The Plutus Card is subject to fees and limits on its use. Understanding them is important to prevent unexpected charges or declines.

 

Fees and limits overview

Fees are small charges that apply to your Plutus Card on specific situations like spending abroad or in a different currency, with the purpose of helping Plutus covering the additional expenses incurred when those situations happen.

Limits are the amount of expending that can be done in a certain period of time and for specific type of transactions, and their purpose are to protect Plutus from fraudulent activity while still enabling users on the common spending habits. Transaction attempts over any of the limits will result in the transaction being declined.

The specific fees and limits depend on your account plan: 

• Fees and limits: https://plutus.it/fees

We review our fees and limits periodically with our banking partners, and we will communicate any changes to them well in advance. 

Note: Contactless payment transactions also have a limit of 50 EUR/GBP per single transaction that is not documented yet in the link above. Don't confuse it with the contactless daily spending limit of 90 EUR/GBP. 

 

How fees work

Fees can be divided between in the following 2 categories:

 

Account fees

Account fees are charged to your account's balance (not to your card). The action requested (like withdrawing your PLU Rewards) can't be done if not enough balance is present in your Plutus Account. The current list of account fees are:

• Account fiat withdrawals
• PLU Rewards withdrawals
• DEX trading (on the fiat side)

You can check the specific amounts per account plan here: https://plutus.it/fees

 

Card fees

Card fees apply to your Plutus Card transactions, and are generated after a transaction has been confirmed if there is enough balance in the card, or will stay on hold until the card is topped up if no balance is present. They will show up in your account's statement of transactions, here is an example:

In this case, the fee was caused due to a transaction being declined due to user error during an online payment. The transactions that have fees are the following:

• Transactions in a foreign currency
• Declined transactions
• ATM withdrawals
• ATM declines
• Card reissuing

You can check the specific conditions per account plan here: https://plutus.it/fees

 

Note: We are investigating a potential issue with foreign currency transaction fees not showing up in the account statements. You can request a comprehensive account statement history by contacting our Support team. 

Note: The card reissuing is free for Everyday and Premium users while for Starter users fee is 10 EUR/GBP if you need a replacement card. We are including this in our list of fees soon. 

Note: We are updating our fees and limits structure soon, including the removal of decline fees. Until this update is in place, you can contact our Support team to get any decline transaction fees as PLU Rewards. You can claim multiple instances of declines fees in a single request, and there is no time limit for the claim.

 

How limits work

Card limits are the amount of spending that can be done per type of transaction with your Plutus Card. If a transaction is making the card go over its respective limit, the transaction will be automatically declined. The card limits rely on your account plan. You can check all the card limits here:

https://plutus.it/fees

Note: Contactless payment transactions also have a limit of 50 EUR/GBP per single transaction that is not documented yet in the link above. Don't confuse it with the contactless daily spending limit of 90 EUR/GBP. 

 

Limits calculation

Your daily spending limit is reset each calendar day, at midnight in London time.

Your weekly, monthly, and yearly spending limits are rolling limits instead of calendar limits. The time frame considered is the last 7 days/30 days/365 days from the moment it is being checked.

A practical example: You select the Everyday account plan. This plan has a monthly spending limit of 15.500€/£. This is how the limit evolves for you as you spend:

• Day 1: 3.000€/£ spent. 12.000€/£ limit left.
• Day 2: 5.000€/£ spent. 7.000€/£ limit left.
• Day 3: 5.000€/£ spent. 2.000€/£ limit left.
• Day 4: 2.000€/£ spent. 0€/£ limit left.

You used up your limit, now you need to wait 30 days to pass for "Day 1" transaction, to have another 3.000€/£ limit on spending. And for "Day 2" you need to wait for "Day 2" to pass exactly 30 days for it, to have back your 5.000€/£ spending limit. The cycle of month does not matter for it, they are not based on month cycle, but rather on a rolling 30 days.

 

Limits definitions

To better understand the limits, check these definitions:

• Spending limit: Total amount of card spending that can be done.
• Point Of Sale (POS): Transactions that are done through a POS system.
• E-Commerce (ECOM): Transaction is done through an ECOM system. 
• Contactless: Payment hovering your card over a card reader in a store.

Note that some limits overlap, for example total spending includes both ECOM and POS transactions.  

It is not possible for users to check their progress towards card limits at the moment, although this functionality will be built in the future. Our Support team is able to provide additional information on how close you are to hitting the limits on request.

Note: It is not possible to provide the ECOM limits at the moment. 

 

FAQ

Why do Plutus charge fees or set these limits? They suck!

No one likes fees and limits, but they are needed for the sustainability of the project in the long term. They are set by our banking partner and we will keep reviewing them together as our user base grows. 

We are working at the moment on removing some of the fees, updating others, and increasing the card limits. Any update will be shared well in advance with all our users.

 

Any workaround or tricks to prevent or reduce some of the fees?

You can use Curve to reduce foreign currency fees, check this article from their site. The most important step is to set up your Plutus Card to be charged in the same currency that the one of your Plutus Card (EUR or GBP), check here how. If you are in a country with a non EUR/GBP currency, the flow is as follows:

1. Transaction happens in foreign currency.
2. Curve changes the currency to your selected one.
3. Plutus receives a charge in the selected currency.

By selecting the native currency of your Plutus Card, it will be a normal transaction with no fees, and the only fees for currency conversion that apply are the Curve fees.

Any other services that modify your currency before charging your Plutus Card will also work in the same way.

Note: If you set your Curve card to convert your currency to a different one from your Plutus Card (e.g. USD payment > Curve set in EUR > Plutus Card in GBP) you will pay both foreign currency conversion from Curve and Plutus.

 

Using Plutus Card through Curve, what fees and limits apply?

Both limits from Plutus and Curve apply always, but note the question above as the currency conversion of Curve will impact what fees and limits apply to your Plutus Card.

Curve passes along the transaction type (payment, withdrawal, refund, ATM, etc), the MCC (Merchant Category Code) and the payment system (ECOM, POS, etc) of the transactions in all cases. This means fees and limits that depend on the type (like ATM withdrawals) apply both Curve and Plutus limits.  

You can see the details on Plutus limits in this link. 

You can see the details on Curve limits in this link. 

 

I see a "Declined POS charge" fee on my account, what happened?

Multiple reasons can cause a declined transaction and the associated fee. As we are moving towards removing decline fees, you can contact our Support team to get any decline transaction fees as PLU Rewards. You can claim multiple instances of declines fees in a single request, and there is no time limit for the claim.

 

Where can I check if I'm hitting my card limits?

You can't at the moment, this functionality will be built in the future. You can request a check from the Support team and we will be able to provide you the spending and POS current progress towards the limit. 

Note: It is not possible to provide the ECOM limits at the moment. 

 

I don't understand or agree with a fee that I have received, what can I do? 

You can contact our Support team and we will be able to explain to you what caused the fee. If for any reason it happens to be incorrect or a mistake, we will refund you its value. Note that not being aware of the fees and limits that apply (https://plutus.it/fees) would not be a valid reason for a refund. 

 

What's the difference between ECOM and POS limits?

E-Commerce (ECOM) is a transaction that happens through an online system, while Point of Sale (POS) is a transaction that happens through a Point of Sale system, typically in person swiping or hovering your card on a machine.

A transaction can count for both the ECOM and POS limits simultaneously, as some POS systems allow online payments, common in big brand online stores.