Top 4 Wise alternatives: compare fees, features & benefits

If you run an online business selling to international customers, you'll need a way to easily collect payments in multiple currencies and transfer funds across borders to pay suppliers or staff. Whilst Wise may be one of your options, you may like to consider its alternatives to see which one suits your needs best. 

What is Wise?

Wise is a UK-based financial technology company focused on simplifying global money transfers. Its platform is designed to help consumers and businesses send funds overseas easily at a low cost.

For businesses, Wise’s products include:

• Multi-currency accounts

• Virtual debit cards

• Batch international transfers

• Accounting software integrations

With a Wise multi-currency business account, customers can accept and hold payments in nine currencies and transfer funds to over 70 countries at competitive rates. Additional payment options are available for vital markets. 

Best known for supporting consumers and micro-businesses, Wise offers a simple and fast but basic service at low costs.

The top alternatives to Wise 

Here are the top alternatives to Wise.

• Airwallex: Founded in 2015, Airwallex is a global financial platform to collect, hold, convert and send multi-currency payments, designed for businesses only.

• Payoneer: A payments platform designed for marketplace sellers and freelancers to collect, hold and send payments.

• PayPal: A well-established payment gateway that’s been operating globally for over 20 years. eCommerce brands use it to process payments from credit cards, debit cards, and bank transfers.

• Revolut: Established in 2015, a UK-based financial technology company offering digital financial services to NZ consumers.

• Western Union: This American company offers an easy way for businesses and individuals to send money physically and online.

Compare the top 4 alternatives to Wise

Why choose Airwallex over Wise?

What questions should I ask when choosing alternative providers to Wise?

Here are the top 10 most important questions for you to consider when choosing an alternative to Wise. Use these as a handy guide when doing your research.

• What are the transaction fees?

• What is the currency exchange markup?

• Are there any account set up or management fees?

• How extensive is the geographical coverage?

• What currencies can be held in your business account?

• What funds management services do you provide?

• What security measures do you have in place?

• What integration capabilities do you offer?

• Do you provide dedicated account management support?

• Do you offer corporate and employee cards?

Conclusion

Airwallex and Wise are both known for offering competitive cross-border money solutions for businesses. 

For global reach, Airwallex is hard to beat. With a multi-currency business account, businesses can accept and hold 23 currencies and handle transactions to 150+ countries. With Airwallex, customers enjoy 0% international transaction fees to 110+ countries using our local payment rails.⁶  Wise only supports holding 9 currencies and global payout coverage to 70 countries with fee charges for international payments. 

Our verdict? Wise offers simple, easy, low-cost global money transfers for consumers and smaller businesses, but larger enterprises may struggle.

Airwallex is a fast, cost-effective international money transfer service. It supports more currencies, software integrations and offers important services like account management, online payments and expense management.

Consider Airwallex for an end-to-end financial solution built to solve all kinds of cross-border payment challenges. 

Sources & references

1. https://www.payoneer.com/about/pricing/#pay-your-supplier

2. https://www.paypal.com/nz/enterprise/payment-methods

3. https://www.paypal.com/nz/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees

4. https://www.revolut.com/business/accept-payments/

5. https://www.revolut.com/en-NZ/our-pricing-plans/

6. https://wise.com/nz/pricing/business/send-money

7. https://wise.com/nz/pricing/business/receive

8. https://www.westernunion.com/nz/en/home.html

Disclaimer: We wrote this article in Q4 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]. Airwallex (New Zealand) Limited is registered on the NZ Financial Services Provider Register (FSPR) with number FSP1001602. All product timelines are provisional only and subject to change.