Wise vs Revolut: Which Is Best in 2024?
| Updated: |(Disclosure: Some of the links below may be affiliate links)
Wise and Revolut offer similar services. They are both offering cheap money transfers in many different currencies. How can you decide between both services?
I currently use neither of these cards, but I have used both. And many readers are asking me which they should use. Today, I answer the question: Which is better between Wise and Revolut?
Both companies will help you save money on foreign currency exchanges. However, they are still different in their fees and their offers. They both have some pros and cons. And that is what we go over in this article.
For this comparison, I only review personal accounts, not business ones. Both Wise and Revolut offer businesses accounts. But this is out of the scope of this article. So, we will compare Wise vs Revolut. Which should you use?
|
My pick
|
|
|
4.5
|
3.0
|
Wise (formerly TransferWise)
Wise is a private company based in the United Kingdom. It was launched in 2011 under the name TransferWise. It is a money transfer service. From your Wise account, you can transfer money to any other user in almost any currency. You can also transfer money to a bank account. You can use money from your account with the Borderless MasterCard.
Wise’s main focus is on people working abroad. These people can receive a salary in a currency different from the country they live in, and Wise can help them save a lot of money on fees.
Wise has been profitable since 2017 and has more than four million users. It has about one thousand employees all over the world. Their services are available in Europe and the United States.
For more information, I have a full review of Wise.
Revolut
Revolut is a private company based in the United Kingdom. It was launched in 2015. They offer money transfer services. You can transfer money from your account to other users or bank accounts. You can do transfers in almost any currency. You can use your money in your account with the Revolut MasterCard.
They also offer virtual cards that can be used on the Internet and have started providing access to cryptocurrencies.
The original focus of Revolut was for people traveling abroad. By using their cards in another country, these travelers must pay hefty fees. Revolut can save them a lot of money.
Revolut announced that it had about four million users in 2019. It has about 600 employees worldwide. In the beginning, Revolut was only available in Europe. But since 2020, it has also been available in the United States. And it will probably increase its coverage in the years to come.
I have been using Revolut for a while now. You can learn more about it in my full review of Revolut.
Availability
Both services are very well supported in Europe.
However, Revolut is available mainly in Europe. Overall, Revolut is available in 32 European countries. They are already available in Australia. And since 2020, they are available in the United States as well.
On the other hand, Wise is available in more than 50 countries, including the United States. It makes Wise generally more popular since they have more coverage from the U.S. Also, you can use Wise in many Asian countries (Indonesia, for instance). At the same time, Revolut is absent from these countries.
Revolut supports 140 currencies, while Wise only supports 96 currencies. But, Revolut only lets you hold money in 24 currencies in your account. On the other hand, Wise allows you to hold money in 50 currencies!
So, Wise can hold more currencies. If you are traveling to a lot of countries, this could make a difference. But this is not a significant difference for me.
Money Transfer Service
Both companies focus on money transfer as their primary service. They both offer a debit card that you can use everywhere. You can charge your debit card from your bank account. You can then use it as a physical card or online. In both cases, you can also withdraw money from your debit card.
Both Wise and Revolut offer a way to transfer money from one account to another or from another bank account. Generally, people believe that Wise is a bit faster in executing payments. However, my transfers with Revolut have always been swift. Revolut has always been faster than my bank account.
With both accounts, you can also receive money in many currencies.
Both services have both a mobile application and a web portal. The web portals are quite similar in usability. However, I think that Revolut’s mobile application is better than Wise’s.
As for the cards themselves, Revolut offers a Mastercard and a Maestro, while Wise only offers a Mastercard. The offer of a Maestro is a good point in favor of Revolut. It can be convenient to get a Maestro card in Switzerland. But it is not critical anymore.
So, for money transfer services, Revolut and Wise are a tie!
Other services
Wise is very focused on the single service of transferring money at a low cost between bank accounts or between Wise accounts.
On the other hand, Revolut has many features. For instance, they started offering cryptocurrencies in 2018. That means you can hold cryptocurrencies in your account. On the other hand, this is not a free service.
