How We Compare

The one number that matters: total cost

A transfer charges you in two ways at once — a visible upfront fee, and a hidden exchange-rate margin: the gap between the rate you are given and the real mid-market rate. A headline "no fee" means little if the margin is wide. So we reduce every option to a single figure:

Total cost = the upfront fee + the exchange-rate margin, expressed as a percentage of the amount sent.

Where the numbers come from

• The mid-market benchmark. We take the mid-market (interbank) rate for a currency pair as the neutral reference — the same number you see on Google or Reuters.
• Provider quotes. We compare each provider's effective rate and stated fee against that benchmark to derive the margin and the all-in cost.
• Published pricing. Fee schedules, currency coverage and account features come from each provider's own site, cross-checked when they change.

Live comparisons vs editorial tables

Some of our tools quote live: you enter an amount and corridor, and our cost engine ranks providers by total cost for that specific transfer, cheapest first. Our written guides and account comparisons use the same logic but present it editorially — grounded, dated figures and qualitative labels — because fees and rates move and a static number goes stale.

This is why we favour ranges and "as of" dates over false precision, and why we tell you to confirm the current figure on the provider's site before you commit.

How we rank and label

Rankings follow total cost for the use case in question, then practical factors a price alone misses — payout speed, the currencies a provider actually supports locally, hedging tools, and account features. Where one option is not simply "cheapest" but "best for large transfers" or "best for marketplace payouts," we say so, because the right choice depends on how you move money.

Limits and independence

We do not capture every provider, promotional rate or one-off discount, and first-transfer promos are treated as one-offs rather than the ongoing price. Nothing in our ranking is for sale — see our advertising disclosure and editorial policy. If you believe a figure is wrong, our corrections policy explains how to flag it.