---
title: "Stablecoin API pricing: mint fees, spread, and what you actually pay"
description: "The basis-point figure on a stablecoin provider's pricing page rarely matches the invoice, because mint fees, burn fees, spread, and issuer fees usually live below the line the marketing page shows."
date: "2026-08-31"
category: "stablecoins"
faq:
  - q: "What pricing models do stablecoin API providers actually use?"
    a: "A volume-tiered take rate charges a percentage of each transaction that compresses as monthly volume grows. Per-transaction-plus-gas charges a flat or small fee per call and passes network gas through separately, so cost swings with whichever chain a transfer settles on. A flat enterprise contract sets a negotiated monthly or annual fee regardless of volume, common with larger platforms serving bigger institutional clients. Which one is cheapest depends entirely on volume and how predictable the bill needs to be."
  - q: "What does Zero Hash charge to mint versus redeem a stablecoin?"
    a: "Zero Hash's published fee schedule shows exactly this asymmetry: minting, turning fiat into stablecoin, costs 0 basis points across the seven stablecoins it lists, while turning USDC back into fiat costs 5 basis points on every network Zero Hash supports. An issuer wants stablecoin supply to grow, so minting carries no built-in friction. Redemption is the step that costs the issuer money to process, since it means converting the token back into real dollars, and that's where the fee sits."
  - q: "Which fields does Zero Hash break out in a quote response?"
    a: "Zero Hash's API returns issuer_fee_rate, issuer_fee_amount, spread_notional, and spread_bps as four distinct fields in every quote, rather than folding everything into one blended rate. A single blended number doesn't show whether a rate move next quarter comes from the issuer fee, which the platform doesn't control, or from the platform's own spread, which it does. That distinction is invisible without the itemized breakdown."
  - q: "What four variables need to match before comparing two providers' pricing?"
    a: "Hold the notional amount, the day (FX and spread move daily), the settlement network (gas depends on chain and congestion), and the fee breakdown constant, then compare itemized numbers rather than blended totals. Almost no provider publishes a dated quote that could be reproduced later, which is what makes this hard rather than just inconvenient. Ask each provider for a live quote against the same amount and pair on the same day, and insist on separate issuer fee, spread, and network cost figures before comparing the total."
  - q: "Is a lower advertised basis-point rate always the cheaper option?"
    a: "A provider advertising 20 basis points but charging a separate redemption fee, a wider spread on the FX leg, and gas as a pass-through can land above a provider quoting 40 basis points all-in with nothing else attached. The headline number alone doesn't show which one that is. Request the itemized breakdown for the actual corridor and volume before comparing totals."
  - q: "Does BlindPay require pre-funding before it will quote or settle a payment?"
    a: "BlindPay returns a live FX quote with the spread and payout fee itemized separately and settles without requiring capital held in advance in a destination account. That's a structural difference from providers that need funds pre-positioned in local accounts before a payout can clear."
---

A mint fee of zero looks generous until the redemption fee shows up three lines down the same schedule. Zero Hash's own fee schedule is the clearest public example of why a headline rate and the actual invoice rarely match.

## Stablecoin API pricing comes in three shapes

A 2026 comparison of major providers, a support-article listicle rather than an industry report or any single company's own pricing page, groups [stablecoin API pricing into three shapes](https://eco.com/support/en/articles/15232572-best-stablecoin-settlement-apis-2026-sla-guarantees-audit-trails-and-reconciliation-compared): volume-tiered take rate, per-transaction-plus-gas, and flat enterprise contract.

BlindPay publishes itemized quotes per corridor instead of a blended rate or a sales-only contract; see the [pricing page](/pricing) for the current numbers.

Volume-tiered take rate is what most consumer-facing platforms use: a percentage per transaction that compresses as monthly volume grows. This shape rewards scale and punishes small integrations, since a low-volume developer pays near the top of a provider's published range while a large one negotiates down.

Circle prices closer to a flat per-call fee, with network gas passed through separately as its own line, a shape usually called per-transaction-plus-gas. The effective rate depends on network congestion as much as on the provider's own pricing sheet, and it can swing week to week for reasons that have nothing to do with the integration itself.

Flat enterprise contract is the shape Eco, BVNK, and Fireblocks lean toward for larger customers: a negotiated monthly or annual fee independent of transaction count, with the number only surfacing after a sales conversation, which makes it the least useful shape for a developer trying to compare options early.

