There is a clear overall winner when comparing Skrill vs Wise. Learn why Wise is better than Skrill by comparing personal and business services, fees, supported countries and trust.
Skrill
Overall score:
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Wise
Overall score:
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Personal Features
Business Benefits
Fees & Exchange Rates
Ease of Use
Support & Countries
Trust & Transparency
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Skrill gives individuals from different countries an easy means to carry out international money transfers.
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Wise provides a simple easy to use international money transfer service with digital wallet capabilities. Their digital wallet, or Borderless account also gives the individual local banking details in 6+ currencies including, EUR, SGD, NZD, USD, GBP and AUD. Their Wise Borderless debit card backs on to their Borderless digital wallet allowing you to spend directly out of your multi-currency account balances.
Wise is a winner by far as Wise offers much more to the individual than Skrill. Wise offers personal debit card’s optimized for travel. Their multi-currency Borderless account, with local banking details beats Skrill’s simple digital wallet solution. Skrill does have one feature that Wise doesn’t offer. Skrill’s digital wallet allows their customers to pay for online products and services. Skrill customers can also buy crypto currencies. But with Wise’s debit card, customers can purchase foreign products and services cheaply anywhere in the world.
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Businesses from different countries may benefit by using Skrill money transfer and payment services.
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In addition to the services Wise offers the individual, there are some features only available for a business. Unfortunately, as Wise is online only, a business customer does not have support with currency fluctuations and trends. Wise does however offer easy to use transactional foreign currency receipts and payments.
Scheduled transfers is a recently added feature. This can reduce admin for those standard monthly, weekly payments to suppliers and staff. A sufficient balance in the Business Borderless account is required. Wise will remind the account owner to make sure there is sufficient funds in the multi-current account. What is not supported is standing orders from a business bank account through Wise. This may mean that businesses need to alter their business structure to ensure continuous sufficent Borderless account funding.
Wise is better than Skrill for small businesses. Wise allows customers to batch pay overseas suppliers, receiving funds like a local in 6 currencies and their business debit card backs on to the borderless account. Another advantage of Wise is the accounting integration with multiple solutions such as Xero and Quickbooks.
Where Skrill has the slight advantage is their online seller partnership with seller platforms like Wix, Shopify and WooCommerce. Consumers can pay at checkout with the Skrill wallet. Revenue can be deposited directly into your Skrill account. However, this alone cannot compete with Wise’s full range of business services. For businesses, Wise is the better option.
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Skrill fees vary based on where you live as well as the Skrill service you use. The corresponding tables highlight fees for a few popular countries. In summary, Skrill's exchange rate fees are very high compared to it's competitors. Even sending in between Skrill accounts has a very high fee. Based on money transfer fees alone, it would be worth considering a cheaper company for basic international money transfers.
| Country | Method | Fees |
| USA | Local methods (ACH, wire transfer, bank transfer) | 0% |
| USA | Global methods (Visa, Mastercard, Paysafecard) | 0% |
| UK | Local methods (bank transfer, Neteller wallet, Paysafecash) | 1% |
| UK | Global methods (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Diners Club) | 1% |
| Country | Method | Fees |
| USA | Wire transfer | 0% |
| UK | Bank transfer or SWIFT | £4.76 |
| UK | Visa | 7.5% |
| India | SWIFT | INR 415.60 |
Skrill provides a prepaid Visa card for US customers and a Skrill prepaid Mastercard for customers from the EEA.
Application fee for the Skrill Prepaid Mastercard - €10.
Annual fee for the Skrill Prepaid Mastercard - €10.
Skrill ATM withdrawal fee for the Prepaid Mastercard - 1.75% of the withdrawal amount.
Skrill transaction fee for the Skrill Prepaid Mastercard - Free in-store and online purchases.
| Country | Send money | Receive money |
| The US | Free | Free |
| The UK | To bank account - free Skrill to Skrill - 1.5% | Free |
If you don't use your Skrill account for 12 consecutive months, Skrill applies a monthly €5 or its currency equivalent fee on your account.
When Skrill carries out transactions that involve currency conversion, it applies a 3.99% margin/markup on its wholesale exchange rates.
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Wise offers the real time exchange rate at the time of your transfer. Therefore fees are visible in addition to the transfer amount. The fee structure is complex as it differs depending on the currencies you are sending from and to. Fees also apply to the type of Borderless account transaction. Fees can also apply on the use of the Wise Borderless debit card. Fees are briefly summarised below. Read the detailed TransferWise review for more details on Wise fees.
| Wise Service | Wise fee |
| Simple International Money Transfer | 0.4% - 2% Varies on currency and payment type |
| Adding to Wise Borderless account | 0.4% - 0.5% |
| Converting between Borderless account | 0.3% - 0.6% |
| Sending money out of Borderless account | Less than 0.1% in most cases |
| Borderless Account Debit Card | No fee for card issuance Fee free cash withdrawal limit of US$250, 2% thereafter Zero cost on spend from existing currency balance, 0.24 - 3.69% fee if there is no existing balance |
Wise has lower fees for currency conversion than Skrill. Skrill’s 3.9% currency conversion fee is applied when withdrawing funds from the Skrill wallet to a bank account in a different currency. 3.9% is a very big fee.
