Which scores better when comparing WorldFirst vs Paypal? See how each provider scores and who wins when comparing their services, fees, supported countries and customer service.
WorldFirst
Overall score:
84
84
PayPal
Overall score:
54
54
Personal Features
Business Benefits
Fees & Exchange Rates
Ease of Use
Support & Countries
Trust & Transparency
50
50
WorldFirst offers international money transfer services for individuals. They also offer tools for business clients.
33
33
PayPal provides different services for personal customers from a number of countries. However, the services on offer vary from one region to another. PayPal's consumer product is a digital wallet where the customer's ID can be their email address and phone number. PayPal customers can send money to each other's digital wallets quickly and easily. The PayPal digital wallet can be connected to a bank account and debit or credit cards. This allows customers to withdraw available funds to their bank accounts. Connecting their bank cards allows customers to buy goods and services on e-commerce stores where PayPal is accepted as a payment method.
89
89
WorldFirst has an excellent offering for business and promotes partnerships with businesses operating in a global environment. There are solutions for online sellers, import / export and global human resources payments.
Through the WorldFirst World Account you can leverage unique banking details in 10 different currencies and reduce costs on receiving money from customers and paying suppliers. Local banking details are available in GBP, EUR, USD, CAD, CNH, HKD, JPY, NZD, SGD and AUD.
56
56
PayPal for business provides a range of specialized services for businesses from different countries. Businesses can use PayPal to create and send invoices and receive payments. PayPal's merchant solution allows online sellers to accept PayPal as a payment method. Customers can use the PayPal payment gateway to buy goods or services using their PayPal account or directly with credit or debit cards. PayPal has more solutions for business accepting micro payments which may be quite useful when selling low cost products.
79
79
WorldFirst has a super simple fee structure for international money transfers. The WorldFirst fees are additional to the real exchange rate.
WorldFirst World Account fees also have the same simple fee structure and fees only apply when withdrawing funds from virtual multi-currency accounts.
| Annual Transfer Amount | £0 - £500K | £500K - £5M | £5M+ |
| WorldFirst Fees | 0.60% | 0.35% | 0.25% |
WorldFirst Australia has introduced (March 2021) new fees for small currency conversion amounts of less that AUD$10,000. These fees can make it prohibitive for small businesses to conduct day to day business payments.
| WorldFirst Australia fixed fee for FX | Fee |
| < $2,000 | $20 |
| $2,000 - $10,000 | $10 |
| $10,000 + | $0 |
0
0
PayPal fees vary based on where you live and the services on offer. Below we show sample fees for the USA. For more detailed information on fees for PayPal merchant solution, iCompareFX has created an interactive payment gateway fees comparison tool and more detailed breakdown of merchant variable and fixed fees by region.
| Payment method | Fees |
| PayPal Cash, PayPal Cash Plus or a linked bank account | $0 |
| Credit card, debit card or PayPal Credit | 2.9% of the transfer amount, plus a fixed fee |
| Payment method | Transaction fees | Funding fees |
| PayPal Cash, PayPal Cash Plus or a linked bank account | 5% of the transfer amount (minimum of $0.99 and maximum of $4.99) | $0 |
| Credit card, debit card or PayPal Credit. | 5% of the transfer amount (minimum of $0.99 and maximum of $4.99) | 2.9% of the transfer amount plus a fixed fee |
| Mode of selling | Fees |
| Selling in the US | 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction |
| Selling internationally | 4.4% plus a fixed fee based on the currency received |
| PayPal Here card reader | 2.7% for card swipes, or 3.5% plus $0.15 for manually entered transactions |
PayPal adds a margin of up to 3% on existing mid-market rates when carrying out currency conversion. Combined with the fees you need to pay, the cost of sending money overseas through PayPal becomes rather prohibitive.
57
57
WorldFirst account creation and registration is simple and straightforward. Unfortunately there is room for improvement in some areas:
ID verification - This can be slower outside of the UK taking up to 24 hours.
Payment options - Basic by only supporting bank transfer payment options.
Mobile apps - The World Account uses a different mobile app than their international money transfer app. This can be cumbersome for account management.
Minimum transfer amount - This is quite high for individuals at $2000 / £1000. There is, however, no minimum for business clients.
68
68
Sign up - Signing up takes little time, and you may do so by using the PayPal website or app.
Payment options - You can fund your account and transfers in different ways such as bank transfers, debit cards and credit cards.
PayPal app - The PayPal app is available for iOS and Android.
Phone transfers - PayPal customers can not send money over the phone.
56
56
Unfortunately, USA residents are not eligible to create a WorldFirst account. This is a major let down for WorldFirst supported countries. This point has impacted the WorldFirst supported countries iCompareFX score.
88
88
Supported countries - PayPal provides its services in more than 200 countries and territories.
Multilingual website - You can use the PayPal website in different languages.
Local phone support - PayPal could do better by providing local phone support in countries with large customer bases.
94
94
32
32
Customer rating - PayPal gets a rating of Bad on Trustpilot. Several PayPal reviews written by customers highlight the company's poor customer service. None of the recent reviews have been answered by PayPal. Regular PayPal complaints are related to business accounts being suspended during disputes with no notice or follow up by PayPal. This has lead to a large number of unanswered complaints on Twitter, TrustPilot and Google reviews.
Exchange rate transparency - The non-transparent exchange rate margin leaves many customers wondering about the true cost of their transfers.
WinnerThe winner is clear. WorldFirst takes it by a landslide. Even though Paypal scores higher for the Ease of Use and Support and Countries categories, its poor fees and exchange rates let them down.
