Wise vs Revolut: Fees, Exchange Rates, and Features Compared

An overview of Wise vs Revolut

If you do not have either one, here’s a quick overview of when it’s best to use Revolut or Wise:

The difference between Revolut and Wise is actually not that big.

If you don’t have either one, here’s a quick overview:

Fees & Rates

9.4

Transfer Speed

9.0

Safety & Trust

9.2

Product Offering

8.8

Transfer Limits

9.5

Ease of Use

10.0

Customer Feedback

8.5

9.2 Overall

Fees & Rates

9.0

Transfer Speed

7.0

Safety & Trust

9.5

Product Offering

9.3

Transfer Limits

9.5

Ease of Use

9.0

Customer Feedback

8.5

8.8 Overall

✅ - Winner, ❌ - Loser, ✳️ - Equally good or bad

Wise vs Revolut exchange rate and fees

Wise wins this round, it is cheaper than Revolut Standard in most cases (refer to the end of this section for some examples).

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Visit Wise

However, just like with anything, whichever you pick depends on your goals and needs:

• Pick Wise if you know you will be converting more than 1,000 (of any currency) per month

• Pick Revolut for the same currency transfers

• Pick Revolut Standard if you know you will be sending less than 1,000 (of any currency) per month

If you’re reading this, you are probably interested in making international transfers.

Even if it’s sending less than 1000 per month, for an odd chance of sending more, and to avoid a 1% weekend charge, I think Wise is a better choice here.

Here’s a summary of Wise’s and Revolut’s fees:

*Since Revolut is based in the UK and EU, most of their base fees are set in GBP or EUR.

**Transfers directly to card numbers outside of Wise or Revolut cards.

With Wise, you can send money at the mid-market rate any day of the week.

Revolut exchange rates on the other hand are a bit worse.

Revolut adds a markup of ~0.25% to the exchange rates for each transfer and an additional 1% outside of business hours (Monday-Friday NY time).

Wise’s fees are also much easier to read and understand compared to Revolut fees.

In both cases, fees are affected by the transfer origin, destination, and deposit / receiving methods.

As well as, in both cases if you’re sending money between users (Revolut to Revolut and Wise to Wise), transfers are free.

It’s also worth noting that Revolut offers a “Pay All Fees” feature for certain currencies (only available in the UK and Switzerland for now).

This feature allows you to pay one flat fee to cover all possible fees (even the ones charged by other intermediary banks).

For example, if you know your transfer will be over the SWIFT network involving many banks and you’re sending a large amount, you can pay a single fee to cover all these network costs.

Now, I’ve looked at both apps on my phone and tried making a few transfers to see which will result in more money, and here are the results.

To make the comparison fair, I’ve picked bank account deposit as the receiving method on both apps and the cheapest funding method for Wise (Wise balance in most cases):

Account tiers

Wise only offers a single free plan.

Revolut on the other hand offers one free account type (Basic) and four additional ones that come with a monthly fee:

• Plus - £3.99/month (Not available in the US)

• Premium - £7.99/month ($9.99/month in the US)

• Metal - £14.99/month ($16.99/month in the US)

• Ultra - £45/month (Not available in the US)

With any of the paid plans, you get access to more budgeting and banking features, as well as cheaper rates on international money transfers.

On paper, with the Revolut Premium plan and up, you will get more money out of your transfer than with Wise.

However, to make this worthwhile and cover the monthly cost you need to be making multiple large transfers a month to cover the cost and make it worthwhile.

You can learn more about the plans in our Revolut review, but to summarize, with paid plans you get:

• Larger ATM withdrawal limits

• More RevPoints

• Bigger cashback

• On the Plus plan, you get a £3,000 fair usage limit instead of £1,000.

• In the US, on the Premium plan you et $10,000/month instead of $1,000.

• On Premium or higher, there is no fair usage limit.

Transfer speed

Wise also wins this round. Wise is generally faster than Revolut, although on paper their transfer times are largely the same.

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Visit Wise

Here’s a summary of Revolut's vs Wise's speed:

The reason I’ve given Wise a win here is that I’ve had transfers frozen in the past with Revolut, leading to 14-day wait times.

As for Wise, we’ve had a few MoneyTransfers.com users comment that they are slower than they used to be:

In most cases, however, for both Wise and Revolut, most transfers will be instant (or take a few hours) and can take up to 3 days depending on the countries and the network used.

In some cases, especially with SWIFT transfers, it can take up to 5-7 days for the transfer to complete depending on the intermediaries involved.

Transfer limits

It's very close, but Revolut has no limit for most currency transfers, bringing it the win.

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vs

9.5

Visit Wise

Wise’s limits are in the millions, however, they are not 100% transparent with what they are.

Each currency has its limits on Wise (for all I’ve checked it was in the millions).

