> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.kirafin.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# How you're charged

> What Kira charges you for, and when nothing is charged at all.

Kira charges you when money **moves**. Holding a balance costs nothing, and asking what a movement will cost costs nothing.

**Pricing is two-sided.** Money is charged on the way in and again for what you do with it, so a movement that arrives and then converts carries both. These are the names your contract uses, and the same names come back on every itemised price.

| Charge             | What it is                                                                                        | When it fires                                                                                                |
| ------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Inbound fee**    | A percentage of the amount that arrived                                                           | Once, each time money arrives from outside. Money already on your books is not charged again when you use it |
| **Conversion fee** | A percentage of the amount converted                                                              | On each conversion between currencies, or between cash and digital currency                                  |
| **Rail fee**       | A flat amount for the network that carried the money, whether that is a bank rail or a blockchain | Per leg. A movement that arrives on one rail and leaves on another is charged for both                       |

The clearest way to see it: money arriving from a bank and paid straight out to another bank carries the inbound fee and a rail fee on each leg. Money arriving as digital currency and paid out as cash additionally carries the conversion fee. Money already sitting with you and paid out today carries the rail fee alone — it was charged on the way in.

<Note>
  **Not every fee is charged per movement.** Onboarding and setup, account management and any monthly minimum are set in your contract and billed on their own terms. They are not part of a movement's price and never appear on a quotation, so a figure on your invoice with no matching line on a quote is one of these.
</Note>

<Note>
  **Two rail charges look alike and are not the same thing.** What you pay for a rail — a bank wire or a blockchain — is a Kira charge and appears on your price as the rail fee. On a payout delivered as digital currency you also bear the chain's own transfer cost, which comes out of the amount delivered rather than out of what you send; on a grouped quotation it is `fees.network_fee`. What Kira pays to run its own rails is separate again, and is never billed to you.
</Note>

## Knowing the price before you commit

You can ask what a movement will cost before making it, with [Create a quotation](/api-reference/quotations/create-a-quotation). The answer comes back itemised — every charge from the table above on its own line, with what it was calculated on — together with the amount that will actually arrive. [The quotation object](/reference/quotations/the-quotation-object) is every field of it.

That price can be **locked** for a short window. Within it, the movement settles at exactly the quoted figure even if rates move. This is what lets you show a firm number to your own customer rather than an estimate.

<Warning>
  A locked price expires. If you show a customer a figure and they take longer than the window to accept, ask for the price again rather than assuming it held — the second answer is the one that will be charged.
</Warning>

## When a conversion is involved

A conversion has two parts, and they are separate: the **conversion fee** for performing it, and the **rate** at which it happens.

The rate is the market rate at that moment, and the price you are shown carries both the rate applied and the market rate it came from, so the difference is visible rather than buried. Fees are calculated on the face value of the movement, not on the converted amount — so the rate changes what arrives, never what you are charged.

Where one side of the conversion is a stablecoin, the rate can be held at parity instead of the rate sampled from the market. That adjustment is part of the rate itself — it is never a charge and never appears as its own line. You see it as the gap between the rate applied and the market rate beside it, with the price marking that it was held.

The hold works in one direction per leg. Converting into a stablecoin, it applies only while the coin is trading below parity; converting out of one, only while it is trading above. A movement watching the other direction will never see it.

## What is not charged

* **Holding money.** A balance can sit indefinitely at no cost.
* **Asking for a price.** Quotes are free, whether or not you act on them.