Membership Tier Break-Even Calculator

Investment platforms increasingly price in tiers, where an annual membership fee unlocks a lower fund fee and a better exchange rate. That structure makes the obvious comparison useless, because the tier charging the most in membership frequently costs the least in total, and the tier charging nothing is only free if you have very little money. Working out which one you should be on means combining three things that are published in three different places: the membership charge, the fund fee that tier gives you, and the foreign exchange rate it gives you. This page does that arithmetic and reports one annual cost per tier. It uses your average balance across the year rather than the starting figure, because fund fees are charged throughout the year and regular contributions raise what you actually pay. It counts the exchange rate saving only against currency you say you actually convert, which is where most upgrade decisions go wrong, since a better rate is worth nothing to someone who never buys foreign shares. And it reports the break-even balance between every pair of tiers, which is the number that settles the question and the number nobody publishes. The most useful thing it tends to reveal is that the right tier changes as the portfolio grows: a fixed membership fee stays fixed while a percentage saving scales with the money, so a tier chosen when you started investing is unlikely to still be the cheapest several years later, and nothing will ever prompt you to check.

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The Membership Fee Is Not The Cost

Tiered pricing exists precisely so that paying more can cost you less. Comparing the membership charges answers nothing.

On the worked example the free tier costs $177.50 a year and the $50 tier costs $147.50. The one charging nothing is the more expensive of the two, because the fund fee it leaves you on is 0.10 percentage points higher and the exchange rate is worse.

The tier charging the most, at $150, costs $225.60, which is the most of all three. Neither extreme is right.

Worked Example: $50,000 Plus $500 A Month

Contributions raise the balance through the year, so the fund fee applies to an average of $53,000.00 rather than the $50,000.00 you started with.

Free tier: no membership, $132.50 of fund fee, $45.00 of currency cost. Total $177.50.

Middle tier: $50.00 membership, $79.50 of fund fee, $18.00 of currency cost. Total $147.50.

Top tier: $150.00 membership, $63.60 of fund fee, $12.00 of currency cost. Total $225.60.

The middle tier saves $30.00 a year against the free one and $78.10 against the top one.

Two Numbers Decide It

The break-even balances are the whole calculation, and no provider publishes them.

The middle tier overtakes the free one at an average balance of $23,000.00. That is reached fairly quickly by a regular contributor, which makes it the default answer for most people.

The top tier does not overtake the middle one until $313,333.33. It saves only 0.03% of the balance a year while costing $100 more in membership, and 0.03% of a balance takes a long time to reach $100.

Between those two figures sits almost every New Zealand investor, which is why the middle option wins across most of the range and why paying the most is usually the wrong instinct.

The Currency Input Is Where This Goes Wrong

A better exchange rate is a genuine saving and it is worth exactly nothing on conversions you never make.

On the worked example, converting $3,000.00 a year saves $27.00 by moving from a 1.50% rate to 0.60%. At a small balance that is most of the middle tier's advantage.

Set that input to zero if you only hold New Zealand dollar funds and the picture changes: the break-even against the free tier moves out to $50,000.00, because the fund fee saving now has to cover the whole membership charge on its own.

This is the input people inflate when they have already decided to upgrade. Our FX fee tier break-even calculator deals with the currency side on its own, and our FX spread vs fee calculator checks whether the advertised rate is the real one.

The Answer Moves As You Grow

A membership fee is fixed. A percentage saving is not. So the balance at which each tier makes sense is a moving target and the decision has a shelf life.

Across the range in the table above, the cheapest option changes three times. At $10,000.00 the free tier wins. From roughly $23,000.00 to $313,333.33 the middle tier wins. Beyond that the top tier wins.

Nothing will prompt you to look at this. Providers do not write to tell you that you are on the wrong tier, and the cost of staying on it grows with the portfolio: $533.00 a year at a $500,000.00 balance between the best and worst choice here.

Check it whenever the balance changes materially, and at least once a year.

What This Does Not Weigh

Only the fees. If a tier gives you access to a fund range you would actually use, or a feature that genuinely changes what you can do, that belongs in the decision and it is not a number this page can produce.

It also excludes brokerage and transaction fees, and it excludes the tax treatment of the funds themselves, which for foreign shares is usually a larger annual cost than any of the fees compared here. Our total cost of owning a US ETF calculator covers that.

And it assumes the fund fee is the only thing standing between the fund and the index. Our tracking difference calculator shows why that is optimistic, and the true cost of a tier is a little higher than any fee schedule suggests.

Related NZ Platform Fee Calculators

• Fixed Fee vs Percentage Fee Calculator: the same question in its general form.
• FX Fee Tier Break-Even Calculator: the currency side on its own.
• Fund Fee Drag Calculator: what a fee difference costs over decades.
• Tracking Difference Calculator: what a fund really costs against its index.
• Total Cost Of Owning A US ETF Calculator: fees plus tax plus currency.