Eguide Calculator: How to Estimate Business Funding Before You Apply

An Eguide calculator is a business-funding estimator that turns three or four numbers you already have — your average monthly deposits, requested amount, an estimated factor rate, and a repayment term — into a realistic picture of your offer before you ever submit an application. Instead of guessing, you see the likely funding range, the periodic (daily or weekly) remittance, and what share of your cash flow it consumes. The point of the tool is not a promise; it is a sanity check. In revenue-based funding and MCA-style products, approval is driven by bank deposits and revenue, not primarily your credit score, so the same inputs the calculator uses are the inputs an underwriter uses. Used honestly, it tells you in sixty seconds whether an offer will help your business or strangle it.

What an Eguide calculator actually estimates

A funding calculator for revenue-based products is not computing a bank loan APR schedule. It is modeling a cash-flow purchase of future receivables. That changes what the numbers mean. Here is what each output tells you:

• Estimated funding amount — how much a marketplace is likely to advance based on your monthly deposits. As a rule of thumb, offers commonly land in the range of roughly 50% to 150% of one month's average deposits, with a typical minimum around $10,000.
• Factor rate — the cost expressed as a multiplier (for example, 1.15 to 1.49) rather than an interest rate. It is applied once to the amount funded, not compounded over time.
• Periodic remittance — the fixed daily or weekly amount, or a percentage holdback of your card/deposit volume, that repays the advance.
• Estimated term — the approximate number of business days or weeks to complete remittance, usually a few months to about 18 months.

The single most useful output is not any one dollar figure — it is the share of daily cash flow the remittance represents. That is the number that decides whether you can breathe while you repay.

The inputs that drive your estimate

Garbage in, garbage out. The calculator is only as honest as the numbers you feed it. Pull these from your actual bank statements, not from memory:

• Average monthly deposits (last 3-6 months). This is the primary driver of your funding amount. Use total deposits, then be ready to explain any transfers or one-time spikes — underwriters strip those out.
• Number of deposits per month. Consistent, frequent deposits read as healthy cash flow. Ten to fifteen deposit days a month tells a far better story than two large lump sums.
• Requested amount. What you actually need for the use case — equipment, inventory, payroll bridge, a specific project — not the largest number you can get.
• Time in business and industry. These nudge the estimated factor rate and term. Six-plus months and a stable industry generally price better than a brand-new, high-volatility operation.
• Estimated FICO. Credit matters far less here than in bank lending — programs commonly work with FICO 500+ — but it still tilts pricing at the margin.

If you want to understand how these inputs fit into the wider financing picture, see our business financing guide and our overview of revenue-based financing.

A worked example (for example only)

Numbers below are illustrative — for example figures, not a quote. They show how the same inputs produce different cash-flow outcomes. Notice we describe the weight of each option on daily cash, not a total-payback dollar figure, because the real risk lives in the daily bite.

The lesson underwriters see every day: the biggest offer is rarely the right one. The Cautious and Balanced rows leave room to absorb a soft week. The Aggressive row funds more but leaves no margin — one slow stretch and the business is scrambling. A good calculator makes that trade-off visible before you sign.

How to read a factor rate without fooling yourself

A factor rate is not an interest rate, and treating it like one leads to two opposite mistakes. Some owners assume a 1.25 factor is "25% APR" and think it's cheap; others convert it to an annualized figure, see a scary number, and reject a tool that would have saved their business. Both miss the point.

The right way to read it: the factor rate is the fixed cost of speed and access. You are paying a premium to get funded in 24-48 hours on the strength of your deposits, without the collateral, credit bar, and weeks of underwriting a bank demands. Judge it against three things: (1) the return you'll earn deploying the cash, (2) the cost of not acting — the lost order, the missed season, the penalty avoided, and (3) the daily remittance as a share of cash flow. If the use of funds throws off more than the cost of the capital and the daily bite is survivable, the factor rate is doing its job. If not, no rate is low enough.

Decision framework: when this fits and when to walk

Here is the framework we use on the underwriting side. Be honest with each line.

Works best when:

• You have consistent daily or weekly revenue — retail, restaurants, e-commerce, trucking, medical, contractors with steady billing.
• The cash funds something that pays for itself quickly: inventory ahead of a proven season, a specific project with a signed contract, a machine that lifts capacity, a bridge to a receivable you can see.
• You need speed and a bank timeline (or a bank "no") isn't workable.
• Your credit blocks traditional lending but your deposits are strong — this is exactly the case revenue-based funding is built for.
• The estimated daily remittance is a comfortable, survivable share of a normal day's cash.

Avoid or wait when:

• Revenue is thin, seasonal-with-a-long-off-season, or falling — daily remittance will hit hardest exactly when you can least afford it.
• You'd use it to cover a structural loss rather than a timing gap. This capital bridges timing; it does not fix a broken model.
• You're already carrying stacked advances and this would be a third or fourth position — that is a warning sign, not a plan.
• The best for example estimate still shows a daily bite that leaves no room for a slow week.
• You qualify for a bank line or SBA product and can wait for it — cheaper capital is worth the patience when timing allows.

From estimate to offer: what happens next

A calculator gives you a range; a marketplace gives you a real offer. The bridge between them is documentation. To move from estimate to funded, most revenue-based programs ask for:

• A short application (business details, ownership, use of funds).
• The last 3-6 months of business bank statements — the core of the decision.
• Basic identity and business verification.

Because approval leans on bank deposits and revenue over credit, a clean set of statements does more for your offer than a high FICO. A marketplace model helps here: instead of one funder's single answer, your file is shown to multiple funding sources, and competing offers tend to sharpen pricing and term. Realistic timelines run 24-48 hours from complete file to funding. Read every offer against your calculator estimate — if the real remittance is heavier than your Balanced scenario, negotiate the amount down rather than accepting the largest number on the table.

Common mistakes that wreck the estimate

The calculator is only useful if you don't lie to it — or to yourself. The errors we see most:

• Inflating deposits with transfers. Owner draws, loans, and internal transfers aren't revenue. Underwriters remove them; you should too.
• Anchoring on the maximum offer. The number you can get and the number you should take are rarely the same.
• Ignoring the slow-week test. Model the remittance against your worst normal week, not your best.
• Confusing factor rate with APR. Judge cost by use-of-funds return and daily weight, not a mislabeled percentage.
• Treating the estimate as guaranteed. No honest tool and no honest funder promises approval or an exact figure — outputs are estimates, full stop.