The cat needed care. That was the simple part. Paying for it exposed a much less tidy problem. In 2015, Caleb Morse’s experience rescuing a sick cat helped prompt a conversation with John Keatley about the shortage of convenient veterinary financing. They had worked together at Green Dot. Keatley had subsequently been chief financial officer at Klarna. They knew payments; Morse had just acquired an unwelcome education in the veterinary bill.
- Scratch Pay offers installment financing; Scratch Checkout handles a practice’s payments.
- The published veterinary financing fee is 5% of the finalized amount.
- The interesting expansion is into the work surrounding the bill: collection, reconciliation, and pharmacy payments.
The cat came before the checkout
Scratch Financial launched in 2016. Its proposition was easy to understand: let an owner arrange financing for treatment while the practice receives payment. The emotional setting made the product distinctive. A veterinary bill arrives with a patient who cannot explain the symptoms and an owner who would rather discuss almost anything else than credit.
The founders brought experience from financial services to a fragmented, regulated market. In a 2020 interview, Keatley described the difficulty of entering that market and getting consumers comfortable with an unfamiliar financing approach. There was no single obstacle conveniently vanquished in an afternoon. The business required underwriting, distribution, and trust to work together.
One bill, two customers
Scratch has to make sense to both sides of the reception desk. Owners want a manageable schedule. Practices want payment without administering a household’s debts. Scratch Pay connects those needs through installment loans, issued in the United States by WebBank. In Canada, Scratch Financial issues the loans itself.
The current U.S. offer advertises amounts from $200 to $10,000, terms of 12 to 24 months, and annual percentage rates from 0% to 36%, with a $15 down payment. Checking eligibility does not affect a credit score, Scratch says; repayment activity on an accepted loan may be reported to credit bureaus. Approval and available offers depend on the applicant.
For veterinary practices, the published standard provider fee is 5%. Scratch’s support documentation says there are no setup or monthly fees for the financing product. The arithmetic is refreshingly plain: on a $1,000 finalized plan, a 5% fee is $50. Under net settlement, that leaves $950 for the practice, assuming no other adjustments.
Financing fee only. Borrower interest and Checkout processing are separate.
That fee buys a different arrangement from a clinic collecting installments itself. Whether the arrangement makes economic sense depends on the practice’s margins and the treatment that can proceed because financing exists. Moving a payment into the future does not reduce the price of the medicine.
Nor does friendly branding erase debt. Scratch advertises no deferred interest and no prepayment penalty, but late fees apply. Its Interest Waived Offer is available only on eligible plans and requires meeting promotional conditions, including paying principal within six months. An owner unable to sustain the monthly payments still has a problem that an approval screen cannot cure.
The unglamorous work after yes
CareCredit’s familiar alternative is a healthcare credit card. VetBilling supports practice-controlled payment plans rather than lending money. Scratch occupies a different combination: installment financing beside a system for accepting and recording payments. That second job is where the company becomes especially interesting to a practice manager.
Scratch Checkout integrates with practice information management systems. Staff can initiate a payment from a patient’s account balance, send it to a terminal or request it by text or email, and have transaction details written back to the practice record. Digital wallets and recurring payments add ways to collect. Reconciliation is the quiet attraction: fewer opportunities to make the paid amount and the recorded amount disagree.
The customer evidence has a useful scale. In Scratch’s published PAZ Veterinary case study, the Austin practice group reported a 75.2% applicant approval rate and an average financed transaction of $446. Those figures describe that customer’s experience, rather than a universal approval promise. They also suggest financing reaches routine care alongside the dramatic emergency.
“Scratch Pay allows my patients to receive the care they need when they need it.”
Dr. Tim Julien · PAZ Veterinary case study
Checkout has its own economics. Published processing tiers begin at 2.65% plus 30 cents for practices in the lowest monthly-volume bracket; larger brackets carry lower rates. These fees belong to payment processing, separate from Scratch Pay’s financing fee. A practice comparing providers needs to compare the actual services and its own volume.
Count the money twice
Scratch’s capital history illustrates another distinction. Its October 2019 announcement described $65 million in debt and equity. A $50 million Credit Suisse warehouse facility supplied lending capacity; the remaining $15 million was equity. A facility that helps finance loans and an investment that funds product development do different work, even when the headline adds them together.
A $35 million Series C followed in September 2022, led by Norwest Venture Partners. Scratch had expanded into human elective healthcare in 2020, including dental, optical, and chiropractic care. The stated investment agenda covered technology for the broader patient experience. The reception desk had become a place from which to sell more than one service.
Subsequent partnerships make that expansion concrete. Blue Rabbit’s January 2024 agreement brought Scratch Checkout into online veterinary pharmacy payments and reporting. CareVet’s July 2025 announcement covered a network of more than 200 practices. Each relationship extends the same operational concern: collect money cleanly wherever care is delivered or purchased.
- 2016Finance the care
- 2024Connect pharmacy payments
- 2025Serve a hospital network
- 2026Add financing capacity
In May 2026, Scratch announced a purchase facility with Victory Park Capital to support demand for loans on its platform. Inc. ranks the company No. 751 on its 2026 list, reporting 461% three-year growth. The facility amount was undisclosed. Growth recognition and access to capital tell us about expansion; neither establishes what every borrower or clinic will experience.
Copy the attention, not the slogan
The transferable idea is to study what happens immediately before and after the transaction you already serve. Scratch began at an obstacle to care, then addressed the paperwork around payment. Another company can copy that habit of observation. Replicating the lending business requires capital, compliance, and underwriting expertise. The poodle, regrettably, is optional.