Grey vs Chipper Cash: which dollar account should you use?

What are Grey and Chipper Cash each for?

Both give a Nigerian a set of US account details to put on an invoice, and they're built around different jobs. Grey is a receiving account with its own conversion and payout rails. Chipper Cash is a payments app that has a dollar account inside it, alongside sending money across Africa and a card.

• Grey gives you US account details plus published GBP and EUR deposit details, a conversion screen, and payouts to a Nigerian bank and to several other African currencies.
• Chipper Cash gives you a US dollar virtual account and a dollar card, inside an app whose main business is sending money between African countries.

Both ask for a BVN or a NIN before the dollar account opens, so neither is quicker to get started on than the other.

What does it cost to receive dollars with Grey and Chipper Cash?

Grey takes 0.8% of an incoming ACH payment, with a $2 floor and a $10 ceiling. Chipper Cash takes 0.75% with no ceiling at all, and charges ₦5,000 once to open the account and $1.50 every month to keep it. Those last two are what decide it for most people.

Every figure above came off Grey's published deposit fees and Chipper Cash's own USD virtual account FAQ on 12 November 2026. Grey dates its fee pages, which makes them easy to audit. Chipper Cash's help pages carry no date, so check yours in the app before you rely on a number.

Which one is cheaper at your payment size?

Chipper Cash is cheaper on the fee line up to about $1,333, and Grey is cheaper above it. That's the point where Grey's $10 ceiling bites and Chipper Cash's percentage keeps climbing. On a $10,000 payment the gap is $10 against $75.

Below that crossover the win is small enough to disappear. On $1,000 Chipper Cash saves you 50 cents, and the account costs ₦5,000 to open and $1.50 a month to hold. So on the fee alone Chipper Cash is ahead for small payments, and once the entry charge and the monthly charge are counted it takes a long run of small payments to get that money back.

The same arithmetic across six apps, with the crossover worked out at three payment sizes, is in the best USD account apps in Nigeria, compared.

Can either account receive a wire from outside the US?

Grey can, and prices it at a flat $20 by Fedwire. Chipper Cash says in its own words that the account "does not support swift payments. It only supports ACH transfers". ACH is the US domestic transfer system and SWIFT is the network a bank outside the US uses, so a client in Texas can pay a Chipper Cash account and a client in Germany can't.

The same Chipper Cash page also lists a $25 flat wire fee, which doesn't sit easily with the sentence above it. Ask Chipper Cash in writing before you give a non-US client those details, and get the answer in the chat rather than over the phone.

One more Chipper Cash restriction is worth knowing before you plan around it: the account "is not intended for receiving transfers from Nigerian USD domiciliary accounts", so moving your own dollars across from a Nigerian bank isn't what it's for.

Why would a Chipper Cash dollar deposit sit pending for three days?

Because Chipper Cash reviews who sent it. Its own FAQ says "all transactions will remain pending for a period of up to 3 days" while it asks you to "share information and supporting documents showing the relationship between the sender and you". At the end of that the money is either released or returned to the sender.

This is the part of the comparison a fee table can't show you, and it's the one most likely to cost you a client. Three things follow from it.

• Keep the paperwork ready. A signed contract, an invoice with the sender's name on it, or a platform payout receipt is what the review is asking for.
• Expect it on named platforms too. Chipper Cash lists payroll, business and first-party payments as supported, and names Upwork, Deel, Payoneer, Gusto, Fiverr and TikTok, and the hold still applies.
• Don't promise a client same-week delivery on a first payment. A return to source means the client has to send it again, and that conversation is worse than any fee.

What does each one charge to turn dollars into naira?

Grey charges 1% to convert dollars to naira, capped at $6, then ₦35 to send the naira to your Nigerian bank. Chipper Cash does not publish a conversion figure. So Grey is the one of the two you can price in advance, and the whole journey on $1,000 comes to about $14 and ₦35 at Grey.

Grey has one limit on that screen that nobody writes about: a conversion has to be at least $1 and at most $10,000. If you're moving more than $10,000 at once, you'll be doing it in more than one go.

The fee is also the smaller number here. A 1% conversion fee on $1,000 is $10, and every further one per cent of difference between two apps' naira rates is another $10. So quote the same amount in both apps and compare the naira you would actually receive, rather than reading the fee line on its own.

Where does Daya Borders fit?

Daya Borders takes 0% on an incoming dollar payment, with no cap and nothing to open the account, against 0.8% capped at $10 at Grey and 0.75% with no cap plus ₦5,000 to open at Chipper Cash. There are no fees at all on it today, and that's today's position rather than a promise about next year.

It gives US account details in your own name and a real euro bank account, so dollars and euros both land without a cut being taken. You can hold the dollars and convert when you choose, and send out to another Daya Borders user, a Nigerian bank account, an international USD account or a stablecoin wallet. Upwork, Deel and Payoneer are named on its own page as platforms it receives from.

Daya Borders won't always sit at the top of the live comparison above. A published fee is printed on a page and you can check it before you commit, where a rate moves while you're reading.

Where Daya Borders isn't the pick: there's no card on it yet, so if a dollar card is the reason you're choosing, Grey and Chipper Cash both have one and Daya Borders doesn't. Grey also gives you GBP deposit details and pays out in several African currencies, where Daya Borders covers dollars and euros. And if your client will only send a wire from a bank outside the US, a Nigerian domiciliary account against a fintech dollar account is the comparison to read.

What do the dollar cards cost?

Both charge, in different shapes. Grey charges for the card itself and for loading it. Chipper Cash charges on every payment you make with it.

• Grey: $5 once to create the card, $1 every time you load it, nothing monthly, and 2% plus $0.50 when a dollar card pays a merchant priced in another currency.
• Chipper Cash: $0.90 flat on every successful USD card transaction, and ₦250 when one is declined.

Which of those is cheaper depends entirely on how you use a card. On a $7 streaming subscription Chipper Cash's $0.90 is nearly 13% of the payment, while Grey's $1 load fee covers a whole top-up you can spend across several subscriptions. On one large purchase a year, Chipper Cash's flat 90 cents is the cheaper of the two. Count your own card payments for a month before you choose.

Which one should you use?

It comes down to what you are being paid and how, and the two apps separate cleanly.

• Paid more than about $1,333 at a time, or paid by wire from outside the US: Grey, because the $10 ceiling and the $20 Fedwire are both published and Chipper Cash's percentage has no ceiling.
• Already a Chipper Cash user who mostly sends money around Africa and wants a dollar card in the same app: Chipper Cash, and budget the ₦5,000 and the $1.50 a month as part of the price.
• Mainly worried about what is taken out of each payment, and paid in dollars or euros: Daya Borders, which takes 0% on the way in and has no opening or monthly charge.

If you've already decided against one of them, the longer lists are in Grey alternatives in Nigeria and Chipper Cash alternatives in Nigeria.

Whichever you pick, open the fee page on the day and check it against what the app quotes you. Fees on both of these changed this year.