Indeed, you will pay a 1.5% fee for each buy or sell of cryptocurrencies. You cannot get your cryptocurrencies out of your Revolut account, for instance, or move them into your cryptocurrency wallet. So, this is not a replacement for other cryptocurrency exchanges.
Revolut also started offering insurance for several things. They also have Vaults, a system with which you can round purchases and save spare cash. The mobile application has many budgeting capabilities. Moreover, Revolut has a banking license, which means it could become a bank in the future.
Being able to pay from a smartphone is good news for many people! Recently, Revolut started working with Google Pay and Apple Pay. So you can use your smartphone directly to pay with your Revolut card. But this only matters if you want to use this feature.
Finally, Revolut offers three different accounts:
- Standard. It is the free account I am focusing on in this article.
- Premium. This account costs 6.99 EUR per month. It adds to the Standard account with priority support, higher withdrawal, no more monthly limits, and several forms of insurance.
- Metal. This account costs 12.99 EUR per month. This account adds to the Premium account a concierge service and 0.1% cashback on European purchases and 1% cashback abroad.
I do not see an advantage in having Premium or Metal accounts. It seems like most people will have enough with the Standard account.
So, when comparing Wise vs Revolut, Revolut has many more features than Wise. However, I am not sure these features will appeal to everybody. I think it is good that Wise focuses on doing one single thing very well rather than trying to do everything at once. Having more features does not mean it is better if you do not use them.
Limits – Wise vs Revolut
Both services have different limits. For my usage, I never hit any of the limits. But if you plan to rely heavily on either Wise or Revolut, you need to be aware of these limits.
Wise has a small default limit on each operation. But you can change the default from the mobile application. So I talk about the maximum limits you can set. Also, Wise has different limits for European and U.S. customers.
We will start with European customers. European customers can withdraw 1000 GBP per withdrawal, 1500 GBP per day, and 4000 GBP per month. They can purchase for a maximum of 10’000 GBP per day or 30’000 GBP per month for online purchases. U.S. customers have smaller limits. They can withdraw 1000 USD per day and 4000 USD per month. And they can pay online for 2000 USD per day and 10’000 USD per month.
Revolut has a more straightforward system for limits. Indeed, you can withdraw a maximum of 3000 GBP per day. And you can transfer a lot of money with Revolut. The daily limit on Revolut is 100’000 GBP. And the weekly limit is 250’000 GBP.
Revolut has much higher limits than Wise. Moreover, their system is much simpler. However, for most users, the limits of Wise should be more than sufficient.
Money transfer prices
What is most impressive with these two services is their prices.
Standard credit cards make you pay a substantial fee for foreign currency exchanges. It is typically between 1.5% and 2.5% on each amount. Both Wise and Revolut are significantly cheaper than that! Saving money is their primary purpose. Price is the thing I am looking the most into to compare these two services.
Wise is not free for transfers. You will need to pay between 0.3% and 0.7% fee on each transfer, depending on the currency pair you are converting money from. They are using a very complicated pricing system.
Revolut is not free, either. They used to offer the interbank exchange rate, but are now offering the all but transparent Revolut Exchange Rate. It has been evaluated that this exchange rate is about 0.40% worse than the interbank exchange rate on average.
On top of that, there is a limit of 1000£ (GBP) per month. Once you reach this limit, you will have to pay a 1.0% fee on each transfer. Moreover, you will have to pay an extra 1.0% fee for each transfer on the weekend.
As a side note, you can use one of the premium accounts of Revolut to increase the monthly limit for cheaper transfers. This could be worth it if you plan to convert a large amount of money.
With that, both services have about the same prices, with an advantage in transparency for Wise.
Wise is better than Revolut for guaranteeing the amount the recipient will receive from a bank transfer. Wise has local accounts for all their currencies. And they will use that to guarantee the amount received by the recipient.
For instance, if you send Mexican Pesos from the U.K., you will know exactly how much they will receive. Your money will go from one TW account to another first. And then, it will make a local payment to the recipient’s bank account. Revolut does not have such a guarantee. It means you could lose some money because of the fees.
