Capital is not a minimum buy-in. It is the cost of the entire profitable run — every craft, down to the last one still worth doing.
full run 500 crafts capital $500,000,000 your budget $5,000,000 you do 5 crafts capital $5,000,000
The first five crafts are the most profitable ones in the run, because the book is walked best price first.
Why the number looks frightening
The board sorts by what is possible, not by what is affordable. A meta showing hundreds of millions in capital is describing the far end of an opportunity, and the near end of it is open to anybody.
Sizing it
Every meta page has a planner: put in the number of crafts you want and it costs out that run instead of the whole one. Start smaller than you think, watch whether the ingredient orders actually fill, and scale from there.
The part nobody warns you about
Money in an unfilled order is money you cannot use. Placing every coin you own into one slow-moving ingredient is the most common way a good trade turns into an afternoon of waiting.