None of these is objectively cheaper. A high-volume payments company probably wants the tiered rate because it compresses with scale. A team running unpredictable, spiky volume through a handful of chains might prefer the gas-plus-fee model because it doesn't punish quiet months. What matters is knowing which shape is being quoted before comparing it to anything else: a 0.3 percent take rate and a "$0.02 per call plus gas" quote aren't the same kind of number, and they don't compress the same way as volume grows.

## Why does minting cost nothing but redeeming cost something?

[Zero Hash's documentation](https://docs.zerohash.com/docs/issuer-fees) lists 0 basis points to mint across seven supported stablecoins: DAI, TUSD, USDC, USDT, USDP, PYUSD, and RLUSD. Minting, in plain terms, is depositing fiat and receiving stablecoin back. It's free at the issuer level across the board.

Burning is the reverse: converting the stablecoin back into fiat, and that's where the fee shows up. Zero Hash charges 5 basis points specifically on USDC redemption, across every network it supports. The platform sitting on top of Zero Hash can then layer its own spread on top of that issuer fee, the docs' own worked examples run anywhere from 10 to 50 basis points depending on the scenario, and can choose whether to pass the issuer fee to the end customer or absorb it.

An issuer wants stablecoin supply to grow, so there's no reason to tax the deposit side. Redemption is the step that actually costs money to process on the issuer's end, since it means converting the token back to fiat and moving real dollars, so that's where the fee sits. Comparing only the mint-side rate a provider quotes means comparing the free half of the transaction and ignoring the half that actually costs something. This is the same asymmetry that makes [stablecoin API](/resources/more/what-is-a-stablecoin-api) pricing pages harder to read than they look: the number on the landing page is usually the cheap half of the flow.

## What should a quote response actually itemize?

Zero Hash's quote response returns issuer_fee_rate, issuer_fee_amount, spread_notional, and spread_bps as four separate fields. That's the standard worth asking every provider to match: it's the only way to tell what's actually changing when a rate moves. If a provider raises its take rate next quarter, an itemized quote shows whether that's the issuer fee moving (out of the platform's control) or the platform's own spread widening (very much in its control).

One blended rate doesn't automatically mean overcharging. It might be cheaper. But that's not verifiable from the API response alone, and there's no way to build alerting or reconciliation against a number that can't be decomposed. Zero Hash's docs also note that the only supported settlement_type is "STANDARD," described as instant settlement, so at least on that provider there's no separate tier to price against: the itemization is about fees more than settlement speed.

## How do you compare two providers on the same corridor, same day?

Almost nobody publishes a dated, reproducible quote for a specific corridor and a specific amount. Pricing pages show ranges, sales calls produce numbers that expire the moment the call ends, and aggregator comparisons average across providers in ways that erase exactly the detail that matters for a given integration. Conduit's FX pricing is sometimes cited around 10 basis points in industry writeups, and even that number comes through a third-party aggregator rather than a dated quote that could be reproduced directly. That figure could not be independently verified against Conduit's own current pricing documentation, which is itself the point: transparent, reproducible pricing is rare enough in this space that even finding a citable number takes real digging.

A real comparison holds the same notional amount, the same day (FX and spread both move daily), the same network the transfer settles on (gas depends on chain and congestion), and itemized fees rather than a blended total. Without holding all four constant, the comparison is really between marketing copy from different months. The [best stablecoin APIs comparison](/resources/more/best-stablecoin-apis-2026) applies this same standard across providers side by side.

## Get an itemized quote instead of a headline rate

A BlindPay quote splits the FX spread from the payout fee into two numbers, showing what the conversion costs and what the transfer costs separately, and which one moved when a rate changes. There's no pre-funding requirement sitting underneath any of it, either: no capital needs to sit parked in a destination account before a payout clears, which erases trapped capital as a cost, something a lot of pricing comparisons skip because it never shows up as a line item at all.

For a corridor like [USDC to BRL](/usdc-to-brl), or for payin and payout flows more broadly, the [getting started guide](/docs/getting-started/overview) walks through what a live quote actually returns, field by field. Pull a same-day quote against the real volume and corridor before trusting any published rate, including this one, and to get the fees broken out against a real amount, [talk to us](/contact).