Most established money transfer businesses know their exchange rate margins to two decimal places. Fewer can say, without opening a spreadsheet, what a customer pays to send a mid-sized amount by card on their third-busiest corridor, or when that fee was last checked against what the card payment costs. Fees drift because they live in too many places.
This guide is for finance leads, pricing owners and operations heads at operators who already run several corridors. It covers fee rules per currency, pricing each payment method, customer-group fees, the top amount band, and keeping every rule on a review cycle.
Where it helps, we show how the Fees & Charges module in RemitSo's admin panel handles each step. The platform holds the rules, applies them to every quote and reminds you when they are due for review. Your team still decides the prices.
Set a fee rule for every corridor before it goes live
No corridor should open until someone has decided what it charges. On many older platforms a corridor can be switched on with a blank or default fee, and the gap shows up weeks later as transfers that earned nothing or a quote that surprised a customer.
In RemitSo, a fee rule is mandatory before a corridor can be activated, even when the decision is to charge nothing. A zero fee is still a rule: it is written down, it can be reviewed and it can be changed on a date. Fee rules are set per currency, so each sending currency carries its own pricing. Your team cannot launch a corridor with no pricing behind it, and your customers never meet a quote built on a missing setting.
Rule of thumb: treat "free" as a pricing decision with an owner and a review date, not as the absence of a fee. Free corridors are the ones most often forgotten when costs change.
Build a base charge with slabs and thresholds
The base charge is what a corridor charges before any payment-method or customer-group variation. Most operators build it from a small set of parts:
- Flat fee: a fixed amount per transfer. Easy to explain and easy to compare.
- Percentage: a share of the amount sent. Scales with the transfer, which suits corridors where your own costs rise with amount.
- Minimum and maximum: a floor that protects you on small transfers and a ceiling that keeps large transfers competitive.
- Slabs: amount bands, each with its own charge. A slab structure lets you charge one flat fee up to a threshold, a lower one above it, and nothing above a higher threshold if that is your strategy.
Each threshold is a point where the customer's fee changes, so place thresholds where your customers actually send. If most transfers cluster just under a round number, a threshold just below it changes the fee for a large share of customers; one just above it changes very little.
Keep the number of bands small
Three or four bands usually reflect real cost differences. More than that is hard for support to explain and hard to review.
Price each payment method on its own costs
A bank transfer and a card payment into the same corridor do not cost you the same. Card acceptance generally carries a per-transaction cost that bank transfers do not. If both methods share one fee, either bank-transfer customers subsidise card customers or card transfers quietly lose money.
RemitSo lets you assign fees per payment instrument, each with its own charges and its own slabs and thresholds. One corridor can charge a flat fee for bank transfers and a percentage with a minimum for cards. For customers, the fee reflects the choice they make: someone paying by bank transfer is not charged for a card cost they did not create.
Watch for: a card fee set with a percentage but no minimum. On small transfers the percentage alone can come to less than the card payment costs you, so every small card transfer loses money even though the rule looks sensible on paper.
Give a customer group its own fees
Established operators usually have customers who should not all pay the same: long-standing senders, or newcomers you want to win. Fee rules in RemitSo can be limited to customer groups, so one group has its own fees on a corridor while everyone else keeps the standard ones. Two facts shape how you use this.
- New customers move on after their first transfer. Customers start in the New group and move to Default after their first completed transfer. A lower fee for the New group therefore works as a first-transfer offer that ends on its own, with no code to manage.
- Visitors are quoted as the New group. Someone who is not signed in is quoted the New group's fees, which is also what they pay on their first transfer, so the quote they compared you on is the one they get.
A route in RemitSo is a way to pay, a way to be paid and a customer group, opened with a fee rule. Exchange rate rules can target the same groups, so a first-transfer offer can be a lower fee, a better rate or both. Our guide to standard and customer-specific exchange rates covers the rate side, and money off versus a better rate covers when each kind of offer pays back.
Decide what happens above the top band
Every slab structure has a ceiling. On some platforms an amount above it produces an error, or a fee from a band never meant to cover it. In RemitSo, a quote above the top fee band is quoted at the corridor's maximum, with the limit stated, so the customer knows where the ceiling is. Set your top band to the largest transfer you are prepared to price, in line with the per-transfer limits your compliance team has set.
Choose a fee design pattern for each goal
Pick the pattern for the goal first, then set the numbers. The examples are illustrative.
| Goal | Structure | Illustrative example |
|---|---|---|
| Simple, easy-to-advertise pricing | One flat fee for all amounts | £2.99 on every bank transfer |
| Favour larger transfers | Slabs with a falling flat fee | £2.99 up to £250, £1.99 up to £1,000, £0 above |
| Cover a cost that rises with amount | Percentage with a minimum | 1.5% by card, minimum £3.50 |
| Stay competitive on large amounts | Percentage with a maximum | 1% by card, capped at £25 |
| Price methods on their own costs | Separate charges per payment instrument | Bank transfer £1.99 flat; card 1.5% minimum £3.50 |
| Win first-time senders | Lower fee limited to the New customer group | £0 fee on a first transfer; standard fee afterwards |
| Open a corridor at no charge | Zero-fee rule with a review date | £0 for launch, reviewed after three months |
Put every fee rule on a review date
Fees go stale quietly. Card costs change, a payout partner revises its charges, and the fee set two years ago is still running because nobody was asked to look at it.
