The true cost of a money transfer
The cheapest transfer is almost never the one with the lowest advertised fee. Most of what you pay is hidden in the exchange rate. The true cost is the only number that tells you which provider actually delivers the most money, and it's how RemitBeat ranks every quote.
Whichever provider has the lowest true cost for your amount and corridor is the cheapest. Equivalently, it's the one whose recipient receives the most.
The three components
1. Sending fee
The visible, advertised fee. The only honest part of most quotes, and usually the smallest. Often $0, which is exactly why it's a poor basis for comparison.
2. Exchange-rate markup
The gap between the rate you're quoted and the real mid-market rate, expressed in cash: (mid-market − provider rate) ÷ mid-market × send amount. Typically 1% to 3%, and the charge providers most often hide.
3. Receiving fee
What the recipient's bank or the SWIFT/intermediary chain deducts on the way in, often $15 to $30 on a bank wire, and frequently undisclosed. Local payout methods usually avoid it.
A worked example
A $1,000 transfer to three providers. Notice the “$0 fee” option isn't the cheapest, and the headline fee barely predicts the result:
| Provider | Headline fee | Rate vs mid | Markup cost | True cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Provider A | $0 | −1.8% | $18.00 | $18.00 |
| Provider B | $4.99 | −0.4% | $4.00 | $8.99 ✓ |
| Provider C (bank wire) | $25 + $20 recv | −2.5% | $25.00 | $70.00 |
Illustrative figures to show the mechanics. Provider A advertises “$0” and is twice the true cost of Provider B, which charges a visible fee.
How RemitBeat computes it
RemitBeat pulls live quotes from Wise, Remitly, Sendwave, WorldRemit, Western Union, NALA and Boss Money, benchmarks each against the real mid-market (interbank) rate, and ranks them by true cost, so you see the exact amount your recipient receives and the hidden markup on every option. We compare 29 corridors into Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania and Cameroon, refreshed every 30 minutes. For the full detail on how we collect the data, choose providers and make money, see our methodology.