Now, there are some complicated examples of transfers that are not free. For instance, with Revolut, you are only allowed one SWIFT transfer outside the SEPA region. After this, they will cost you 4 USD. Unfortunately, this is very poorly documented. In practice, you should be fine, but it is useful to know that these situations can happen.
Example of fees
We can run a few examples of exchanges to compare Wise and Revolut. I take Wise Borderless Card as an example. The prices differ if you send money from the app or use the card. If you want all the details, you can use the Wise pricing system.
| Amount | From | To | Wise | Revolut | Revolut Weekend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1000 | CHF | EUR | 4.84 CHF | 4 CHF | 14 CHF |
| 5000 | CHF | EUR | 21.97 CHF | 70 CHF | 120 CHF |
| 10000 | CHF | EUR | 43.37 CHF | 140 CHF | 240 CHF |
| 1000 | EUR | USD | 5.14 EUR | 4 EUR | 14 EUR |
| 5000 | EUR | USD | 21.47 EUR | 70 EUR | 120 EUR |
Since Revolut increased its fees in June 2020 and then dropped the interbank exchange rate, the results favor Wise more than Revolut!
- Revolut is marginally cheaper for small amounts (less than 1100 CHF per month).
- Wise is always better during the weekend
- Wise is much better for large amounts
- Wise is much better for special currencies
So, in general, Wise is better.
If you want the best fees in every case, you will have to use both cards:
- Revolut for small transfers in standard currencies
- Wise for exotic currency transfers
- Wise for big transfers
- Wise during the weekends
If you enter several of these categories, you will need both a Revolut and a Wise. It will be the most optimal combination to reduce the fees.
So, both solutions have their advantages and disadvantages. You need to know the fees to minimize them.
Reputation – Revolut vs Wise
We can also compare the reputation of these two services.
There has been some recent controversy about Revolut. If you follow financial news, you probably have heard some of them.
Since its creation, Revolut has had many issues with its employees. Or rather, employees had many problems with Revolut! Indeed, they have a significant turnover. And several prior employees have reported a lot of unpaid work and extreme work conditions.
Of course, these are only rumors. Revolut never confirmed them. I do not know the truth behind these allegations. But this does not help Revolut’s reputation. Indeed, there is generally some truth behind such claims.
In early 2019, the news reported that thousands of suspicious transactions were allowed through the Revolut system. They showed that Revolut switched off their screening system. We do not know why Revolut did not activate the system. After the news, Revolut reactivated the system. But this is worrisome.
Shortly after this event, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Revolut stepped down, increasing the controversy and conjectures around Revolut. He said he stepped down because Revolut was becoming too big too fast and could not handle all these changes.
There are also rumors of another kind about Revolut. Many people believe that they have strong ties to the Kremlin. But I have never read any facts about this. It is generally only based on the fact that the founder is Russian. I would not worry too much about that.
Also, I have heard about many people having issues with their accounts and losing some money, even in Switzerland. Now, I do not know if these people did everything right. But this is still worrying.
On the other hand, there has not been much controversy about Wise. Overall, Wise has a much better reputation than Revolut.
I am not worried enough about all this information to stop using Revolut. Many companies go through something like this when they grow up. Moreover, some of the news have debatable sources. However, this is still something I would worry about if I were to transfer a lot of money through Revolut.
I currently would not trust Revolut with more than a few thousand dollars.
User Reviews – Wise vs Revolut
Finally, we can also look at actual user reviews for both companies. I use Trustpilot as a reference (in January 2020). Trustpilot is generally the place that has the most high-quality reviews for such services.
Wise gets a score of 4.6 out of 5 on Trustpilot. It is an excellent score! 86% of people are reviewing Wise as Excellent and 8% as Great. On the other hand, 2% think it is average, 1% think it is poor, and 3% think it is bad!
