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Card comparison · August 2026

Kite vs Tria

Tria's virtual card is a $25 a year membership. The Kite Stable Card is free to issue and free to keep, and every rate is published before you install anything.

Get the Kite app See the full comparison

What the card itself costs youKiteTria

Card priceFree$25 a year

Cost to load0.53%0%

Non-USD spend1.8%1% Visa FX

Who holds itYou doYou do

No card fees Virtual and physical 0.53% to load Non-custodial Gas covered 40+ countries for payments

The short answer

Kite vs Tria: the short answer

Tria’s Virtual membership is $25 a year. The Kite Stable Card costs nothing to issue, replace or keep.

Tria is cheaper to move money: 0% to deposit and 1% Visa FX, against our 0.53% and 1.8%.

So it turns on how much you spend abroad. Move the sliders below to see where it flips.

Both are self-custodial. Kite adds published coverage and gas we pay rather than you.

Side by side

Kite vs Tria: fees and features compared

This compares the virtual card on each side, so the two columns are like for like. Every figure comes from Tria's own site and help centre on 31 August 2026, and from Kite's. Nothing here is estimated, and ATM withdrawals are left out because they need a physical card.

	kite	Tria
Card type	Visa debit card. The virtual card issues as soon as your checks clear	Visa, self-custodial. The Virtual membership is a virtual card only. Signature adds a PVC card, Premium a metal one
Card issuance	Free. No fee to issue the virtual card, to replace it or to keep itKite	The membership is the card fee: $25 a year for Virtual, shown at $20 at the time of writing. Signature $109, Premium $250
Monthly or annual fee	FreeKite	$25 a year, billed annually. Tria's own words: “Choose any membership with annual fee, no hidden costs”
Cost to load the card	0.53%	0% deposit fees on 1,000+ coins
Spending in US dollars	No fee	No Tria fee
Spending in another currency	1.8%	0% Tria FX, 1% Visa FX, in Tria's own wording
Network gas fees	Covered, on every supported chainKite	Not covered as such. Tria lists no withdrawal fees on the Virtual tier
Who holds your money	Non-custodial. Multi-party encryption (TSS-MPC), export your key anytime	Self-custodial. Tria describes the wallet and card as self-custodial, with your assets staying in a wallet it does not control
Stablecoins and chains	USDC and USDT across Base, Ethereum, BSC, Polygon, Arbitrum	1,000+ crypto assets across 200+ chains, per Tria's own figures
Where you can sign up	9 countries for the full card: Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia. Stablecoin payments, QR pay and the wallet in 40+ more across Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Africa and the AmericasKite	Not published. The membership page names no countries and gives no eligibility list
Card limits	$50,000 and 50 transactions a day, $990,000 a year	$1M daily transaction limit, minimum spend $0
Cashback and rewards	Exclusive cashback drops on AI spends, conferences, and more.	1.5% cashback on Virtual, 4.5% on Signature, 6% on Premium, plus up to 6% APY on idle funds at the Virtual tier
Apple Pay / Google Pay	Google Pay liveApple Pay Coming soon	Apple Pay and Google Pay compatible

Sources

The differences

Why people switch from Tria to Kite

No annual fee to earn back

Tria's virtual card is $25 a year. The Kite Stable Card is free to issue, replace and keep.

Nine countries you can check before you sign up

Tria's membership page names no countries. Kite publishes nine for the card and 40+ more for payments.

We pay the gas

Both wallets are self-custodial. Kite covers the network gas, so a top-up costs 0.53% and nothing else.

Run your own numbers

Kite vs Tria: what a year costs you

Put in what you actually spend each month. Every rate below is the one Tria and Kite publish themselves, and you can change any assumption we made.

Monthly spend in US dollars

Monthly spend in other currencies

The Kite Stable Card is free to issue. Every card figure here is the virtual card on both sides. Each other card is priced on its virtual card and the plan shown above, so the comparison is like for like rather than against a stripped-back free tier. Every figure is that provider's own.

How this is worked out

Everything here is arithmetic on published rates. No estimates, no scores, and nothing that depends on a number we made up.