RemitSo gives each fee rule a "next review due" date. When someone has checked the rule and is satisfied, they select Mark as reviewed. Fees that are not reviewed for three months raise the Pricing review due alert, which goes to whoever is subscribed to it. Alerts reach nobody until someone subscribes, so assign this one to your pricing owner and a deputy when you set the module up.
A review needs the cost side in front of you. In RemitSo's accounting, bank fees, partner fees and offer discounts each sit in their own account, and any balance opens to the transactions behind it, so a reviewer can compare what a corridor charged with what it cost.
Takeaway: a review is not "nothing looked wrong". Record what you compared the fee against: card cost, partner charges, competitor quotes.
Schedule fee changes instead of making them live
Changing a fee by hand at midnight is a habit worth breaking. Scheduled dates for charge rules in RemitSo take effect within five minutes of the time you set, so a change can be prepared, checked by a second person and left to start on its date. Scheduling also gives you time to tell customers: a fee increase first seen at checkout costs more goodwill than one announced a week ahead. Our guide to broadcast messages covers how to reach the customers on a corridor before a change starts.
Scenario: repricing card payments on a busy corridor
The numbers below are illustrative, chosen to show the reasoning rather than to describe any real operator.
An established UK operator sends GBP to two payout countries. Both corridors charge £2.99 flat up to £1,000 and nothing above, for every payment method, including cards added later.
Step 1: the alert
The Pricing review due alert reaches the finance lead for both GBP corridors. Neither rule has been reviewed for three months.
Step 2: compare charges with costs
From the fee accounts in the books, the finance lead reads the card costs behind recent card transfers. On a £100 card transfer the card cost is about £1.80; on a £900 card transfer it is several times that, while the fee is still £2.99. Card transfers above a few hundred pounds are losing money.
Step 3: redesign by payment instrument
- Bank transfer: slabs at £2.99 up to £250, £1.99 up to £1,000, £0 above. Most bank-transfer customers pay the same or less.
- Card: 1.5% with a minimum of £3.50 and a maximum of £25.
- New customer group: £0 on bank transfer, as a first-transfer offer. Visitors see this when they use the calculator.
Step 4: schedule and announce
The new rules are scheduled for the first of next month, and a second person checks them. A broadcast goes to customers subscribed to the service notices channel a week ahead, explaining that bank transfers get cheaper and card fees now reflect card costs.
Step 5: what customers see
On the day, a customer sending £300 by bank transfer sees the rate, a £1.99 fee, exactly what arrives and a Total to pay of £301.99 before paying. The same customer choosing a card sees £4.50 instead, and can choose. Both rules are marked as reviewed with a new review date three months out.
Make the fee visible before the customer pays
All of this reaches customers at one moment: the quote. In the RemitSo customer app, before paying, customers see the rate, the fee and exactly what arrives, with a Total to pay. The number they see is the number they pay, and it does not shift between calculator and checkout. Clear fees also mean fewer support questions about charges. Our guide to transactional emails covers the messages that follow the quote.
Doing it with RemitSo
The Fees & Charges module keeps every corridor's pricing in one place in the admin panel, and the customer app shows the result at the quote.
- Fee rules per currency, mandatory before go-live: no corridor opens without a pricing decision, even a zero fee, so your team never launches a corridor with no fee behind it.
- Base charges with slabs and thresholds: flat, percentage, minimum and maximum by amount band, so your team can match fees to where customers actually send.
- Fees per payment instrument: each way to pay carries its own charges and slabs, so your customers pay for the method they choose and your team stops cross-subsidising card costs.
- Customer-group fee rules: a group can have its own fees, and visitors are quoted as the New group, so your customers see on the calculator what they will pay on a first transfer and your team gets a first-transfer offer that ends on its own.
- Above the top band: quoted at the corridor's maximum with the limit stated, so your customers get a clear answer instead of an error.
- Review dates and the Pricing review due alert: each rule carries a next review date and Mark as reviewed, and unreviewed fees alert their subscribers, so your team reviews on a cycle instead of from memory.
- Scheduled changes: charge rules start within five minutes of their date, so your team prepares and checks changes in advance and your customers can be told before they apply.
- Total to pay before paying: rate, fee and exactly what arrives are shown in the app, which benefits both: customers know the cost, and your team fields fewer questions about it.
What your team still does: set the prices, compare them with costs and competitors, and decide when a corridor's fees should change.
Frequently asked questions
Why does a corridor need a fee rule if we do not charge a fee?
Because "no fee" is a pricing decision. Making it an explicit rule means it is recorded, has a review date and can be changed on a schedule. In RemitSo a corridor cannot be activated without one.
Can card payments and bank transfers have different fees on the same corridor?
Yes. Fees can be assigned per payment instrument, each with its own charges, slabs and thresholds, so each method can be priced on its own costs.
What fee does someone see before they sign up?
Visitors who are not signed in are quoted as the New customer group. If the New group has its own fee rule, that is the fee they see, and it is also what applies to their first transfer.
How do we make sure fees are reviewed regularly?
Each fee rule has a next review date and a Mark as reviewed action. Fees left unreviewed for three months raise the Pricing review due alert to whoever is subscribed, so subscribe your pricing owner when you set the module up.