If we look at the bad reviews for Wise, we can see recurring themes:
- Bad experience with customer support
- Transfers took longer than expected
- Accounts were disabled for apparently no reason
Then, Revolut also gets a score of 4.6 out of 5 on Trustpilot. Once again, this is an excellent score. 79% of people say it is excellent, and 12% say it is great. On the contrary, 2% say it is average, 1% say it is poor, while 6% say it is bad.
Looking at the negative reviews for Revolut, we can also see some recurring themes:
- Bad experience with customer service
- Accounts have been disabled for apparently no reason
- Extra fee on some transfers
Given that they have the same score, Revolut and Wise have the same good ratings by users! We can see the same recurring themes in negative reviews for both companies. But they have many great views, and their scores are excellent. Reviews are much better than I thought. It is because negative feedback is often louder than positive ones.
Wise vs Revolut Summary
To finish this comparison, here is a summary of the primary comparison points between the two services.
|
|
|
|
4.5
|
3.0
|
|
Free
|
Free
|
|
|
|
|
- Good reputation
- Support many currencies
- Good fees
- Excellent transfer speed
- No free transfers
- Poor mobile application
- Few withdrawals
- Great fees
- Great to pay abroad
- High limits
- Expensive during the weekend
- Bad reputation
- Few withdrawals
- Poor customer service
- Not transparent with their exchange rates
Overall, we can see that both services have excellent things to offer.
Wise has more advantages than Revolut. From a pure money point of view, Revolut is superior. But, since their increase in fees, they are only advantageous when transferring low amounts of money.
Here are the main differences between Revolut and Wise :
- Both have similar fees in the best case
- Revolut is only cheap for the first 1000 GBP per month
- Revolut is more expensive during the weekend
- Wise supports more currencies
- Wise is available in more countries than Revolut
- Wise is profitable. Revolut is not
- Revolut has more features on mobile
- Wise has a much better reputation
Alternatives
Revolut is not the only digital banking services available. In fact, there has been many new digital bank accounts these last few years.
Revolut and Wise vs Neon
All the services you need to pay, save and invest, in a neat package, with extremely good prices!
Use the poorswiss code to receive 10CHF!
- Pay abroad for free
- Invest with great fees
For instance, Neon is a Swiss digital bank account with many advantages like Revolut and Wise. For instance, you can pay abroad for free without limits (other than your balance). You can also send money in foreign currencies at a fair rate. However, international transfers are more expensive with Neon than with Revolut and Wise.
On the other hand, you will not be able to store multiple currencies in your Neon account, only CHF.
With Neon, your money will be insured for up to 100’00 CHF. And you also have the advantage of storing your money in a reputable Swiss bank.
So, if you only need to pay abroad and in foreign currencies for free, Neon is probably a better fit than Revolut and Wise. But if you need multiple currencies and international transfers, Wise or Revolut are probably good for you.
You can read more in my Neon Review.
FAQ
Is Revolut cheaper than Wise?
Often, yes!
Wise is never free since you pay a fee of at least 0.3% of your transaction. Revolut has a 0.40% surcharge on average on the interbank exchange rate. Revolut is more expensive than Wise during the weekend and for some currency pairs. So, you need to compare each currency pair.
Is Revolut better than Wise?
It depends on the situation. Overall, Wise has a much better reputation and lower fees for larger transfers. And on small transfers, Wise is only marginally more expensive than Revolut.
Conclusion
When comparing Wise vs Revolut, I much prefer Wise over Revolut. The main reason is more about reputation and the company itself. The fact that it is profitable could mean that it will last longer than Revolut. But Revolut could come around!
Moreover, since Revolut increased its fees in June 2020, you can only convert small monthly amounts (maximum of 1000 GBP) per month. And transactions during the weekend have become expensive. On top of that, they have dropped the interbank exchange rate in 2023, in favor of the not-transparent Revolut Exchange Rate. For me, this is a big disadvantage.
Whether you use Wise or Revolut, such a travel card could be an essential part of your credit card strategy. Indeed, saving on currency exchange fees is the single thing that will save you the most money on your card fees!
