07Costs
The price of going formal, and what else it costs.
Our own numbers first. Where a figure is only discussed, not contracted, it says so.
1. The price of going formal: card fees on real sales
Royal Gold 14 May 2024 to 15 Aug 2026; Royal Silver 3 Jan to 15 Aug 2026. Margins are the old SoftwareHouse gross-profit snapshot (provisional). The 2.75% + EGP 3 card rate is a discussed, unconfirmed scenario, not our contract.
Bullion: untouched
0.05% of segment gross profit (about EGP 20k on EGP 39.3M). Customers pay cash or InstaPay: only 22 of 3,894 bullion invoices used a card.
Royal Gold jewelry: absorbs it
about EGP 1.19M of gross profit at 2.75% + EGP 3 (4.38% of the segment's GP). Worst pocket: Madinty jewelry, 6.04% of GP.
Royal Silver jewelry
Up to EGP 68k (3.60% of GP), an upper bound. The card, InstaPay and wallet split can't be read from the old data.
| Segment | Revenue | Cash | InstaPay | Card | GP | Card fee @ 2.75% + 3 |
|---|
| RG bullion | EGP 379.8M | 367.6M | 11.3M | 0.7M | 39.3M | 20,299 (0.05%) |
| RG jewelry | EGP 205.8M | 147.0M | 14.7M | 43.2M | 27.3M | 1,192,934 (4.38%) |
| RS jewelry | EGP 3.35M | 1.1M | n/a | 2.35M* | 1.89M | up to 68,235 (3.60%) |
*Whole non-card-cash leg treated as card. Cash is net of change and scrap trade-in. The flat EGP 3 is negligible on Royal Gold tickets (0.01%).
The trade-off, stated plainly. Taking jewelry card and wallet payments through the POS into company accounts costs real money: about EGP 1.19M of Royal Gold jewelry gross profit at 2.75% + EGP 3 (unconfirmed rate). Bullion barely notices (0.05%). We are choosing to pay it. The business already runs mostly on cash and InstaPay, and that has a price too.
Today's informal rail: InstaPay on personal accounts
- Nothing can be tracked or reconciled automatically.
- It keeps hitting InstaPay limits (EGP 70k per transaction, 120k per day, 400k per month per bank; re-verify).
- One person controls it.
- Fee is small, about 0.1% (min EGP 5, max EGP 20). The cost is control, not the fee.
What the formal route buys
- Tracking: every payment has a provider record.
- Automatic accounting and reconciliation: no data entry.
- No single point of control: company accounts, approvals, limits we set.
- No personal-account limits.
- Fewer human operations: transfers, payouts and bulk payments run by API with approvals, not by one person at a bank or on a personal phone.
Proposal, a first step. Start with some flows formal: POS card and wallet payments into Paymob and Kashier company accounts. Add regular deposits of cash (counted at till close) and InstaPay balances into the formal account, on a schedule. Then see how it goes and expand. We'll see.
2. Payment provider fees
| Item | Rate | Status |
|---|
| Paymob card, in store / online | 2.75% + EGP 3 per successful transaction | Discussed generic rate. UNCONFIRMED as our contract. |
| Paymob standard settlement | next working day (about 24 to 48 working hours) | Cutoff and batching for us unconfirmed. |
| InstaPay and Paymob wallet / IPN collections | about 0.1%, min EGP 5, max EGP 20 per transaction | Owner's figure. InstaPay limits (previously checked, re-verify): EGP 70k per transaction, 120k per day and 400k per month per bank. |
| Paymob payout to bank | 0.1%, min EGP 20, max EGP 200 | Owner's figure. Instant bank arrives within hours; bank card up to 3 working days; Egypt Post next business day before 2 PM. |
| Paymob payout to wallet | 0.8% | Owner's figure. Wallet payouts are instant. |
| Kashier | Quote | Public docs show PSP-managed InstaPay collection (QR, request-to-pay, webhooks). Fees not published. |
Transfer fees are too small to matter on either rail. InstaPay (min EGP 5, max EGP 20) and Paymob payouts both cost next to nothing, so fees are not the argument. The real cost is POS card acquiring (the first table), and what it buys is a formal, trackable business rail instead of a personal one. Paymob instant settlement carries extra fees on top (EGP 150 flat up to 10k, then 0.35% to 1.85% by amount, owner-supplied, not contracted). Open questions: the Accept-to-Payout top-up fee and VAT.
3. Business costs we already carry
| Item | Cost | Notes |
|---|
| Google Workspace, Business Standard | 3 users x about $17 = about $51 / month | Owner's figure, flexible plan; the three of us. An exact invoice figure may follow. |
| Shopify | current plan (The One) | The One alone owns Shopify. |
| Shared platform subscriptions | held by The One | The One owns the shared subscriptions and recharges Royal Gold for its share. Provisional allowances in the books are marked "ESTIMATE, owner to confirm". |
| Platform build & maintenance | Fixed monthly draw via Tarek:
≈ EGP 37,000 / month (≈ $730) | ESTIMATE, TO BE CONFIRMED FROM INVOICES for everything except the AI tools, which are confirmed. It goes through Tarek because I am not yet an official owner.
What it covers (monthly, USD)
- Hetzner server: about $58 (€50)
- Boat (CI and test VMs): about $40 ($20 plan plus top-ups)
- AI development tools: $500 (2 × $200 plus 1 × $100, confirmed by the owner)
- Expo/EAS app builds: about $20
- Cloudflare: about $5
- Apple Developer: about $8 ($99 a year)
- Domains and misc: about $5
- Subtotal about $636, plus a 15% buffer gives about $730, at about EGP 50 per USD (about EGP 37,000)
|
4. RFID pilot (one-off)
Tag prices are a real quote (SoftwareHouse), in EGP. Printer and reader hardware are ESTIMATES, SUPPLIER QUOTES NEEDED: public list prices in USD, ex-VAT, checked 20 Oct 2026.
| Item | Estimate | Source (list price) |
|---|
| Jewelry tag | EGP 10 to 11 each | Quote (SoftwareHouse) |
| Retail tag, reusable | EGP 7.5 each | Quote (SoftwareHouse) |
| Retail tag, one-time | EGP 6.5 each | Quote (SoftwareHouse) |
| Encoder printer | Zebra ZD621R $2,200 to 2,600
ZT411R $3,300 to 3,600 | CDW, PTS Mobile |
| Handheld reader | Zebra RFD40 $950 to 1,330
Chainway C72 about $1,200 | CDW, Asset Infinity |
| Gate reader plus 2 antennas | about $1,750 to 2,700 | Excludes install and cabling. CDW |
| One-store pilot | about $3,200 to 3,900 hardware
+ EGP 5,000 to 5,500 tags
(+ $1,750 to 2,700 for a gate) | 500 jewelry tags at EGP 10 to 11, one ZD621R-class encoder, one handheld. Tags are small money; the hardware is the cost. |
The case is payback, not gadgets. Time saved on every stocktake, count accuracy, and less shrinkage. The pilot measures all three in one store before we commit to more. We do not put a savings number on it until the pilot has run.
