We give sufficient conditions which ensure that a functor of finite length from an additive category to finite-dimensional vector spaces has a projective resolution whose terms are finitely generated. For polynomial functors, we study also a weaker homological finiteness property, which applies to twisted homological stability for matrix monoids. This is inspired by works by Schwartz and Betley-Pirashvili, which are generalised; this also uses decompositions à la Steinberg over an additive category that we recently obtained with Vespa. We show also, as an application, a finiteness property for stable homology of linear groups on suitable rings.