For self-employed people getting a mortgage
Know your bank statement income,
and what needs explaining, before your lender does.
Connect your bank. SoloSteady totals 12 months of deposits, shows your monthly average with and without one-off deposits, and lists the deposits and months published bank statement programs commonly ask about. $79, and you send it yourself.
- See the months, deposits and income sources we found before you pay. $79, one time.
- Read-only link through Plaid. Your bank login never reaches us. Raw bank data is deleted about 24 hours after you connect.
You need a government ID and at least one checking or savings account in your name with 12 months in a row of deposits. Connect every account your income lands in. No credit check.
SoloSteady
Income Summary
Monthly average · all counted deposits
$7,400.00
12-month average · 74 deposits counted
Excluding flagged deposits
$6,625.00
Reference code
A4F8-B2C1-E9D3-7B06
The basics
What's a bank statement mortgage?
It's a home loan that looks at the money coming into your bank account instead of your tax returns. People who work for themselves often use one when deductions make their tax return show less than they bring in. Each lender sets its own rules, so ask yours what it needs from you.
SoloSteady helps with one part: it adds up your deposits so you can show your income. It is not a lender and does not decide on loans.
More questions about these loansHow it works
Three steps. No tax returns needed for this summary.
You confirm your email and add your bank, check your ID, and SoloSteady adds up your deposits. You look over what it found, then pay only if you want the PDFs.
What you get
Your deposits, organized before a lender asks.
SoloSteady adds up 12 months of your deposits and gives you four PDFs: an income summary with the math, a list of every deposit counted, your deposits beside your withdrawals, and a checklist of what published lender guides ask borrowers to gather, with sources. Your lender will still want your statements. This lets you see what they add up to, and what may need explaining, before you send them.
The math
12 statements, sent as is
You send the statements and wait to hear what the lender makes of them.
Your total, and how we got it
Every deposit across 12 months, added up and averaged, with the totals left out, and why.
Timing
Problems found after you apply
A missing month or a deposit nobody explained comes up after your file is in, as a condition.
Problems found before you send it
Your summary names any missing month, any deposit above half your monthly average from a payer that appears in no other month, and any month with an overdraft fee. You see them while you are still the only one looking.
Inside a summary
Here's what a summary shows.
These figures come from our sample. SoloSteady adds up deposits by fixed rules, then lists the months counted, your highest and lowest month, and how much came from one payer. The short notes are written from those totals, and you can check each figure with a calculator.
Deposits totalled by fixed rules · notes written from those totals · every figure labelled with its source and date range
The arithmetic an underwriter runs
| Deposits counted | $88,800 |
|---|---|
| Monthly average | $7,400 / mo |
Source: your connected bank · 12 months · Sep 2025 – Aug 2026
Income notes
- This summary counts 12 months of deposits. Every figure in it is computed over that range and no other.
- Your highest counted month was Jun 2026, at $9,200.
- Your lowest counted month was Dec 2025, at $5,400.
What a lender's expense factor does to these numbers
Many bank statement programs don't count every dollar you deposit. They apply an expense factor, and the rate can depend on the kind of account. These two lines show the sample at the two published rates. Your lender decides which one applies.
| 50% expense factor (50% of deposits) | $3,700 / mo |
|---|---|
| No expense factor (100% of deposits) | $7,400 / mo |
Factors read from the published underwriting guides of Nations Direct Mortgage, EPM, A&D Mortgage, AMB Solutions, NMSI, read 2026-09-28. Arithmetic rules version 2026-09-28. SoloSteady does not speak for any program: read their guides yourself, and ask whoever you are working with which factor they apply to your accounts.
Figures from the published sample: synthetic deposits for an invented account holder. Nothing here describes a real person.
Who this is for
Self-employed, and applying for a mortgage.
Your tax return can show less than you earn once deductions come off. A bank statement mortgage looks at your deposits instead, and SoloSteady adds those deposits up for you.
1099 contractors and freelancers
Paid by clients or platforms, with no W-2 and no pay stub to hand a lender.
Business owners and sole proprietors
Your tax return shows income after deductions, which can be far less than what your business deposits.
Gig workers across several platforms
Paid by more than one app, all into the same account. The summary groups your payouts by platform, so four apps read as one record.
You need a government ID and at least one checking or savings account in your name with 12 months in a row of deposits. Connect every account your income lands in. You download the summary and send it in yourself.
Applying for a bank statement HELOC or second mortgage instead? It is the same income summary. See the FAQ.
Safety and checks
Is it safe to add my bank?
Short answers, before you connect anything.
- Read-only access through Plaid. We can see deposits. We can't move money.
- Your bank login goes to Plaid and never reaches us.
- Raw bank data is deleted about 24 hours after you connect.
- No credit check, so your credit score is not affected.
- Only you get the summary. We don't send it to anyone.
- 01Source
- 02Accounts
Only deposit accounts count
Accounts - 03Math
- 04Bounds
- 05Identity
Your identity is verified
Identity - 06Ownership
The account is yours
Ownership - 07Provenance
A reference number on every page
Provenance
What these checks are not.
