Checkout vs Airwallex: Compare on fees, features and benefits

In the competitive landscape of online payment solutions, businesses often find themselves comparing Checkout and Airwallex. Both platforms offer robust features like multi-currency support and global coverage, but they differ in pricing transparency and additional features and services. This blog delves into these differences, helping you decide which platform aligns best with your business needs.

What is Checkout?

Checkout is a global payment solutions provider that offers a comprehensive platform for processing online payments. It supports domestic and international card payments, multi-currency settlements, and provides various eCommerce plugin integrations. Checkout also offers custom pricing and a range of payment methods, making it a versatile choice for businesses seeking robust payment processing capabilities.

What is Airwallex? 

Airwallex is a comprehensive financial platform that simplifies international business operations and accelerates global expansion. It offers multi-currency business accounts, enabling businesses worldwide to open local currency accounts in 60+ countries, receive and hold funds in 23+ major currencies, and accept online payments from 180+ countries through 160+ payment methods. Beyond payment acceptance, Airwallex offers cost-effective transfers, spend management tools, FX, and card issuance, facilitating seamless financial operations for businesses globally to collect, manage, and spend funds.

Compare Checkout and Airwallex

Use our comparison table to see how Checkout measures up against Airwallex on fees, features and benefits.

Compare key features between Checkout and Airwallex

Checkout and Airwallex both offer online payment gateways, domestic and international card payments, custom pricing, multi-currency settlement, and no-code plugins. However, there are some differences in their offerings:

• Pricing: Airwallex provides specific pricing for domestic (1.3% + £0.20), international (3.15% + £0.20), and EEA card payments (2.4% + £0.20), while Checkout does not publicly disclose its pricing.

• Multi-currency Business Account: Airwallex offers a multi-currency business account with local bank details in 60+ markets, whereas it is unclear if Checkout offers this directly to merchants.

• Global Collection Coverage: Airwallex supports 180+ currencies, while Checkout supports 150+ currencies.

• Payment Methods: Airwallex supports major card networks and 160+ local payment methods, whereas Checkout supports 39 payment methods.

• Payouts: Checkout supports 100+ currencies while, as a cross-border financial platform, Airwallex enables customers to convert 60+ currencies at the interbank rate and 100+ priced live at the spot market rate.

• Spend Management: Airwallex includes spend management features like bill pay, expense management, custom approvals and controls, and employee reimbursement, which Checkout does not offer.

• eCommerce Integrations: While Airwallex offers custom API solutions, it also caters to the plug-and-play market which might be more appropriate for fast go-live for smaller businesses. Both providers support Shopify, Magento, and WooCommerce, but Checkout also integrates with SAP and has additional partners. 

Checkout fees, explained 

Checkout does not publicly disclose specific pricing details for its services. For domestic card payments, Checkout does not list a specific fee, whereas Airwallex charges 1.3% plus £0.20. Similarly, for international and EEA card payments, Checkout does not provide public pricing, while Airwallex charges 3.15% plus £0.20 and 2.4% plus £0.20, respectively. 

Checkout offers custom pricing options, similar to Airwallex, and supports multi-currency settlements. However, Checkout does not publicly disclose its FX conversion fee, whereas Airwallex charges a 2% fee or a 1% foreign currency settlement fee if settling in like-for-like currencies. 

Airwallex fees, explained

Airwallex offers a transparent fee structure for its payment services with subscription plans starting from £19p/m and designed to suit business needs. 

For domestic card payments, Airwallex charges 1.3% plus £0.20 per transaction. International card payments incur a fee of 3.15% plus £0.20, while EEA card payments are charged at 2.4% plus £0.20. Additionally, Airwallex applies a 2% fee for foreign exchange conversions. 

Airwallex also offers custom pricing options, allowing businesses to tailor their payment solutions to specific needs. These features, combined with competitive pricing, make Airwallex a compelling option for businesses seeking efficient and cost-effective payment solutions.

Compare additional features between Checkout and Airwallex

Checkout and Airwallex both offer robust online payment gateway solutions, but they differ in several key features, particularly in account and payout functionality. Airwallex provides a comprehensive multi-currency business account which enables customers to hold 23+ currencies and receive funds into accounts with local bank details. In terms of pricing transparency, Airwallex lists specific fees for domestic, international, and EEA card payments, whereas Checkout does not publicly disclose its pricing.

Airwallex supports a wider range of payment methods, with major card networks and over 160 local payment methods, compared to Checkout's 39. Both platforms offer dynamic, multi-currency pricing and instant cross-border payouts. For those who require Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) capabilities, Airwallex supports multi-currency checkout for cross-border transactions with Klarna and AfterPay.

Airwallex also offers broader functionality on the spend and send side of payments, making it an end-to-end financial platform. Once businesses have collected funds into Airwallex accounts, they can repurpose those funds to hold, convert and pay out to suppliers. This also includes spend management features like bill pay and expense management, which Checkout lacks.

For eCommerce integrations, both support popular platforms like Shopify, Magento, and WooCommerce, but Checkout also integrates with SAP. Additionally, Airwallex offers accounting integrations with Xero, QuickBooks, and Netsuite to sync bank feeds, expenses and invoices, which are not specified for Checkout. 

Final thoughts: Checkout or Airwallex?

Overall, while both platforms provide global coverage and checkout customisability, Airwallex offers transparent pricing, broader local payment coverage and cross-border support for payment methods like BNPL that do not typically support multi-currency transactions.

However, Airwallex’s strength lies in its additional features in spend management and accounting integrations that may offer more comprehensive solutions for businesses looking for an all-in-one platform.

This means many businesses may consider Airwallex as a more efficient platform for their end-to-end financial operations. With its comprehensive suite of services, Airwallex offers a seamless experience for managing payments, expenses, and currency exchanges all within one app. This integration provides tighter financial control and efficiency, making it an ideal choice for businesses looking to streamline their financial processes. 

In contrast, Checkout lacks publicly available pricing information, which can make it challenging for businesses to assess cost-effectiveness and plan their budgets effectively. To learn more about Airwallex pricing, visit our transparent pricing page.

Sources

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

1. https://www.checkout.com/technology/payment-processing

2. https://www.checkout.com/payment-methods

3. https://www.checkout.com/products/issuing

4. https://www.checkout.com/solutions/international-coverage

5. https://www.checkout.com/partners

 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. If you would like to request an update, feel free to contact us at [email protected].