If you are in Switzerland, a great alternative is to use the Swiss bank Neon. They have fewer features, but they also offer free purchases abroad with their Mastercard. And most people would prefer to have a local bank for the extra security of regulations.
However, nothing prevents you from using two different cards. As I pointed out earlier, you will need both cards to minimize the fees to a maximum. For instance, you could use Revolut for most currencies and Wise for exotic currencies.
I would advise being careful before depositing too much money in any of these two services in both cases. I believe you should primarily use them for currency exchanges.
And do not forget: do not use either Wise or Revolut for your default currency! Indeed, you need to use your local payment card for that. That way, you will accumulate some cashback. These two services are only good for money transfers involving two different currencies.
What about you? Do you prefer Wise or Revolut?
Download this e-book and optimize your finances and save money by using the best financial services available in Switzerland!
Download The FREE e-bookRecommended reading
- More articles about Best banks
- More articles about Save
- Neon Bank Review 2024: The Best Swiss Digital Bank
- Yapeal Review 2024 – Pros & Cons
- 7 Simple Steps to Change Bank Account in 2024
Good Morning
We live mostly in the TRNC but our money gets paid into our UK Accounts. Until last week we could take out GBP without any cost – however, the TRNC banks now charge between 2 and 5% i.e. I took out £500 and got charged an additional £10.80 on the transaction! Is Turkish Lire classed as an Exotic Currency if so which would be the better one to use? Transferwise or Revolut?
Hi Jenny,
I am going to assume TRNC is the same as Turkey.
2% to 5% is a lot indeed.
It seems TransferWise charges about 0.7% for GDB <-> TRY.
Revolut charges 1% for TRY (yes, it’s considered exotic for them.
So I think you should try Transferwise for GBP <-> TRY exchanges.
Hope that helps
I switched this week from Revolut Metal to transferwise because Revolut limited 2 x my account and needed further prove of funds. Thats annoying and costs me always a lot of time. I dont want to send them my tax declaration, salary statement and a passport beside my head and explain them for what I took money on an ATM. Its not their business. So I hope Transferwise will not alltime ask for documents. Otherwise I will move to the Swissquote multi currency card.
Hi Martin,
If I may ask, why did you get the Metal version over the basic version?
I never heard of that situation, this really sucks. I completely understand that they do not need all this information.
Hopefully, Transferwise will work better for you!
Thanks a lot for sharing!
I travel a lot outside europe. So the metal card was financed twice with the 1 % cashback. Additionally i have higher ATM limits. The insurance i dont need.
Oh, that makes sense!
Metal makes more sense for people that travel for work or that travel a lot.
Thanks for sharing :)
Revolut is not 100%. Intermediate Banks can take fees. E.g. I have transferred 400 CHF from my Revolut Business Account to my UBS Account and received only 388 CHF.
Since Transferwise doesn’t use intermediate banks and does the transfer internally it’s cheaper than Revolut. Better double check this, but it is what I have understood.
Hi Mike,
That’s a good point.
I would still argue that’s it’s 100% free since you pay to the bank and not too Revolut. However, I completely agree with you that’s their system can inferior than the system ofTransferWise for that. You always have to be careful to which account you do the transfer. For now, I never had to pay a cent in fees, but I am sure this will happen when I have no choice but to do a sub-par transaction with Revolut.
Thanks for stopping by!
If I may weigh in here, I can say I have lost a lot of trust in services like Revolut which make you save a lot of money on fees but there is a big downside.
I used my Revolut card during my vacation in the US and just before flying back from JFK, I got a payment declined because of lack of funds…This was a big surprise to me since I knew I had more than 500$ and more than 500 € on my Revolut accounts. When I checked my accounts on the App, I could unfortunately see money exchanges from USD to GBP and from € to GBP, with basically all my money being exchanged to GBP. I had initiated none of these of course and then all the GBP money was transferred to someone I had never heard of, all transactions happening in a 5-minute time frame.
