HOW DOES REVENUE-BASED FINANCE WORK?
Revenue-based finance works a bit like a business loan, but is more flexible with repayments. Lenders will provide you with money based on your sales and marketing data. You then make repayments daily, weekly or monthly, plus a fixed fee and interest on top. Sounds a lot like a business loan, right?
The difference is that these repayments are taken as an agreed percentage of your business revenue. You have a slow month? You pay less. You have a better month? You pay more. With revenue-based finance, you only pay what you can afford.
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?
Typically, lenders will loan you the equivalent of one months sales. The fixed fee that's charged on top ranges from 4% to 25% of the money borrowed - the average being 12%.
Repayments for revenue based finance are an agreed percentage of daily or weekly sales and are taken as a direct debit.
CASE STUDY
Alex is preparing for Christmas which is typically a great time for her watch brand. In order to boost sales even more this year, Alex wants to run advertising campaigns to drive traffic to her website. She decides to use revenue-based finance to help fund this.
Alex received £20,000 from a lender with a fixed fee of £2,000, so in total she will repay £22,000. She will reimburse 15% of her weekly sales until the £22,000 balance is repaid. This is good news for her as, after a busy Christmas period she wants to take a well-deserved break for a week where she closes shop. She doesn’t need to worry about not being able to make her repayments as they will simply pick back up when she returns. Therefore, revenue based finance is perfect for her business.
WHAT ARE REVENUE-BASED FINANCE LENDERS LOOKING FOR?
- at least 3 months trading history.
- consistently high gross margins of 30% or more.
- monthly sales of over £5k.
- the majority of your sales being online i.e. via Shopify or Amazon. This is what RBF lenders use to assess the amount that they can lend you.
WHAT WE LOVE ABOUT REVENUE-BASED FINANCE
- The process is super quick. Decisions can be made within 24 hours and only require you to provide ‘read-only’ access to your sales data.
- The repayments for revenue based finance are very flexible. Unlike most loans, there are no fixed monthly payments, and they are based on your business’ performance.
- RBF provides you with upfront capital, meaning you can accelerate your business growth in a shorter period of time. This is particularly great if your business has high sales periods - you can fund your company in line with these peaks.
WHAT TO WATCH OUT FOR
- If your revenue grows very quickly, so do your repayments. On the plus side, this will pay the loan off faster. However as the repayments are fixed, this will mean you’ve technically paid a higher APR.
- Some lenders will provide you with a credit card to use and will specify exactly what the spending is for.
- You will start paying back the loan as soon as your business receives any revenue. Make sure that your gross margins are high enough so that you can afford to repay the pre-agreed percentage. (Unsure? Don’t worry - we can talk you through the details.)