Wise’s currency conversion fees vary depending on the currencies being converted. Generally you are looking at between 0.5% and 1%. It’s pretty clear why Skrill can’t compete against Wise for fees and exchange rates. If you are not dependent on Skrill’s online seller integration, Wise is the better option for sending money internationally.
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Sign up and account verification - The signing up process can be made simpler. In addition, several Skrill reviews on Trustpilot, Apple App Store and Google Play store complain about encountering problems with the verification process - with some users having to go through it repeatedly with no success.
Phone transfers - As of now, you can not set up transfers over the phone.
Skrill money transfer time - Transfers from one Skrill account to another can go through almost instantly. However, withdrawing funds from your Skrill account to your local bank account might take 4 - 5 business days. Bank account transfers carried out through Skrill can take 2 - 3 business days, or more.
Skrill app - Skrill provides apps for Apple and Android users. However, several Skrill reviews on Google Play Store and Apple App Store highlight problems with the apps. Not being able to deposit funds seems to be a common concern.
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The Wise app design and user experience of their technology is great with simple, intuitive processes.
Registration - Fast and easy account creation
ID verification - Instant in some countries
Transfer speed - It can be instantaneous in some countries. Fast payments to Wise comes at an additional cost.
Minimum transfer amount - $1
Mobile app - Simple and easy to use. Probably the best designed app of the international money transfer companies.
Payment options - Wise has the broadest range of payment options. Local bank transfer, debit / credit card and country specific solutions such as POLi.
Both Skrill and Wise are easy to use by and large. Both offer multiple payment options and payout options. Wise user experience across it’s website and apps are superior to Skrills. Skrill’s money transfer speed is slow in comparison to Wise. Wise’s payouts or transfers can be at times instantaneous.
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Skrill provides services in most countries other than Afghanistan, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, North Korea, North Sudan, South Sudan and Syria.
Gambling-related transactions are restricted in the U.S., Turkey, Israel, Malaysia and China.
Skrill gets a terrible score on Trustpilot of 1.2 out of 10.
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Wise’s supported countries vary with different services having different supported customer countries and destination countries. These are detailed in the TransferWise Countries and Currencies article and is summarized below.
Send from - 23 countries plus the Europe SEPA countries
Send to - Over 60 currencies
Borderless account and debit card - Over 6 countries can sign up to their Borderless services.
Wise and Skrill offer support for a large number of currencies. Wise offers support for more destination currencies and registration countries. When it comes to customer support, Skrill reviews show a large number of customer complaints. This is not a good sign for good customer support and these publicly poor customer reviews are not being addressed.
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Skrill supported currencies - Use Skrill to send money in more than 40 currencies.
Skrill restricted countries - Afghanistan, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, North Korea, North Sudan, South Sudan and Syria.
Skrill restricted countries for gambling-related transactions - China, Israel, Malaysia, Turkey and the U.S.
Skrill customer service - Skrill provides multilingual customer support via email and over the phone.
Multilingual website - You can use the Skrill website and apps in different languages.
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Wise is fully regulated by the FCA and their customer funds are segregated from their business banking activities.
Wise is rated on TrustPilot as Excellent. Unfortunately there have been some poor reviews on TrustPilot indicating sudden account closures with funds being returned with no explanation.
Wise continues to raise capital through private funding. This could be a concern for the future when the shareholders are looking for aggressive growth and / or a return on their investment.
Wise has more trust and transparency when compared to Skrill. Within Skrill’s FAQ they do clearly state Skrill’s large exchange rate margin. However, within the app this is not so transparent. Wise is very clear on offering the mid market exchange rate and the additional fees on top. Wise is quite transparent. Unfortunately, you will not know the fee for Wise money transfer until you use their Send Calculator. Fees vary between destination currencies.
Unfortunately Skrill’s trust is low as is evident in Skrill customer reviews on TrustPilot, Google Play Store and Apple Store.
WinnerFor international money transfers, Wise is the clear winner when comparing Wise and Skrill. Wise offers more comprehensive services for the individual and businesses. Their fees are much lower than Skrill which is reason enough alone to choose Wise over Skrill.
Skrill does have unique features which may draw consumers such as their payment wallet. Much like PayPal, consumers can pay for goods and services using their wallet with merchants who accept payments via the Skrill wallet. Merchants can integrate Skrill into their checkout to attract Skrill customers for ease of payments while protecting their financial details.
If you are a merchant you may choose to integrate with Skrill. Just be aware of the high currency conversion fees. Merchants should consider attaching a Wise Borderless account to their Skrill account to avoid the high currency conversion fees.
