There’s a quiet contradiction at the heart of most cash advance apps. They market themselves to people who are financially stretched. Their ads show up when you search for help between paychecks. Their messaging is warm and accessible, built around the idea that everyone deserves a financial safety net. And then, once you try to sign up, the requirements appear.

Minimum monthly direct deposit of $500. Regular paycheck from a traditional employer. Account history showing consistent, predictable income. At least 60 days of banking activity with your current account. Verification that your income meets a specific threshold before you can access any funds.

For millions of Americans, those requirements are walls. Not minor inconveniences. Walls. And the people most likely to hit those walls are exactly the people the industry claims to serve: gig workers who get paid per job, shift workers whose hours fluctuate week to week, freelancers who invoice clients on irregular schedules, and anyone whose income doesn’t fit the tidy mold of a bi-weekly corporate paycheck.

Beem doesn’t have those walls. This post explains why, and why that decision is the most important thing to understand about what Beem actually is.

The Income Requirement Problem Nobody Talks About

When a cash advance app sets a minimum income requirement, it frames the decision as a risk management measure. And in a narrow technical sense, that’s true. Lending money to someone with a verified, stable income is statistically safer than lending to someone whose income is variable or unverified.

But that framing misses a much larger and more important truth: the people most likely to need emergency cash are the people least likely to have stable, predictable, easily verifiable income.

Consider the numbers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 16 million Americans work in gig or independent contractor roles. Tens of millions more work in industries with variable hours: retail, food service, healthcare support, construction, caregiving. For these workers, income isn’t a flat line. It’s a series of peaks and valleys depending on the season, the week, the number of gigs they can pick up, and factors entirely outside their control.

When a cash advance app requires a minimum monthly direct deposit from a traditional employer, it is making a quiet decision: we will serve the people who need us least, and turn away the people who need us most. Beem made the opposite decision.

Who Beem Was Built For

Beem is a Public Benefit Corporation. That legal designation is not a marketing choice. It is a structural commitment to operating in the interest of a defined mission rather than purely in the interest of profit. Beem’s mission is financial equity for the bottom 80% of working Americans, the people that traditional banking and most fintechs have chronically underserved.

That mission has a face. It’s the rideshare driver who works 50 hours a week but can’t qualify for a cash advance because her income comes from three different apps rather than a single employer. It’s the nurse’s aide who works full-time but gets paid by a staffing agency on an irregular schedule. It’s the construction worker whose income drops every winter and who needs a small buffer to get through February. It’s the single parent running two part-time jobs who doesn’t have a traditional direct deposit because neither employer offers it.

These are not edge cases. They are the mainstream of American working life. And they have been told, repeatedly, by financial products that claim to exist for them, that their income isn’t the right kind of income to qualify for help. Beem was built specifically to say: that’s wrong, and we’re going to do something about it.

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What “No Income Restrictions” Actually Means for You

No income restrictions means Beem does not require a minimum monthly direct deposit to access Everdraft™, Beem’s emergency cash feature.

• It means Beem does not require proof of employment from a traditional employer.
• It means your income can come from gig platforms, freelance clients, part-time work, cash tips, or any combination of sources, and you are still eligible to use Beem.
• It means Beem does not screen you out at the door before you’ve had a chance to build a relationship with the platform.

What Beem does instead is look at your account history holistically, not at whether your income matches a predetermined pattern. It’s a fundamentally different approach to risk, one built on the understanding that someone who earns $1,800 a month driving for rideshare is just as creditworthy as someone who earns $1,800 a month from a salaried job. The number is the same. The person’s need is the same. The reason they should be treated differently does not exist.

The Everdraft™ Difference

Everdraft™ is Beem’s emergency cash feature, and understanding how it works makes the no-income-restriction policy even more meaningful.

Everdraft™ is not a loan. It does not charge interest. There are no late fees. Repayment comes from your next deposit automatically. The only optional fee is a flat instant delivery charge if you want funds sent to your debit card immediately rather than waiting for a standard bank transfer.

This matters in the context of income restrictions because traditional cash advance apps that do impose income requirements often justify the restrictions by pointing to repayment risk. If we can’t verify your income, they say, we can’t be sure you’ll repay.

Beem’s model addresses that concern differently. By keeping advances interest-free, tying repayment to your next incoming deposit, and offering a tiered advance limit based on plan level rather than income verification, Beem builds a system that works with the way real people actually earn and spend money, rather than against it.

The Everdraft™ limits by plan are straightforward. Lite gives you access to up to $10. Basic gives you up to $50. Plus gives you up to $100. And Pro gives you up to $1,000. You choose the plan that fits your situation. The platform doesn’t choose for you based on whether your paycheck arrives the right way.

Why This Is Rare, and Why It Matters

Most cash advance apps impose income requirements for a reason that has less to do with risk management than it appears. Verifiable, stable income means predictable repayment, which means cleaner financials and a more straightforward business model. It also means serving a customer who is, by definition, less financially stressed, which typically means lower support costs and fewer disputes.

In other words, income requirements are partly about protecting the business by serving a more financially stable, easier-to-manage customer base. And there is nothing inherently wrong with that as a business decision.

Built for Everyday Americans

But it does mean that the industry’s most vulnerable users, the ones who most need a financial bridge, are systematically excluded. They fail the income check. They get the rejection screen. And they go back to the options that have always exploited them: overdraft fees from their bank, payday loans from a storefront down the street, or borrowing from family members who can barely afford to help.

Beem absorbs the complexity of serving a more financially diverse user base because the mission requires it. That is not a small thing. It’s a deliberate, ongoing, costly commitment to a principle: that access to basic financial tools should not be gated by the shape of your paycheck.

No Income Restrictions and No Credit Check

It’s worth pairing the income restriction conversation with the credit check conversation, because they are related.

Most traditional financial products use credit scores as a proxy for trustworthiness. If your FICO score is low, you don’t qualify, or you qualify for worse terms at higher rates. The problem is that credit scores are themselves a reflection of historical financial inclusion. People who have always had access to credit have higher scores. People who have been excluded from credit-building opportunities have lower scores or no score at all.

Built for Everyday Money

Beem does not require a credit check to access Everdraft™. No FICO score is pulled. No credit history is required. This means that someone who is new to the US financial system, someone who has never had a credit card, or someone who has a complicated financial past is not automatically disqualified before the conversation even starts.

Combined with no income restrictions, this creates something genuinely unusual in fintech: an emergency cash product that meets you where you are, not where a scoring model thinks you should be.

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The Bigger Idea Behind the Policy

Every product decision is also a values decision. When Beem decided not to impose income restrictions, it made a statement about who deserves access to financial tools. Not just the statement in the marketing, but the structural, built-into-the-product statement. The one that shows up every time someone who would have been rejected elsewhere gets approved on Beem.

The Beem app was not built for the person who is financially comfortable and looking for a slightly better app experience. It was built for the person who is one unexpected expense away from a real crisis. The person whose car repair comes due three days before payday. The person whose kid gets sick, and the copay isn’t in the account. The person who has been told by app after app that their income isn’t the right kind.

That person deserves a financial safety net just as much as anyone else. Arguably more. And the decision to say so in product design, not just in marketing copy, is what separates Beem from most of the industry. That’s why there are no income restrictions at Beem. Not because it’s the easiest policy to operate. Because it’s the right one.

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