Adyen vs Airwallex: compare on fees, features and benefits

If you're an established business looking to unlock that next level of growth, you’ll need an end-to-end payments system that can scale and evolve with your unique needs. Both Adyen and Airwallex offer payment gateways with various capabilities, but which solution is right for your business? Read on to find out how Airwallex compares against Adyen on price, features and benefits. 

What is Adyen?

Adyen is a global payments platform allowing businesses to accept payments online, on mobile, and at the point of sale. Founded in Amsterdam in 2006, Adyen’s initial focus was providing advanced analytics tools to help businesses optimise their payment processes. Adyen went on to build a full-stack payment platform to overcome the limitations of legacy systems. 

What is Airwallex? 

Founded in 2015, Airwallex is an all-in-one financial platform to simplify global business management and facilitate international expansion. Features include:

• A Core API to empower businesses to programmatically manage FX and payouts, issue multi-currency cards, and more

• Embedded finance capabilities to help users unlock new revenue streams and as a provider of global financial services

• Multi-currency accounts to collect, hold and transact balances in 23+ major currencies and accept payments from 180+ currencies

• Fast, cross-border payments with no transaction fees

• End-to-end tools for expense management

• Powerful integrations with popular ecosystem apps

Compare Adyen with Airwallex

Adyen fees explained

For businesses looking to take on Adyen’s standard API and embedded finance offering, a blended pricing model applies.¹ 

Other businesses may fit into Adyen’s Interchange++ model, which is based on a formula of a fixed processing fee of €0.11 plus a payment method fee (e.g. +0.6% for Mastercard).²

Airwallex fees explained

For customers looking to benefit from our advanced custom API and embedded finance tools, Airwallex offers bespoke pricing to help businesses get great value for their needs.

Other businesses will either fit our ‘Explore’, ‘Grow’ or ‘Accelerate’ tiers. Our most accessible tier, ‘Explore’ is $29/month or $0/month if the user fits a modest fee waiver. From this starting tier, users can;

• Collect and hold funds in 23 currencies with unique local bank details at no extra cost

• Access interbank FX rates and a 0.5% margin to convert between 11 major currencies  

• Make no-fee global transfers to 180+ countries via local payment rails

Compare additional features between Adyen and Airwallex

Beyond core payments, Adyen and Airwallex provide supplementary tools to help companies transact globally:

Core API: Airwallex’s powerful and flexible APIs can help you scale. With 54M+ API requests handled per day, ​​access high-quality developer tools, straightforward documentation, and cloud native solutions that easily integrate with your existing workflows. Our API’s can be tailored to suit the most complex requirements, all supported by our world-class technical teams. Adyen offers API endpoints and plugins for leading eCommerce platforms, ERP and POS systems4.³ 

Embedded Finance Capabilities: While Adyen offers a standard embedded finance framework for payments and issuing, Airwallex aims to cover the ecosystem of financial operations for a global business. Monetise your own financial products by offering your customers global treasury, banking-as-a-service and payments for platforms. ​​We offer everything you need to embed a bespoke experience within your platform, with your branding. 

Risk management: Adyen’s RevenueProtect tool leverages data across its network to block fraud and minimise chargebacks in real-time. Airwallex allows setting velocity limits, blocklists and purchase restrictions to catch suspicious activity early.

Support: Adyen follows a premium onboarding and technical account management model for enterprise clients only. Airwallex offers extensive customer support to all customers and dedicated account managers to eligible customers, while offering an extended support team to our enterprise customers. 

Final thoughts: Adyen vs Airwallex

Adyen is a good product for payments. But if you’re an enterprise business seeking an advanced Core API and embedded finance tools that create endless growth opportunities, Airwallex might be a better choice. 

For small and medium businesses rapidly expanding worldwide, Airwallex may also offer more flexible and affordable global payment capabilities, and a larger product suite (including a powerful business account and spend management features) that can help you take control of your financial operations end-to-end.

While Adyen remains a compelling payments provider, Airwallex is uniquely positioned to help enterprise and SME businesses grow without friction. 

Sources: 

For more information on Airwallex, visit Airwallex Business Account and Airwallex pricing.

1. https://www.adyen.com/en_AU/payouts

2.  https://www.adyen.com/en_AU/pricing

3.  https://docs.adyen.com/api-explorer/

Disclaimer: We wrote this article in Q3 2024. The information was based on our own online research and we were not able to manually test each tool or provider. The information is provided for educational purposes only and a reader should consider the specific requirements of their business when evaluating providers. This research is reviewed every six months. If you would like to request an update, feel free to contact us at [email protected].

This information doesn’t take into account your objectives, financial situation, or needs. If you are a customer of Airwallex Pty Ltd (AFSL No. 487221) it is important for you to read the Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) for the Direct Services, which is available here.