I was obviously hacked by someone who went step by step, exchanging all my money to GBP before doing a transfer to his account. The only way to raise a complaint is via an in-app chat (with about 30 minutes between each response from an operator on the chat). I reacted withing 15 minutes of the hack and more than 48 hours later, I am still waiting to know what’s happened, with my account locked, not having any clue whether there is any chance I’ll see my money again…And the only contacts you can have are via a chat…
I am starting to think that even though I used to be sickened by the huge fees banks apply, I at least get a bit more security with them and actual contacts in case of issues…
Hi NIC,
Really sorry about your misadventures with Revolut! And thanks for sharing!
I have never heard of security issues so far. But I have heard that the customer service is pretty terrible.
Even though I trust Revolut with some of my money, I would not use them to replace my current bank.
Were you able to get to the bottom of this?
Thanks for stopping by and good luck!
Hello,
here’s the bottomline following the hack I was a victim of.
This morning, 9 days after the hack, all fraudulent operations were reverted and I got my money back, showing on my Revolut account. So I guess I can say I have regained confidence there !
But, the customer service via only in-app chat and the terrible response time was definitely not a nice experience. .. Also, it was 6 days before anyone from Revolut told me I should be reimbursed. The first answers I was getting from them sounded like they wanted to make me responsible for getting hacked and I feared at some point it was a way for them to make sure the loss would not be on them if they weren’t able to stop fraudulent transactions. But all ends well ! I wish the claim process was more straightforward, with other ways than just a chat (I believe I chatted with 6 different persons in total) but that’s how it is.
I’ll surely keeping using Revolut but won’t let money ‘sleep’ there over periods I know I won’t be needing it for spendings in Eurozone or US.
Cheers !
Hi NIC,
I am really glad your money was given back to you!
As you say, even though the end is good, the way they handled it is pretty bad!
I never let any money except when I travel. And since the recent incidents, I now delete my credit card after I top up my account. It is a bit painful to do but I think it is worth it!
Thanks for sharing the details!
This seems pretty biased and clearly aimed to promote Revolut. A comparisson by moneyland.ch showed that Revolut has much more fees and higher exchange fees and transaction fees than transferwise, and a recent article by 20Min also showed how Revolut charges 12% for a small transaction from the UK Revolut account to a Swiss bank account. Even though they claim to have no fees and they did not declare that fee in advance. Also important to consider – Between the UK and Switzerland you have SEPA transactions which mean no fees whatsoever. But still they charged 12 CHF for a 100 CHF transaction. So it is strange to me that your website seems to make entirely contraditory claims here. Moneyland has quite a good reputation, while I have never heard of your website before. So who to believe?
All my information is based on the official information from TransferWise and Revolut. I do not think it’s biased at all. If you do a transaction during the week with Revolut, it’s free while it’s not free with TransferWise, it’s as simple as that. Why are you biased towards TransferWise?
I have never been charged a single cent for using Revolut and I have been using for more than a year. You just need to know the conditions and use it within the free limits.
If you do not want to believe me, you are absolutely free to not visit my website :)
Actually no, If you transfer from UK to Switzerland you don’t do that through SEPA and with SWIFT … Switzerland is not in EU and SEPA is used as internal messaging into a SWIFT but definitely is not free …. transfers between Switzerland and EU are cross border transfers and not a local ones as is the case inside EZ countries…. about 12 chf fee mentioned in the article,actually they have to ask the local swiss banks and not Revolut…. Before… to send money to Switzerland with Revolut the transfer was free because Revolut was covering the fees but that’s not the case anymore…
Switzerland is part of the SEPA zone:
https://www.sepa.ch/en/home/sepa.html
Hi, Sorry I’m a little bit slow… :)
I’ve both Revolut and Transferwise, I use Revolut when I travel abroad (specially UK) to pay common expenses and Transferwise to change my CHF salary to EUR (since I live in France and most of expenses are indeed in EUR)
I was considering to drop my actual VISA credit card and use both Rev and TW cards for payments and (although it’s not much)pick up cash from the machines.
In your post , you advise to keep using our credit cards when using our default currency and even mention something about cashback.
