Money Transfer Cost Comparison: Find the Cheapest Way to Send Money Abroad

Compare international money transfer fees, exchange rate markups and delivery times from Western Union, Remitly, WorldRemit, PayPal, OFX, Wise, Instarem, Skrill and major banks (HSBC, Barclays, Chase, Wells Fargo, State Bank of India and more) for any currency route.

Enter the currencies and amounts you care about. Get back a ranked table showing what each provider really costs, including the hidden markup on the exchange rate, and how much you save by picking the cheapest one.

What does this do?

Banks and transfer apps advertise "zero fees" but hide most of their cost inside a worse exchange rate. This Actor shows the true total cost of every provider for the routes and amounts you choose, and ranks them from cheapest to most expensive.

flowchart LR
    A[You choose routes<br/>USD to INR, GBP to KES<br/>and amounts] --> B[Actor collects quotes<br/>from banks and<br/>transfer providers]
    B --> C[Works out true cost<br/>fee + exchange rate markup]
    C --> D[Ranked table<br/>cheapest first<br/>savings vs cheapest]

Who is it for?

You are	You use it to
Remittance comparison sites and finance blogs	Keep "cheapest way to send money to India / Mexico / Kenya" pages up to date automatically
Fintech and payments teams	Benchmark your pricing against Western Union, Remitly, banks and others on every corridor
Global payroll and contractor platforms	Pick the cheapest way to pay overseas workers each month
Businesses paying international suppliers	See how much your bank is charging you compared to alternatives
Researchers and NGOs	Track the cost of sending remittances across countries

What data do you get?

One row per provider, per route, per amount:

Field	Meaning
provider, providerType	Name of the bank or transfer provider
sendAmount, receivedAmount	What you send and what the recipient gets
fee	Upfront transfer fee (in the sending currency)
exchangeRate, midMarketRate	Rate the provider gives vs the real market rate
markupPercent	Hidden margin added to the exchange rate
totalCost, totalCostPercent	True cost: fee plus exchange rate markup
rank, isCheapest, extraCostVsCheapest	Ranking and how much more than the cheapest option
deliveryEstimate	How long the transfer takes, when the provider publishes it
priceCollectedAt	When this price was collected

Example: sending £500 to India

Selected rows from a real run in September 2026:

Rank	Provider	Recipient gets (INR)	Fee	Rate markup	Total cost
1	WorldRemit	64,533.51	£0	0.13%	£0.65
2	State Bank of India	64,392.20	£0	0.35%	£1.75
3	Wise	64,235.46	£2.86	0%	£2.86
5	Remitly	64,200.60	£1.99	0.25%	£3.23
7	Western Union	63,926.66	£1.99	0.68%	£5.35
11	Barclays	62,833.49	£0	2.76%	£13.81
14	PayPal	61,314.14	£2.99	4.54%	£25.56
17	Santander UK	59,604.30	£25	2.90%	£38.79

Barclays charges no fee, yet it cost 21 times more than the cheapest provider once the exchange rate markup was included.

Sample output (JSON)

{
  "route": "USD to KES",
  "provider": "Instarem",
  "providerType": "money transfer provider",
  "sendAmount": 500,
  "receivedAmount": 64321.55,
  "fee": 0,
  "exchangeRate": 128.6431,
  "midMarketRate": 129.6,
  "markupPercent": 0.738,
  "totalCost": 3.69,
  "totalCostPercent": 0.74,
  "rank": 1,
  "isCheapest": true,
  "extraCostVsCheapest": 0,
  "priceCollectedAt": "2026-09-15T10:21:15Z"
}

How to use it

1. Add the currencies you send from (for example USD, GBP).
2. Add the currencies you send to (for example INR, MXN, KES, PHP, NGN).
3. Add one or more amounts. Every combination is compared.
4. Click Start. Results appear in a ranked table you can export as Excel, CSV or JSON.

Tip: schedule it daily or hourly to track price changes on the routes you care about.

Popular routes

Ready to run comparisons for the most searched destinations:

• Cheapest way to send money to India
• Cheapest way to send money to Mexico
• Cheapest way to send money to the Philippines
• Cheapest way to send money to Pakistan
• Cheapest way to send money to China
• Cheapest way to send money to Vietnam
• Cheapest way to send money to Bangladesh
• Cheapest way to send money to Kenya
• Cheapest way to send money to Nigeria

Run it with the API

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/precious_bathmat~money-transfer-cost-comparison/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "sourceCurrencies": ["USD"],
    "targetCurrencies": ["INR", "MXN", "PHP"],
    "amounts": [200, 1000]
  }'

Pricing

$0.003 per provider quote. You only pay for rows you get back.

Job	Quotes	Cost
One route, one amount (for example GBP to INR, 17 providers)	~17	~$0.05
10 routes, 3 amounts each (about 8 providers each)	~240	~$0.72
Only the 3 cheapest providers on 100 routes	300	$0.90

Use Max providers per route to only pay for the cheapest few.

Option	Freshness	Effort
Checking each provider website by hand	Live	Open every site, enter amounts, add fees and markups yourself
World Bank Remittance Prices Worldwide	Updated quarterly	Fixed corridors and amounts
This Actor	Prices collected about every hour	Any route, any amount, ranked automatically

FAQ

Where does the data come from? From the public Wise comparison API, which collects real advertised fees and exchange rates from provider websites around once per hour.

Is Wise always ranked first? No. Rankings are purely by total cost. In the example above Wise ranks third.

Do the prices include card or cash payments? No. Prices are for bank transfer in and bank transfer out. Card and cash transfers can be priced very differently.

Why is the delivery time empty for some providers? Not every provider publishes a delivery estimate for every route.

What if a route is not covered? It is skipped, you are not charged for it, and it is listed in the RUN_SUMMARY record.

Which currencies are supported? Any route covered by the comparison data. Popular corridors such as USD, GBP and EUR to INR, MXN, PHP, NGN and KES have the most providers.

Prices are estimates for comparison purposes and can differ from the final price a provider shows at checkout.