Trading Fees
Balchemy has no subscription plans, pricing tiers, Stripe billing, or locked product features. Every user gets the same standard product access.
Balchemy earns from executed trades through a global swap-fee model. If you do not trade, there is no monthly platform charge.
Global swap fee
Balchemy charges a standard swap fee on executed trades. The fee is applied by the trading execution path and recorded with the trade/order context.
The public product rule is simple:
- No monthly subscription.
- No plan-based feature gates.
- No enterprise-only access behavior.
- Fees apply when swaps execute.
Fee calculation
Fee calculation is handled with integer-safe token accounting in the trading path. Public docs should not treat fee internals as a user-configurable pricing surface.
At a high level:
- A trade request enters the execution pipeline.
- Policy and risk checks run first.
- If execution is authorized, the swap path calculates the platform fee.
- The trade result and fee records are stored for reconciliation and analytics.
Partner attribution and channel/widget fee-share
Studio supports channel and widget contexts such as Telegram groups, Discord servers, and embedded web widgets. These contexts can carry attribution and fee-share configuration where enabled.
This means a community or project integration can be tracked as the source of trading activity. It does not mean every channel or widget automatically has a live payout rail.
Safe way to think about it:
- Channel/widget fee-share is tied to activity attribution and configuration.
- It is separate from referral codes.
- Payout or settlement details depend on the configured product flow and should be verified before being promised.
Referral rewards
Referral rewards are a separate system from channel/widget fee-share. A referral code can track referred users and reward/commission records where the referral product flow is enabled.
Referral rewards do not add a separate fee to the trader. They are a partner-growth mechanism, not a plan or subscription system.
Rate limits and quotas
Balchemy may enforce application, MCP, and AI usage limits to protect reliability. These are stability limits, not paid access tiers.
When you exceed a rate limit, retry after the indicated window or reduce request volume. If your integration makes frequent programmatic calls, prefer direct scoped tools over repeatedly routing every action through a conversational AI step.
MCP scopes are not paid tiers
MCP scopes are permissions, not pricing plans.
| Scope | Meaning |
|---|---|
read | Observe, inspect, and retrieve read-only state. |
trade | Submit trade actions allowed by policy. |
manage | Sensitive management actions with tighter controls. |
A scope controls what a key can do. It does not change monthly pricing or unlock a paid plan.
Summary
| Topic | Balchemy behavior |
|---|---|
| Subscription | None |
| Product tiers | None |
| Feature gating by plan | None |
| Swap fee | Applies to executed trades |
| Channel/widget fee-share | Attribution/configuration where enabled |
| Referral rewards | Separate referral-code/reward system |
| Rate limits | Reliability controls, not paywalls |