Pricing
A subscription for the software. Nothing on the trade.
Nelum charges companies to use the platform and takes no percentage of what they buy or sell. Verification, the document record and the audit trail are on every tier, including the free one.
Four decisions behind these prices
Each of these costs us money. Each is load-bearing for what the platform claims to be.
We take no percentage of your trade
Nelum is not a party to your transaction, sets no price, holds no funds and is not a broker. Being paid out of the value of a deal we are not in would contradict every one of those positions — so we are not paid that way. What you trade is between you and your counterparty.
Safety is never a paid feature
Verification, sanctions screening, the document record, versioning and the full audit trail are on every tier including the free one. A due-diligence control that only paying customers get would be worth nothing — a record only helps if every counterparty has one too.
Seats price authority, not headcount
Viewer seats are unlimited on every tier, permanently. Charging for visibility is how companies end up sharing one login, which destroys the very audit trail this platform exists to keep. What is priced is the seats that can act for the company.
The free tier is genuinely usable
A two-person cooperative can complete real trades on it and never hit a wall that touches the integrity of their record. What you eventually outgrow is commercial reach, not trustworthiness.
Three tiers
What separates them is commercial reach — how much you can list, whether you can trade privately, whether you can appoint agents. Nothing that protects you or your counterparty sits behind a paywall.
Verified
Cooperatives, small producers, occasional traders
Free
No card required. Free permanently — not a trial.
- ·Business verification and sanctions screening
- ·Representative credentials, publicly checkable
- ·Full document space with versioning and audit trail
- ·Post to the public marketplace
- ·Offer against any published intent
- ·Engage laboratories, vaults and carriers on an order
- ·Unlimited viewer seats
- Two acting seats
- Capped live listings
- One-off contracts only
Trading
Most companiesActive traders, exporters and mid-size buyers
Subscription
Per company, per month. Pricing announced shortly.
- ·Everything in Verified
- ·Unlimited live listings
- ·Private opportunities to named connections
- ·Mandates — appoint agents, or act for other companies
- ·Recurring contracts with full delivery schedules
- ·Faster verification queue
- ·Verification check fee waived
- ·Email support
- Five acting seats included, then per seat
Desk
Refiners, agencies and trading houses
Custom
Annual agreement. Talk to us about seats and volume.
- ·Everything in Trading
- ·Pooled acting seats across the company
- ·Named verification reviewer
- ·Priority service engagements
- ·Named support contact
- ·Onboarding for your team
Subscription pricing is being finalised ahead of launch. Companies verified before tiers begin keep unlimited listings for twelve months — we are not going to change the terms under anyone who joined early.
What counts as a seat
A seat is priced when the person can act for the company. Watching costs nothing, on any tier, permanently — because charging for visibility produces shared logins, and shared logins make an audit trail meaningless.
Owner / Director
Everything, including accepting an offer into a binding order and confirming fulfilment.
Acting seat
Trader
Post intents, make and withdraw offers, negotiate. Cannot bind the company.
Acting seat
Logistics
Work the shipment and documents on an order, without sight of the commercial terms.
Acting seat
Viewer
Read what the company is doing. Cannot post, offer, commit or confirm anything.
Free, unlimited
What you are actually paying for
Checking companies costs money. Every verification is reviewed by a person, screening runs against sanctions and enforcement lists, and documents are held under retention obligations measured in years rather than months.
The subscription pays for that, and for the software around it. It does not buy a better price, a favourable introduction, or a lighter check — none of which are for sale, because a marketplace that sold any of them would be worth less to every company on it.
Nelum is not a bank, broker, dealer, escrow agent or regulated financial institution, provides no financial, investment, legal or tax advice, and is not a party to any trade conducted on the platform.
Questions about cost
- Why no transaction fee? Every marketplace charges one.
- Because most marketplaces are a party to the transaction and Nelum is not. We do not set the price, hold the funds, take title, or introduce the parties as a broker would. Being paid a percentage of a deal we are not in would make that position untenable — and the position is worth more to you than the fee would be to us.
- Is the free tier a trial?
- No. It has no expiry and no card requirement. It exists because a marketplace where only the paying companies are verified would be a marketplace with an unverified half.
- What counts as an acting seat?
- A person who can do something on behalf of the company — post an intent, make an offer, accept one, work an order, confirm fulfilment. People who only need to see what is happening are free and unlimited.
- Is there a fee for verification itself?
- Verification has a real cost: documents are checked and identities confirmed. Where a check fee applies it is set out in the platform before you submit anything, it is charged for the check rather than the outcome, and it is waived on paid tiers.
- Does a faster verification queue mean a lighter check?
- No, and it never will. Paid tiers move sooner through the queue; the check itself is identical. A platform selling an easier KYB would be selling the one thing that makes the rest of it worth anything.
- What happens to my record if I stop subscribing?
- It stays. Retention obligations under anti-money-laundering law run for at least five years regardless of what you pay us, and completed orders remain readable to both parties.
- Do you charge the buyer or the seller?
- Neither, for trading. Both sides subscribe as companies for the tier that fits how they use the platform, and neither pays anything that depends on what the other one does.
Start on the free tier
Register, verify, and trade. Move up when your listings or your team outgrow it — not when your record needs to be trustworthy, because that part is already included.