Wise Fee Calculator

The maths behind it

Wise charges a transparent fee, a small percentage plus a fixed amount depending on the corridor and payment method, and converts at the mid-market rate rather than adding a spread.

Total cost = fixed fee + (amount × variable rate). Because there is no hidden spread, the quoted fee is the actual cost, which is what makes it directly comparable against a bank's headline-free pricing.

The same thing with real figures

Sending $5,000 with a fee of roughly 0.5% plus a small fixed amount: about $27, converted at the mid-market rate.

A bank offering "no fees" on the same transfer typically converts at 3% to 4% below mid-market, $150 to $200 on $5,000, and may add a wire fee on top.

The bank's transfer looks free and costs six times as much. That gap is the entire proposition, and it is invisible unless you compare the rate received against the mid-market rate on the day.

The catch

The rate is guaranteed only for a limited window, and a transfer funded slowly can be re-quoted. For large amounts that timing risk is real.

Funding method also changes the cost materially. A bank transfer into Wise is cheapest; funding by card adds a percentage that can double the total fee on a small transfer.

Applying it

Always compare on the amount received in the destination currency, not on the fee. That single figure captures the fee and the exchange rate together, and it is the only comparison that cannot be gamed by moving cost between the two.

Then fund by bank transfer rather than card wherever the timing allows. It is the largest single variable in the cost of a given transfer.

Why the mid-market comparison is the whole thing

The mid-market rate is the midpoint between buy and sell prices on the interbank market, the rate you see on a search engine or a financial site. It is the only neutral reference point, and every provider's real cost is the distance from it.

Providers advertising no fees are recovering their margin in that distance, which is why the phrase is close to meaningless in currency transfer. A 4% spread on a fee-free transfer is worse than a 0.5% fee at the mid-market rate by a factor of eight.

For any business making regular international payments, checking the mid-market rate at the moment of transfer and comparing the amount actually received is a thirty-second habit that reveals the real cost. Businesses that adopt it usually change provider within a month.

Holding balances in the currencies you regularly send and receive, and converting in larger batches on your own schedule rather than per transfer.

Fees scale with amount but the operational overhead does not, and batching removes the temptation to convert at whatever rate happens to apply on an invoice date.

The business account supports multiple users and accounting integrations, which matters more than the marginal rate difference once transfers become a routine finance task rather than an occasional one.

The reason Wise costs less than a bank for the same transfer is structural rather than promotional: it quotes the mid-market exchange rate and charges a separate transparent fee, where banks embed a margin in the rate itself. Comparing the two therefore requires calculating the amount received rather than comparing quoted fees, since a bank showing no fee is usually the more expensive option.