Speaking of spreads looking at the Alby platform option of topping up your account it takes you via another provider to buy sats and it looks like about 1% fee over market rate.

It was hard to exactly calculate the margin in part because price is now quite volatile.
Alby looks like a very professionally presented platform but also definitely more expensive than some of the alternatives.

There's sure to be a place in the market for many different styles of wallet and more competition is healthy.

Solomonsatoshi

lightning

Introducing Subaccounts in Alby Hub

0xbitcoiner

Oh thought you were comparing running own node vs custodial.

My bad.

Good question. Some variation is expected, but not sure about Alby specifically. Could be many factors. Maybe they have less channels, less efficient routes. Also depends who or what you zap.

It's a fair question, but the answer is likely multifactorial. It's less straightforward than comparing spread rates / prices / fees at exchanges for example where it's just a business decision from the top down.