You get paid in USD. Why convert it twice?
You earn in dollars. Meta bills you in dollars. So do Google, ChatGPT, Canva and Shopify. If your money goes from dollars to rupees, taka or pounds and back to dollars in between, you pay for two conversions you didn't need.
Here's what that costs, worked through on a $2,000 client payment and $1,000 of Meta spend.
The two routes your money can take
Route A, the usual one. A client pays you $2,000. It lands in a local bank account and gets converted to local currency at the bank's buying rate. A few days later you pay Meta $1,000 with your local card. The bank converts your local currency back into dollars at its selling rate, and adds its card FX fee.
Route B, the short one. A client pays you $2,000 into your nsave USD account details by ACH. It stays in dollars. You pay Meta $1,000 with your nsave USD Visa card. Nothing gets converted.
The math on $1,000 of Meta spend
The local route leaks in two places. The first is the gap between the rate your bank buys your dollars at and the rate it sells them back at. That changes by bank and by day. The second is the card's foreign transaction fee, which banks publish:
| Country | Published card FX fee | Card fee on $1,000 of Meta spend | nsave, USD ad account |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pakistan | Around 4% on PKR cards (example schedule, Jul to Dec 2026) | About $40 | $0 |
| Egypt | 3% on credit cards since August 2025 (Business Today Egypt, 13 Aug 2025) | About $30 | $0 |
| Bangladesh | Often none on USD charges, 2% to 3% on non-USD (example schedule, effective 1 Aug 2026) | $0 to $30, plus the bank's dollar selling rate | $0 |
These are card fees only. The buy and sell spread comes on top, both when your client's $2,000 arrived and when you pay Meta. Check your own bank's schedule of charges for your real numbers.
Taxes are left out on both sides. They depend on your country and your tax position, not on which account you use.
On the nsave route, your client's $2,000 arrives with a 0% top-up fee. You pay Meta $1,000 at 0%. $1,000 is still in your account, in dollars.
At $5,000 a month of ad spend, a 4% card fee is about $200 a month. At 3% it's about $150. Over a year that's $1,800 to $2,400 before the spread.
What it does to your Returns on Ads
Say a campaign brings in $3,000 in sales on $1,000 of spend. Platform Returns is 3.0.
Paid with a PKR card at a 4% fee, that $1,000 of spend cost you about $1,040 before the spread. Your real Returns is about 2.88. You'd spend weeks of creative testing to win back that gap. It's easier not to lose it.
When nsave still charges you
nsave charges a 1% to 1.5% FX fee on non-USD transactions. That matters in one common case. If your Meta or Google ad account is set to bill in PKR, BDT or EGP, your USD card is paying a local-currency charge, so the fee applies. On $1,000 of spend that's $10 to $15.
Audit your own money journey
Answer these five questions about last month:
- How much did you earn in USD, EUR or GBP?
- How much of it was converted to local currency on arrival?
- How much did you spend in USD on ads, AI tools and SaaS?
- What FX fee and tax did your card statement show on those payments?
- What currency are your ad accounts set to bill in?
If the answers to 1 and 3 are both large, you're converting money twice for no reason.
How nsave works for this
- Receive USD by ACH, or to a USD, GBP or EUR IBAN. Clients, Upwork, PayPal, Stripe and Shopify stores can pay you there, depending on what each platform supports in your country.
- 0% fee to top up.
- 0% fee to spend in USD with your nsave Visa card.
- 1% to 1.5% FX fee on non-USD transactions.
- No card limits.
FAQ
Does nsave charge to receive USD?
No. Topping up your nsave account has a 0% fee.
Does nsave charge when I pay Meta or Google?
Not when the charge is in USD. Spending in USD has a 0% fee. If the charge is in another currency, a 1% to 1.5% FX fee applies.
Are there limits on how much I can spend on the card?
There are no card limits.
Can my clients pay me in euros or pounds?
Yes. You can receive to a EUR or GBP IBAN as well as USD account details.
Is keeping my earnings in USD allowed where I live?
nsave gives you a compliant way to hold and spend USD. Rules on foreign income and reporting differ by country, so check your own obligations with a tax adviser.
