 1LOOK® Financing, your team can:
1LOOK® Financing also matches each application to the lender most likely to approve and fund it, instead of sending every customer to the same lender by default. For Aqua, that means homeowners who fall outside a prime lender's criteria can still get an Aqua offer during the same visit, without your rep starting over.
"Since we started using One Click Contractor, take rate is up 8–12%, credit declines are down, cancellations are down, all because we can do everything in the house in front of the customer."
— Dave Capezza, K&P Remodeling
The result: your reps spend less time switching between lender portals and more time with the homeowner in front of them, and every rep on your team follows the same financing process.
Already working with Aqua? You don't have to start over. You can bring your existing Aqua relationship and the terms you've already negotiated into One Click Contractor. Your program stays the same; your reps just reach it from the same platform as the rest of your lenders.
If your business is growing and you want a simpler way to manage financing while keeping a full-spectrum lender like Aqua, book a demo of One Click Contractor to see how it works.