Comparing Wise vs Revolut is somewhat like apples and oranges. Revolut has a banking licence. Wise does not. Read on to compare their other features and fees for individuals and businesses.
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.
What Wise offers individuals
International money transfers
Borderless multi-currency receiving accounts
Borderless Debit Card - FX optimised debit card
Android and Apple apps
Send money to email address
Scheduled and recurring transfers - sufficiently funded Borderless account required for this to work.
What Wise does not offer individuals
Personal account management
Full support for regular transfers. Currently regular transfers or ‘scheduled transfers’ need to have a Borderless multi-currency account balance. Find out which countries support Wise Borderless account.
Cash pick up or international bill payments
Revolut
50
50
Revolut provides digital banking and international money transfer services for personal customers from different countries.
What Revolut does
International money transfers.
Debit cards.
Unique multi-currency accounts.
Direct debits.
Receive money.
Budgeting tools.
Create Vaults to save money faster.
Access to cryptocurrencies.
Bill splitting.
Revolut Junior Account for children aged 12 to 17.
What Revolut doesn’t do
Personal account managers.
Hedging tools.
Cash pickup.
It's a draw!
Wise and Revolut score evenly across individual services. Both offer travel optimised debit cards, multi-currency accounts, and ‘buckets’ to segregate fund balances from your debit card. There are some differences worth pointing out.
Revolut offers some nifty reporting and budgeting tools that could be useful to individuals. They also offer bill splitting and easy ways to transfer funds amongst other Revolut customers.
Wise’s Borderless account offers local baking details in multiple currencies. Revolut UK’s foreign banking details are located within the UK. (This may cost the sender more!).
Draw
Business Benefits
Wise
56
56
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.
What Wise offers businesses
Batch payments
Xero and Quickbook integration
FX optimised business debit card
Multi-user account access
Regular and scheduled transfers
What Wise for business doesn’t offer
Business account management
Risk management tools
Revolut
56
56
Businesses signing up with Revolut can receive multiple benefits.
What Revolut for business offers
International money transfers.
Unique multi-currency accounts.
Business debit cards.
Automated accounting with Xero, Freeagent and QuickBooks.
Integration with Zapier and Slack.
What Revolut for business doesn’t do
Account managers.
Solutions for online sellers.
Hedging tools.
Mass payments.
It's a draw!
Both companies are pretty evenly matched with their business offering. Both offer SaaS account integration, business debit cards and international money transfers.
For global businesses, they may prefer to leverage Wise’s Borderless to receive funds.
Revolut has a banking licence, this may be more important for business customers.
Neither company offers business account managers.
Draw
Fees & Exchange Rates
Wise
54
54
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 Wise 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
Revolut
12
12
When you use your Revolut card to make international transactions, you could benefit by getting existing interbank rates. Revolut fees depend on the type of account you open and where you live. As you will see to get the best out of Revolut for international transactions, you need to choose a monthly subscription plan to match your forecasted monthly international money transactions volume, and most importantly.. don't use Revolut on the weekends for currency conversions! Read on to see why…
Subscription fees
Region
Account type
Monthly subscription fee
The US
Standard
$0
Premium
$9.99
Metal
$16.99
The UK
Standard
£0
Premium
£6.99
Metal
£12.99
Australia
Standard
$0
Premium
$10.99
Metal
$24.99
Other fees for US customers
Fees for ATM withdrawals
Account type
Fees
Standard
No fee up to $300 per month, then a 2% fee applies.
Premium
No fee up to $600 per month, then a 2% fee applies.
Metal
No fee up to $1,200 per month, then a 2% fee applies.
Fees for international money transfers
Account type
Fees
Standard
No fee up to $6,500 per month, then a 0.5% exchange rate margin applies.
Premium
No fee up to $20,000 per month, then a 0.5% exchange rate margin applies.
Metal
Unlimited free transfers.
Fees for same currency international money transfers
For example, you have an Australian Revolut account but have a USD balance. You may have converted your AUD balance to USD and are holding it in your Revolut multi-currency account. Since early 2021, a new fee is applied. The fee for same currency international money transfers from your Revolut account to a non-Revolut bank account is 0.3% of the transfer amount. The minimum charge is $0.30 and the maximum charge is $8.
Same currency transfers between Revolut customers internationally still does not cost anything.