These are structural checks on the deposit data your bank returns. They are not a guarantee, and nothing here makes a lending decision or predicts one. You remain responsible for the accuracy of anything you submit.
PricingOffer sheet
$79, one time.
No subscription and no fee per document. Pay once, download your PDFs, and send them in yourself.
one-time · 12 mo summary
Income Summary
$79
Read-only connection through Plaidyour bank login never reaches our serversraw bank data deleted about 24 hours after you connect
One-time purchase. Full refund if we fail to deliver your summary, or if its figures do not match your bank data and a re-run cannot fix them, when you ask within 14 days of purchase. If you have paid and your summary has not arrived yet, you can ask for a full refund for any reason. No refunds for a change of mind after delivery, and no partial refunds. Read the full refund policy
Bank connection by PlaidPayment by StripeIdentity check by Stripe Identity
- Four PDFs: income summary, deposit history, income and expense summary, document checklist
- Twelve months of deposits, added up and averaged, with and without flagged deposits
- A methodology section explaining how every number was reached
- Deposit checks: deposit accounts only, income separated by fixed rules
- How much of your income comes from your biggest payer
- You download it and submit it yourself
What you receive
- An income summary: your monthly average of counted deposits over 12 months, with and without flagged deposits, month by month and by payer, what was left out and why, and the deposits and months worth explaining
- A deposit history: every deposit counted, by date and the description your bank recorded, with each month totalled
- An income and expense summary: your deposits beside your withdrawals, grouped by the category your bank assigned
- A document checklist: what published lender guides ask borrowers to gather, each line credited to the guides and the date they were read
Why the arithmetic matters
Bank statement programs commonly start from a default 50% expense factor on deposits into a business account, and a letter prepared by a third party is what lowers it. Published prices for that letter run from $199 (Ignition Tax, which sells the letter, checked 2026-09-21) to $500 (Not Your Dad's CPA, checked 2026-09-22), and Nelson CPA bills $500 an hour with a $1,000 minimum (checked 2026-09-22). This summary shows you the same arithmetic on your own deposits, before you apply.
Every section of the summary, in order, with synthetic figures. The PDFs are marked SAMPLE.
Answers
Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know before you connect your bank. More questions? Send a note to support@solosteady.com.
01Why not just send my lender the bank statements?
You can, and it costs nothing. The statements are yours, and you can download them from your bank. SoloSteady is for the next part. It adds up every deposit in the period and leaves out transfers between your own accounts, refunds and loan money when they can be identified, so they don't inflate the total. It shows your monthly average with and without flagged deposits, with the totals left out and why, and it points out things that can turn into conditions later, like a month your bank did not return or a deposit over half your monthly average from a payer that appears in no other month. Before you pay, you see the months, deposits and income sources it found. After you pay, your PDFs show the monthly averages and each flagged deposit (up to twelve named), before you send anything. Your lender will still want the statements and will run its own math. This is about knowing your number, and any problems, first.
02Who receives my income summary?
Only you. SoloSteady prepares the summary, you download the PDF, and you submit it yourself with your loan application. SoloSteady does not send it to a lender, a broker, or anyone else, and there is no page where a third party can look up your income.
03How much does a SoloSteady income summary cost?
$79, one time. That covers the full 12-month analysis and four documents, each in English and Spanish: the income summary, a deposit history, an income and expense summary, and a document checklist with its sources. There is no subscription and no per-document fee. Your income summary is emailed to you as a PDF attachment as soon as it is ready; that copy is yours to keep and does not expire. All four download from the results page, in the browser you bought in for 24 hours, and after that from any browser with a one-time code sent to the address you paid with, until they are deleted 13 months after purchase. If we fail to deliver your summary, or its figures do not match your bank data and a re-run cannot fix them, write to us within 14 days and we refund the full charge. The full terms are on the refund policy page.
04Does SoloSteady run a credit check?
No. SoloSteady does not run credit checks, query credit bureaus, or affect your credit score. It only analyzes the bank transaction data returned by the account you connect through Plaid.
05My lender asked for 24 months. Can SoloSteady do that?
Not today. The summary documents 12 consecutive months. Bank statement programs commonly run on either 12 or 24 months, and lenders that offer both will tell you which one your file is being underwritten on. If yours is a 24-month program, a 12-month summary still describes the most recent year of deposits accurately, but it does not cover the full period your lender is reviewing. If your lender's program reads 24 months, ask them whether a 12-month summary is useful before you buy.
06Should I get a letter from my CPA instead?
They are different documents and one does not replace the other. A third-party expense letter is what lowers the expense factor a program applies to your deposits, and published programs put it as low as 10% with one. SoloSteady does not lower anything. It totals your real deposits, applies the published default factors, and shows you the figure and the problems before you file. Some CPAs decline these requests: the AICPA's professional liability program advises members that the safest response to a third-party verification request is no response at all, and the letters that are written are narrow by design. If your CPA will write one, the two documents answer different questions, and this one costs $79.
Add your bank, look over what we found, and pay only if you want the PDFs.
Start your income summary