Here’s a summary of the transfer limits for Wise and Revolut, based on the USD transfers:

As I’ve mentioned, each currency on Wise will have its own set of limits, but most go into the millions, at least with a wire transfer deposit.

Revolut on the other hand, has no limits of its own, but they do mention that sending or receiving bank and country might have their own limits.

Even though there is no limit on Revolut, don’t forget about the "1% fair usage limit" (0.5% in the US) which is applied to anything over 1,000 (in any currency) sent per month on the Standard Plan (there’s no limit on Premium or higher plans).

Product offering

Overall, Revolut has a better product offering than Wise.

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Visit Revolut

So, is Revolut better than Wise? Not really, as with anything it depends on what you are looking for:

• Pick Wise if you want a multi-currency account. Better for travel, keeping and swapping currencies, sending money between accounts, and having local account details.

• Pick Revolut if you need to convert a lot of currencies, they offer more currency pairs and support more countries.

• Pick Revolut if you want an all-in-one banking app and features, they have more of them.

• Revolut’s card is available in more locations, so there’s more chance it will be available for you.

Multi-currency account

Wise offers a better multi-currency account compared to Revolut in 99% of the cases.

If you’re looking for a multi-currency account, I would look at it this way:

• Pick Wise if you need to exchange and hold multiple currencies, they offer more choices. This is particularly useful for traveling abroad.

• Pick Wise if you need to have local account details (useful for receiving cheaper payments)

• Pick Revolut if you’re traveling abroad to countries not supported by Wise and want to spend in local currency (which is always cheaper)

Here’s a summary of the multi-currency account details for both Wise and Revolut:

*BOB, CRC, EGP, GTQ, IDR, INR, MYR, PEN, PHP, and VND can’t be sent outside of Bolivia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Guatemala, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Peru, Philippines, and Vietnam, respectively.

Wise offers more with their multi-currency offering, you get to hold and exchange more currencies, you get more local accounts, and pairing it with the low fees, Wise is a great overall choice.

The big exception is that Revolut offers more currencies in general, but most of these are rare, or what we call “exotic” currencies that the majority of people won’t need.

Supported currencies for international money transfers

Revolut wins here, Revolut supports more countries and currencies in general compared to Wise.

If this is what matters to you, picking the right company is easy:

• Pick Wise if you plan to send different currencies, they offer more currencies you can send.

• For anything else, pick Revolut.

Here’s a quick summary of supported countries and currencies for Wise and Revolut.

Revolut simply offers more choices when it comes to currencies and countries.

With Wise, you can send more currencies, which is useful if you’re making payments to different countries, it will be cheaper to pay from a local account as no conversion takes place.

Cards and withdrawals

Revolut also wins this round. Revolut is a bank, so they can offer more features with their cards compared to Wise.

Revolut is available in more countries, their cards have higher ATM withdrawal limits than Wise, are cheaper compared to Wise, and Revolut offer virtual cards.

I also think it’s fair to say that it is more convenient to have a bank debit card from Revolut, than the pre-paid debit card from Wise.

Additional perks

Revolut is better than Wise when it comes to other features and perks.

This is a slightly unfair comparison as Revolut is a bank, and can offer more banking features, but we can’t ignore it.

Here’s a very brief summary of other features you get from both companies:

Revolut allows you to access extensive account features.

They offer a wide range of other services, including insurance, open banking, and investment opportunities.

They also offer extras for paid premium members through their tiered subscriptions Plus, Premium, Metal, and Ultra. Each comes with monthly fees.

Wise offers the option to ‘turn on interest’, investing your money to earn more.

Aside from this, Wise doesn’t offer any add-on features that can compete with Revolut.

Business accounts

A Wise business account is better than a Revolut business.

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8.6

Visit Wise

Both Wise and Revolut offer personal and business accounts. You can learn more about each in our reviews:

• Wise business review

• Revolut business review

But here’s a quick roundup of each:

Like Wise personal accounts, the Wise business account lets you make international payments in multiple countries at cheaper rates compared to Revolut.

Wise business accounts are also compatible with accounting apps like Xero, QuickBooks, and FreeAgent.

The Revolut business account gives you multi-user access to the company accounts, allows you to track your team’s spending, and manage wider business expenses.

Both personal and business Revolut customers get a tiered subscription offer, starting with a free account under the basic plan, ranging to Grow, Scale, and Enterprise accounts.

Customer service and experience

I don’t think Wise or Revolut have good enough customer service to win. There is no winner here.

Wise offers a live chat feature, call center helpline, and email support, while Revolut customers can access the live chat feature, but you’ll need to pay for premium membership to access priority support.

Taking into consideration my own experience with Recolut support, and the experience of users from MoneyTransfers.com with Wise, it is clear that neither of the companies offers good customer support or experience.

Here are a few examples for each company.

These are just two examples that happened around me, but if you check either of the companies on Reddit, you will see mass issues with support.