In what way you see more is more advantage to keep the local bank credit card?
cheers
Hi Vitor :)
You seem well equipped! I guess you have too much salary per month to use Revolut to make the conversion?
Both TransferWise and Revolut cards can be used to make payments in shops or online. However, you do not get any cashback. If you get a France (or any other European countries with EUR) credit cards with some cashback and no fees, you will get a little money back.
For instance, I have a MasterCard with 0.3% money back and an American Express with 1% money back. This small percentage is the only difference. If you use them only a little, it’s probably not worth it. But if you try to use it as much as possible, it can be worth it to have some cashback.
Thanks for stopping by!
You are aware that if you wanna get more than 200 EUR cash per month you either have to pay higher fees or upgrade to their premium levels which are ridiculously expensive for like 5 benefits. Only 1-2 of which apply to you personally and also only like 1-2/year. Its a bit of a joke.
I really love Revolut. I use it 5-10 times a month for transfers and currency exchange. I had no idea that Transferwise had a card as well. Can you share your affiliate link? I would like to order a TW card.
Thank you for a detailed post!
Hi Georg,
Yeah, Revolut is really great. But Transferwise can be really good as well, better than I thought on some cases.
My affiliate link is in the post on the first TransferWise link ;)
Thanks for stopping by ;)
How did you measure the costs of currency conversions? After all, this is hidden inside the spread they are using (It’s mid-market, I know).
BTW, jusy yesterday I compared Revolut and Covercy rates. I was amazed to see how Revolut has a much better rate than Covercy, which was was initially marketed as a competitor to Transferwise.
Also, I just made a transcation of ILS to my revolut account after checking with them. You wrote it’s only USD,EUR and GBP.
Hi Shlomo,
These are the official costs on top of mid-market. These are the costs you are guaranteed to pay, regardless of the rate.
It’s much more difficult to compare the rates they are offering. From what I have read, both have comparable rates. However, Revolut week-end rates seem worse than TransferWise.
I didn’t know Covercry. Thanks for mentioning it!
It seems I was wrong indeed about that. I will have to check it again! Thanks!
Thanks for stopping by :)
To clarify: Transferwise gives you the ‘actual’ exchange rate. I don’t know what the technical term is, but basically they don’t add any hidden fee (spread?) in the exchange rate. The big appeal for Transferwise is therefore its transparency.
Is this the same for Revolut? Your price comparison is not very insightful as is, without showing how much money actually arrives after the conversion.
Hi Markus,
Both Revolut and TransferWise give you the current (actual) exchange rate.
But it’s not true that Transfwerwise adds no fees! TransferWise has fees on all transactions! You can check this out online on their website: https://transferwise.com/price-change
There is a fee between 0.3% and 0.4%.
On the contrary, during the week, Revolut has no fee, hence it’s superior. During the weekend, Revolut fees add fees and it’s more expensive than Transferwise. Therefore, it should be avoided.
All of this is explained in the article.
Markus is right here. Transferwise uses the Interbank exchange rate and adds a fee to it. Revolut uses the Mastercard exchange rate, and already has a FX spread added in it. Some vague currencies have a ridiculous spread, and weekends have the Friday spread with a fee added.
I’m not saying revolut is bad, I’m just pointing the difference.
Hi Saurabh,
Are you sure about that? I have never found a source of this fact.
According to them, Revolut uses the interbank exchange rate. I always thought it was the case, but maybe it’s wrong.
I believe they use the Mastercard exchange rate during the weekend though. Is that what you are talking about?
Thanks for stopping by!
Revolut exchange rate is ‘interbank’ exchange rate(exclude the weekends) … no other company offer it…
Hi Kloudy,
I think that Transferwise also uses the interbank exchange rate, no?
Thanks for stopping by!
Hi,
A question regarding the subject of transferring to abroad using revolut. Transferring to a different currency. Do I need to exchange the currency before transferring and sending it in the currency I want the receiver will get? So is the transferring is a currency change and money transfer at the same time or are those two different transactions and need to make those in split steps? Thanks
Hi Baseldon,
You can do both.
a) You do the transfer directly in another currency. If you do not have enough of this currency, Revolut will automatically convert it to cover the transfer
b) You do the conversion yourself first. Once you do the transfer, Revolut will use the money that you converted to cover the transfer.
