How much revenue do I need for an asset-based line?

The threshold is less about revenue than about what sits on your balance sheet. The typical entry point is around $500,000 in annual revenue, and facilities themselves commonly run from about $50,000 up to $5 million — so a manufacturer carrying real receivables and raw inventory is usually inside that range rather than reaching for it. What changes as you grow is pricing rather than eligibility: a larger, cleaner borrowing base spreads the monitoring cost across more dollars, so the same structure gets cheaper as the book gets bigger.

• Eligible accounts receivable: typically advanced at 70% to 85%
• Finished inventory: typically 30% to 50%, and raw materials usually less
• Machinery and equipment: appraised at forced-liquidation value, not book value
• Ineligibles that get carved out first: anything over 90 days, intercompany, foreign, or heavily concentrated accounts

The warning sits in that last line of ineligibles. A company showing $3 million of receivables can easily find that only $2.1 million is eligible and only $1.6 million of that is advanced, so the facility that looked like $3 million is a $1.6 million line. The other cost is administrative: expect monthly borrowing-base reporting, a field exam once or twice a year, and audit fees you pay for. It is an operating obligation, not a line you draw and forget.

Asset-Based Lending is the product to price here, with Invoice Factoring or a conventional Business Line of Credit as the lighter-overhead alternatives if the reporting burden outweighs the extra availability. Call the desk with an aging summary and an inventory listing — the eligible balance, not the revenue line, is what decides the size of the facility.