Unfortunately, this is the case with 99% of the “online” companies.

Is support your number one priority?

If support is your priority, for example, you’re sending large amounts of money, I suggest you read our guide to currency brokers.

Undoubtedly you will get 100% better support from a broker than from an online-only company like Revolut or Wise.

Read more

Ease of use

Wise wins this round simply because they are easier to use when it comes to making money transfers.

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Visit Wise

With its much simpler product offering, Wise is the easiest app to use. You can see your account balance clearly, split by currency, with your transaction history available in one tap.

The range of extra features available on Revolut, along with the tiered membership system, make it slightly more complicated to navigate - although the update released in November 2023 made the app a lot easier to use.

Below I’ve recorded the process of depositing and making international money transfers on both accounts to see which is easier and quicker:

Depositing money into the account

Wise

First deposit with Wise takes a bit longer than with Revolut, but all further deposits are a breeze.

Revolut

Revolut offers more deposit options than Wise, in this example I've used Apple Pay and was done in 4 clicks.

Making international payments

Wise

Making transfers with Wise is much easier than with Revolut. The process is streamlined and there's no clutter.

Revolut

Revolut prioritizes transfers to other Revolut users, making bank transfers a bit longer and more complicated.

One of the biggest advantages of Wise over Revolut in terms of usability, is that you can control the send and the receive amount. So if you want your recipient to get $2,000 you can write that in.

With Revolut, you can only enter the receiving amount, so if you want to send 2,000 GBP, you’ll need to keep tweaking the receiving amount until it matches 2,000.

Here’s what I mean:

Safety and regulations

Revolut wins this round, although it's a very close one.

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9.5

Visit Revolut

Revolut currently holds an Electronic Money (e-money) license in the UK without FSCS protection.

However, their savings accounts are held at partner banks with FSCS protection.

This means if you want to keep large sums of money in Revolut, you can keep them in the savings account and have it protected by FSCS in the UK (up to £85,000 per bank) and FDIC in the US (up to $250,000).

This does not mean Wise or Revolut are not safe.

It means that they have to take different (and extra) steps to ensure the safety of your funds, known as safeguarding.

Both companies are authorized to make financial transactions and are regulated by authorities (you can learn more about regulators in our guide).

Wise is regulated in multiple countries (you can find a list here), while Revolut holds a UK banking license (with restrictions) and is regulated in the EU by the Bank of Lithuania.

Customer feedback

It's very close here, but Revolut sneaks ahead. Revolut's positive feedback is more consistent compared to Wise's.

8.5

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8.5

Visit Wise

Both companies have a rating of 4.3/5 on Trustpilot and 4.7 on the App Store, but Wise is slightly ahead on Google Play.

Here’s how the user feedback has changed over the past months for Revolut vs Wise (switch between tabs for different categories):

Money transfresRatesFeesFeaturesSafetySupportLimitsSpeedUsability

We’ve also had a lot of comments coming from our users about both companies:

Alternative to Wise & Revolut

Wise and Revolut aren’t the only well-known online-only banks in the US.

Best alternative to Wise and Revolut

Monzo

Monzo has partnered with Wise to allow you to make international money transfers affordably.

You can transfer money directly from your Monzo account by choosing ‘Transfer Internationally’.

You’ll then get a full breakdown of the transfer fees.

This makes Monzo the perfect middle ground between Wise and Revolut.

You get the benefit of Wise for international transfers, but keep the banking features similar to Revolut in a fully licensed bank.

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You should consider a few other top companies for digital banking and sending money abroad.

I recommend our most popular guides:

• Top 10 money transfer companies

• Best multi-currency accounts

• Wise alternatives

• Revolut alternatives

These will give you the full picture of how Wise and Revolut compare to their rivals.

Alternatively, here’s a list of full reviews for the top companies similar to Wise and Revolut.

XE

XE Money Transfers is a provider with over thirty years of experience arranging global remittance. They have one of the largest money transfer networks in the world, covering over 190 countries in 100+ currencies.

Monzo Bank International Transfers

Monzo was founded in 2015, storming onto the scene as an online-only solution aimed at customers looking to make the switch to digital banking.

N26 International Transfers

N26's transparent approach is applied to all their products; the website and mobile application are jam-packed and full of company information, how-to guides, and topical blog posts, making it a helpful resource for new and existing customers.

A bit more about Wise and Revolut

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If you do not have either one, here’s a quick overview of when it’s best to use Remitly or Wise:

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Despite their differences, Revolut and Monzo attract a similar crowd: technology-savvy customers who are searching for the same high standards upheld by long-standing high street banks, but presented digitally via mobile applications and online platforms. We will now compare how each brand performs in the most important areas covered by any financial service provider.

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Due to their advantageous partnership with Wise, N26 is in a better position and therefore wins the award for lowest transfer fees.

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