I generally do the a). I don’t bother doing the conversion myself since there are no differences. If you plan to do a transfer or a purchase during the week-end, it may be worth to do the conversion during the week and then use the converted money in the week-end.
I hope that helps!
Hi,
If I get it right(from your hint for the weekend process), the transfer is free on the weekend too but not the exchange.
In case of a) when do they execute the exchange if I initiate the transfer today and the estimated arrival is Monday(the weekend is in between).
Hi,
Yes, that is the way I understand it works.
However, for your second question, I honestly have no idea. I would think that the conversion is done directly. But I cannot be sure. I did not find the information in the documentation.
I will try to look into it.
Thanks for stopping by!
actually Revolut doesn’t allow anymore local CHF transfers…. I used the service to receive my salary in CHF but that’s not possible anymore… you should transfer CHF through SWIFT to Revolut
Regarding TransferWise there I don’t see any possibility an employer to send you CHF to your account as is my case…
Hi Kloudy,
I do not think this is correct. Revolut still allows local CHF transfers. I can still do transfers to CHF account and my account still has a CHF IBAN (although not a personal one). Do you mean that we do not have a personal CHF IBAN? That was always the case.
Thanks for stopping by!
Hi there.
I live in Switzerland, and have both a Personal and Business card. You know when it makes sense to use one versus the other? sometimes it is not clear whether my expense is more related to business or private – the trip / meal/… that ended up becoming a piece of work I could generate that I didn’t know at the outset.
Also, does it make sense to pay as much as possible via something like a Migros Credit card and earn their points – (I know it doesn’t make sense to use Revolut for CHF payments) so, for example, having my mobile phone payments etc being paid by Migros Credit card versus [UBS] bank debits?
Thanks
Hi Simone,
For the first part, I do not have a strategy no, since I do not have this situation. I would try to estimate for each expense what makes the most sense. I guess your question also guesses into the part about deducing your expenses. If something is related to business, then, use your business and declare the expenses in your taxes. But be careful about not abusing the system.
For this second part, yes, it does make sense. I am trying to pay as much as possible with either my Amex or my Mastercard to get cashback. So, if you can, you should, but some things cannot be paid with a credit card.
Thanks for stopping by!
Just like you I use Revolut for currency, and money transfer. I never have any fee.
TransferWise is not free and I practicly do not need it.
I am not concern about Revolut reputation, because those might been rumours.
There are many rumors about Amazon, Apple factory in China,but Amazon and Apple have good reputation.
Revolut is threat to bank monopoly and that is reason for this rumors.
Hi Luka,
As you said, it’s also possible that some of these “attacks” are coming from banks that are being threatened. Although for now, they are still far smaller than most big banks. But it may come and it’s not a bad thing.
Thanks for sharing!
Hi Luka, & Mr The Poor Swiss,
Have you compared both exchange currency?
I’ve heard that Revolut charge no fee but takes more profit from the exchange rate. Someone tested and bought the exact same item twice, with both cards. He ended up paying more on Revolut even when TW charges a fee simply because TW’s exchange rates are very good.
Have you seen these discussions?
https://www.reddit.com/r/digitalnomad/comments/9x2uvd/revolut_vs_transferwise_transferwise_the_clear/
Also wanted to add that TW is available for many parts of Asia, including Indonesia (where i’m a client). I still can’t open a Revolut account as of today (just tried again).
Hi Waya,
I have seen some discussions. But I have never seen this particular one. This is quite scary! I know they had a bad reputation, but not that bad.
Thanks for the information about Asia. I will add a note to the article regarding this!
Thanks for stopping by!
Hi Waya,
No, I did not directly compare exchange currencies.
I did not know the difference was so important. Since it is already much better than my bank and my other credit cards, I was thinking it was good enough.
That’s very interesting! I will have to research this more. I will update the article accordingly.
Thanks for stopping by!