Paying in your own currency
How Open Lance shows prices in your currency and charges your card in it, why the price you see while browsing is the price you pay, how to change your currency, and why freelancers still see everything in US dollars.
Open Lance prices everything in US dollars underneath, and shows it to you in the currency you actually spend. This article explains what that means in practice, because a few things about it are worth understanding.
What you see
Pick your currency and every price on the platform is shown in it: Drop-Ins while you are browsing, freelancer rates, your checkout total, your contracts, your invoices.
Your currency is set automatically from your country when you first arrive, and you can change it whenever you like from the currency picker. The setting is yours and persists across devices.
What you are charged
Your card is charged in your currency, not converted by your bank.
This is the part that saves you money and it is worth being clear about why. When a platform charges you in dollars and your card is not a dollar card, your bank performs the conversion. Banks are not generous about this: you typically get a poor rate and a foreign transaction fee on top, and you do not find out the real cost until the statement arrives.
By charging in your own currency, that conversion does not happen. The amount on your statement is the amount you agreed to on screen. No surprise, no second fee, nothing to reconcile.
The price you see is the price you pay
Every figure shown to you in your own currency already includes the cost of handling a cross-border payment. This is deliberate and it is the whole point: a price that changes between browsing and checkout is the thing this design exists to prevent.
So a Drop-In you saw at a particular price is that price at checkout. A freelancer's hourly rate shown while you were comparing is what appears on the contract. There is no separate conversion charge added at the end, because it was never excluded at the start.
How the arithmetic works
Worth knowing if you ever check the numbers against a rate you looked up elsewhere.
Each line is converted individually and the total is the sum of those converted lines, rather than the whole total being converted in one go. Those two methods differ by a minor unit or two, and doing it line by line is the only way an invoice adds up to its own total.
So if you add up the lines on your receipt, they will reach the total exactly. If you convert the dollar total yourself at a mid-market rate, you may land a unit or so away. The document is internally consistent, which is what matters when somebody is reconciling it.
Changing your currency
Use the currency picker, available wherever you are signed in. It lists currencies by region and is searchable.
Changing it changes what you are shown from that moment. It does not change anything already agreed: a contract, an invoice or a receipt keeps the currency it was raised in. That is intentional. A receipt has to keep matching the line on your bank statement, and a document that quietly re-denominated itself when you changed a setting would be useless for accounting.
The list contains the currencies we can price reliably. If yours is not there, you will be charged in US dollars and your bank will convert, which is the ordinary arrangement.
Why freelancers see dollars
If you are a freelancer, you will notice your earnings, contracts and balance are all in US dollars regardless of the currency setting.
This is deliberate. What you are owed is a dollar amount. Showing you a converted figure would state an amount you will not actually receive, because it would include a cross-border cost that belongs to the paying side, not to you. Your earnings are shown as what they are.
The exception is things you buy from Open Lance — a bid pack, a subscription — where you are the payer. Those are shown and charged in your currency like anything else you buy.
When you withdraw, conversion happens at that point, and the amount you will receive is shown before you confirm. See How and when you get paid.
Common questions
"The amount on my statement does not match." It should match exactly. If it does not, check whether you are comparing against the right transaction, and whether your bank has added its own charge despite being charged in your own currency — some cards levy a fee on any transaction with a foreign merchant regardless of currency, which is your bank's policy rather than ours. If it still does not reconcile, open a ticket with the receipt number.
"Why did the price change since yesterday?" Exchange rates move. Prices are converted at the rate held when you look, refreshed regularly. Between one day and the next a price in your currency can shift slightly even though the dollar price has not changed at all.
"Can I pay in dollars instead?" Set your currency to USD and you will be shown and charged in dollars.
"Does my freelancer receive less because I paid in my currency?" No. What the freelancer is owed is a dollar figure agreed on the contract, and it does not move with how you paid. The two are separate on purpose.
Which currencies are available
The picker lists the currencies we can price reliably, grouped by region and searchable. It is a broad list covering most places people hire from.
A currency appears only where we hold a rate we are willing to stand behind. A price we cannot compute confidently is worse than no price at all, so where we cannot, you are charged in US dollars and your bank converts as it normally would.
If your currency is missing and you would expect it to be there, mention it in a ticket. It is useful to know which ones people are actually asking for.
For businesses and accounting
Two consequences worth knowing if somebody else does your books.
Your invoices and receipts are issued in the currency you were charged in, with the dollar equivalent and the rate stated on the document. That is what makes them reconcile against your bank statement, which will show the local amount.
Documents keep the currency they were raised in. Changing your currency setting later does not retroactively re-denominate old documents, which would break every reconciliation you had already done.
If your finance process requires everything in a single currency, the dollar figure is on every document for exactly that reason.
What has not changed
Underneath, Open Lance is a dollar platform. Escrow is held in dollars, freelancers are paid in dollars, and the ledger is in dollars.
What varies is what you are shown and what your card is charged. This separation is deliberate and it is what stops a freelancer's earnings moving because of where their client happens to bank.
If you would rather see dollars
Some people prefer working in dollars regardless of where they bank, particularly if they hold a dollar account or if their accounting is done in dollars.
Set your currency to USD in the picker and everything reverts: prices shown in dollars, card charged in dollars, documents in dollars. Your bank then handles any conversion, which is the arrangement you would have had on any other platform.
Neither choice is better in the abstract. Charging in your currency is usually cheaper because it avoids a bank conversion; charging in dollars is simpler if your accounting is already dollar-based.
What to check on your first non-dollar payment
If this is your first purchase in your own currency, two things are worth checking once so you can stop thinking about it.
Does your statement match the figure you confirmed? It should, exactly. If it does, you know the mechanism is working and you never need to check again.
Did your bank add anything of its own? Some cards charge a fee on any transaction with a foreign merchant regardless of the currency it was billed in. That is your bank's policy rather than anything we control, but it is worth knowing whether yours does it, because it changes which card you should use here.
Why the rate can differ from what you find online
If you compare a converted price against a rate from a search engine or a currency site, you may find a small difference.
Those sites quote the mid-market rate, which is the midpoint between what banks buy and sell at. Nobody actually transacts at the mid-market rate — it is a reference point, not a price. Every real conversion, including the one your bank would do, happens at something either side of it.
The figure shown to you is what you will be charged. That is the number that matters, and it is fixed before you confirm.
Common questions
Can I set a currency different from my country? Yes. The picker is yours to set regardless of where you are.
Will changing currency change what my freelancer receives? No. What they are owed is a dollar figure on the contract and it does not move.
Why is my old invoice in a different currency? Because that is what you were charged at the time, and it is what reconciles against that statement line.
Does the price include everything? Yes. Every figure shown to you already includes the cost of handling a cross-border payment.
Related
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