Revolut exchange rates
Revolut provides interbank exchange rates when processing international money transfers involving major currencies, provided they fall within a customer's monthly allowance limit. Transfers that involve THB (Thailand) and UAH Ukraine) come with markups, as do cryptocurrency exchanges. The markup depends on the type of account you hold.
Fees for foreign exchange outside market hours (weekends)
High-frequency Standard customers
Premium customers
Metal customers
Major currencies
1%
1%
1%
THB and UAH
1.5%
2%
2%
Cryptocurrencies
3%
1.5%
1.5%
Using Revolut on the weekend (GMT), incurs high exchange rate fees of 1%. This is not highlighted very well when signing up and can mean surprise costs for weekend international travellers or travellers on extended trips.
iCompareFX Top Tip: It pays to not use Revolut on the weekends!
Fees for receiving money
You don't have to pay any fees to receive money into your Revolut multi-currency accounts. However, the sender might need to pay intermediary bank fees. For example, a sender transferring EUR from Ireland into your EUR-denominated account in the UK might still need to pay intermediary bank fees. This is because the multi-currency accounts offered by Revolut are physically located in the UK.
Wise wins!
Wise is the clear winner in the Fee’s and Exchange Rates category. Wise has no monthly account fees, and their global money transfer fees remain low with higher monthly money transfer volume’s.
Revolut has monthly fees and fee free exchange rate fee thresholds. Above these thresholds and international money transfers can become expensive compared to Wise. Below these thresholds and Revolut would be the money transfer partner of choice. (Just don’t transfer or spend money on the weekends.)
Winner
Ease of Use
Wise
83
83
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.
Revolut
71
71
What Revolut does well
Sign up process - Create a new account with ease by using the Revolut app.
Payment options - Bank account transfers, debit cards and credit cards..
Apple Pay and Google Pay - Link your Revolut account to Apple Pay or Google Pay to make fast and easy payments.
Mobile app - Available for iOS and Android.
Where Revolut could improve
Website access - Customers can not use the Revolut website to access their accounts or send money. They need to use the Revolut app.
Wise wins!
Wise and Revolut were created with customer experience at the heart of their design. Customer onboarding is simple, mobile app’s are intuitive wrapped in good aesthetic design.
The differences begin to show when you compare some of the features and services available.
Revolut Australia doesn't have local banking details available to them. Therefore adding funds can be somewhat cumbersome.
Wise offers business customers multi-user account access to allow delegation of duties. That takes a layer of admin off small business owners. Wise also has a well designed website for desktop use. Revolut is in-app only.
Winner
Support & Countries
Wise
88
88
Wise’s supported countries vary with different services having different supported customer countries and destination countries. These are detailed in the Wise 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.
Revolut
50
50
What Revolut does well
Supported currencies for transfers - Use Revolut to send money in 28 currencies.
Customer support - Local phone support in different countries and 24/7 chat support.
Where Revolut could improve
Supported registration countries - Revolut can improve by increasing the number of registration countries outside of Europe.
Wise wins!
Wise products and services are available in more countries and in more languages.
Winner
Trust & Transparency
Wise
63
63
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.
Revolut
44
44
What Revolut does well
Revolut is licensed to provide services in the US, the UK, the European Union, Australia and Singapore.
Fingerprint identification.
Rating of Excellent on Trustpilot.
Where Revolut could improve
Addressing customer complaints - Some Revolut reviews on Trustpilot mention customers' accounts being locked and their money going missing. Quick resolution of such complaints would work well in increasing trust levels.
Wise wins!
Wise and Revolut are heavily funded by private equity. This may pose future risk on the cost of services. This remains to be seen. Customer reviews are showing repeated negative comments on sudden account closures with no explanation.
Winner
The Result
Winner
Wise
Wise does win overall. However, the comparison of Wise and Revolut mainly focused on international money transfer services. So not such a fair comparison comparing a digital bank and a specialized money transfer company.
It is important to note that while Wise wins overall. Wise does not have a banking licence. Revolut does have a banking licence.
So. Simple solution. Revolut is appropriate for your banking needs. Wise is more appropriate for larger volumes of money transfer needs or businesses with a global presence.
No simple answer to this question. Revolut is better than Wise for banking as it attained a banking license in 2018. Therefore higher levels of safety and trust for your money deposits.
Wise is far better than Revolut for international money transfers. Their fees are far less for transfers and debit card spending over the Revolut account fee free thresholds.
Winner