Rates. Taken from Tria's own fee page and Kite's, on 31 August 2026: Tria membership and pricing · Tria.
Loading. You have to load enough to cover both what you spend and the FX fee on it, and the load fee is charged on the amount you send rather than the amount that lands. Both are accounted for, so the load line is a little higher than a flat percentage of your spend.
Ranges. Where a provider publishes a range instead of a rate, the slider starts at the midpoint and you can move it anywhere inside the published range.
Rewards and cashback are excluded on both sides. Kite's are not live yet, and the other rates are capped, tiered, or paid in tokens whose value moves, so including them would mean estimating. That is the generous assumption for the other card, not for Kite. If rewards matter most to you, read each provider's own terms.
ATM withdrawals are excluded on both sides. Kite's are not live yet, and every provider here charges for them, so leaving them out is the generous assumption for the other card, not for Kite.
Network gas is excluded from the totals and shown as a line instead, because the amount depends which chain you use. Kite covers it; the others do not.
Which card. Kite issues its card free in either form, so there is nothing to choose on this side. Each other provider is priced on its virtual card and the plan named beside its total, and that price is shown in the tooltip on that line.
Year one. One-off card fees are counted once, in full, in the first year.

Change any assumption above and the totals move with it. What does not move is what the Kite Stable Card costs you to own: nothing to get it, nothing to replace it, nothing to keep it, gas covered, and keys only you hold.

Custody

Who holds your money with Kite and Tria

Tria is self-custodial too, and says your assets stay in a wallet it does not control. With Kite it stays in a wallet only you can open, and you can export the key and walk away whenever you want.

No seed phrase to lose

Multi-party encryption

Your key is split, and never put together in one place. Not even on our servers.

One address, five chains

Base, Ethereum, BSC, Polygon and Arbitrum. Gas is on us.

Getting started

How to get your Kite Stable Card in 3 simple steps

Sign up and verify

Download the app and verify yourself in about two minutes. You need to be 18 or over and living in one of the nine countries Kite serves.

Get your free card

Your virtual Visa is issued instantly and you can order the physical card at the same time. Google Pay works today, and Apple Pay is coming soon.

No issuance or replacement fee

Load it and spend

Move USDC or USDT onto the card for 0.53%. It lands in five to ten minutes and you can spend it anywhere Visa is accepted.

Gas is covered

Questions

Questions about Kite and Tria, answered

How much does a Tria card cost?

Tria's Virtual membership is $25 a year, discounted to $20 at the time of writing. Signature is $109 a year and Premium $250, and both add a physical card to the virtual one. Tria bills these annually rather than once. The Kite Stable Card is free to issue, free to replace and free to keep, with no tier to subscribe to.

Is the Tria card self-custodial?

Yes. Tria describes its wallet and card as self-custodial, with your assets held in a wallet it does not control. Kite is non-custodial too, using multi-party encryption rather than one stored key, which means there is no seed phrase to lose and you can export your key whenever you want.

What is the Tria foreign exchange fee?

Tria's own membership page states 0% Tria FX fees and 1% Visa FX fees, so spending abroad costs you 1%. Kite charges a flat 1.8% on non-dollar spending and nothing at all on US dollar spending. Tria is cheaper on foreign spending; Kite is cheaper on the card itself, which costs nothing a year.

Which countries is the Tria card available in?

Tria does not publish a list. Its membership page names no countries and gives no eligibility criteria, so you find out by signing up. Kite publishes its nine markets openly: Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Australia.

Does Tria charge to top up?

No. Tria lists 0% deposit fees across 1,000+ coins. Kite charges 0.53% to move your balance onto the card and covers the network gas itself, so on a $1,000 load you pay $5.30 and no chain fee on top.

Tria or Kite: which is cheaper?

It depends on how much you spend abroad. Tria has no load fee and 1% foreign spending but a $25 annual membership. Kite has no card fee but 0.53% to load and 1.8% abroad. At low foreign spend Kite comes out ahead; the calculator on this page will show you exactly where that flips.