Question 1

What does this calculator include, and what does it leave out?

Accepted Answer

It includes the four costs you can model in advance: the membership fee on your billing option, the FX margin on your converted volume, pay in fees on receipts and movement fees on payouts split between local rails and USD SWIFT. It leaves out beneficiary bank charges levied outside our rails. AED movements are modelled at 0.08% against an AED 20 floor rather than a flat figure. Every number is illustrative until your schedule is issued with approval.

Question 2

Where do the break even volumes come from?

Accepted Answer

Straight arithmetic on the difference between two memberships. Business Plus costs USD 2,000 more a year than Business on annual billing and saves 0.25% of volume, so it turns positive at USD 800,000. Treasury costs USD 2,000 more than Business Plus and saves a further 0.15%, so it turns positive at about USD 1.33M. Movement fees are identical across the three, so they cancel out of the comparison.

Question 3

Why does the billing option move the break even?

Accepted Answer

Annual billing covers twelve months for the price of ten, so the fee gap between memberships is smaller in absolute terms and the lower margin takes longer to earn it back. On monthly billing the same two crossovers sit at USD 960,000 and USD 1.6M instead.

Question 4

Can I take a membership the calculator does not recommend?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The model shows the lowest cost, not a restriction. Businesses regularly take Treasury below the break even for the named specialist and the consultation, and that is a legitimate reason. Nothing here gates which membership you can apply for.

Question 5

Why is average payment size an input?

Accepted Answer

Because movement fees are charged per payment, not per dollar. Two businesses converting the same USD 1.5M pay very different movement totals if one sends thirty payments and the other sends three hundred. Increasing the USD SWIFT share raises it further, because SWIFT movement starts at USD 35 or 0.05%, while local floors differ by market: GBP 5, EUR 5, AED 20 and USD 35, with CAD passed through at cost.

Question 6

Why can this not price Institutional Membership?

Accepted Answer

Because the inputs that decide the cost are not on this page. Pair mix, settlement pattern, counterparty profile, whether you move on behalf of your own clients and the control set all change the schedule. Publishing a rate for it would misstate all of them, so it is agreed with the desk instead.

One instrument. Every number behind the membership you pay for.

The column the calculator picked is highlighted.