How Glide Pre-Qualification and Caps Work

Last updated: December 10, 2025

Overview

This article explains how Glide determines whether a member is pre-qualified for a loan offer and how Glide calculates the maximum loan amount and monthly payment a member can receive.

Before Glide decides what loan amount to offer, it calculates the highest monthly payment the member can reasonably take on. These limits are called caps and they determine how large the final pre-qualified offer can be.

Step 1: Glide Reviews the Member’s Financial Profile

Before generating any offer, Glide builds a complete picture of the member’s financial obligations using:

  • Credit report data

  • Existing loans from your core that are not already listed on the credit report

  • Submitted loan applications that are still pending

    (Glide does not count applications that are cancelled, withdrawn, or already booked to the core)

  • The member’s stated monthly income

This provides a full and deduplicated view of the member’s debt obligations.

Step 2: Glide Assigns a Credit Tier

Next, Glide determines which credit tier the member belongs to based on your institution’s tier rules.

The selected credit tier controls which credit criteria thresholds the member must meet.

Step 3: Glide Checks All Required Thresholds for the Selected Tier

Each rate sheet has certain requirements the member must meet before any offer can be considered.

Examples include:

  • Income

  • DTI or PTI

  • LTV

See the full list here.

If the member fails any required threshold, Glide stops the evaluation and does not generate a pre-qualification.

If the member passes all thresholds, Glide continues to the cap calculations.

Step 4: Glide Calculates Caps for Each Criterion

For every criterion on the rate sheet, Glide calculates the maximum monthly payment the member could take on while still meeting that specific rule.

Each calculation produces a separate “cap.”

Examples of caps include:

  • The maximum payment allowed by DTI

  • The maximum payment allowed by PTI

  • The maximum payment allowed by LTV

  • The maximum payment allowed by disposable income

Glide then compares all caps and selects the lowest one. This ensures the final offer always fits within your most conservative rule.

How the final monthly payment is chosen

  • If the lowest cap is above your minimum offer amount listed on the rate sheet, that value becomes the member’s pre-qualified payment.

  • If the lowest cap is above your maximum allowed payment on the rate sheet, Glide uses your maximum limit instead.

  • If the lowest cap is below your minimum offer amount listed on the rate sheet, no offer is shown.

Glide presents borrowers with offers based on the longest available term for the selected loan product. This approach keeps monthly payments as low as possible at the starting point of the pre-qualification experience.