Payoneer vs Wise: which one actually keeps more of your money
By Phan Trong Hung, who reads the fee pages line by line so you do not have to
Published 2026-09-04•Both pricing pages read at source 4 Sep 2026, plus a live Wise quote the same day•How I check these numbers
If your clients pay in a currency Wise gives you local account details for, Wise is the cheaper account to keep money in, and it is the only one of the two that tells you the conversion cost before you sign up. Payoneer wins in two specific situations: your marketplace pays into Payoneer and nothing else, or you are in one of the countries where Payoneer withdraws to a local bank for a flat 1.50 USD. Below is the arithmetic on $1,000, and the one number Payoneer does not print.
Two accounts, the same promise: a US client sends you money as if you lived down the road from them, and you get it without a bank in the middle taking a cut for the border crossing.
They are not priced the same, and the difference is not where the marketing puts it.
What each one charges to receive
This is the part both companies lead with, and it is the part that matters least, because they are close to identical.
| Receiving | Payoneer | Wise |
|---|---|---|
| Local account details | Free in your local currency; 1% (min 1.00 USD) in a currency that is not | Free to get them, in 22 currencies |
| A domestic payment into those details | included above | Free for AUD, CAD, EUR, GBP, HUF, NZD, PHP, SGD, USD |
| A USD wire / SWIFT payment | fees depend on corridor | 6.11 USD fixed |
| Client pays by card | up to 3.99% + 0.49 USD | not offered this way |
| From another user on the same platform | Free | Free |
Read the first row twice. Payoneer's table charges nothing "via a receiving account in your local currency" and 1%, minimum 1.00 USD, "via a receiving account in a currency that is not your local currency". If you live outside the United States and your client pays in US dollars, dollars are not your local currency. On a plain reading of their own table, that is 1% before anything has been converted.
I want to be careful here, because the page does not walk through that case, and the fee you see inside a live account is the one that counts. But it is a line worth resolving before you route a year of income through it, and it is not a line Payoneer draws attention to.
Wise charges nothing at that step at all. Their page says it plainly: "It's free to receive money into your Wise Account."
Where the money actually goes: the conversion
Nobody is paid in a currency they can spend at home. The number that decides this comparison is what it costs to turn US dollars into your own money.
Wise quotes it up front. Here is what their own pricing gave on 4 September 2026 for USD 1,000 already sitting in a Wise balance, converted and paid out to a local bank:
| You are in | Wise fee on $1,000 | As a percentage |
|---|---|---|
| India | 4.76 USD | 0.48% |
| Philippines | 5.43 USD | 0.54% |
| Nigeria | 5.79 USD | 0.58% |
| Pakistan | 6.29 USD | 0.63% |
| Vietnam | 6.67 USD | 0.67% |
Two things worth noticing. The fee is set per currency pair, so a comparison written for one country does not carry to another - the spread between India and Vietnam here is 40% of the fee itself. And these are quotes anyone can pull before opening an account, which is the whole point.
Now Payoneer. Their withdrawal row is a flat number and it looks unbeatable:
"To a bank account in the same country as yours, in local currency (in supported countries) ... 1.50 USD"
The supported list on their page includes Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Kenya, Mexico, China, Japan, all EU countries, the UK, the USA, Canada and Australia. It does not include India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Indonesia or Egypt - those fall into the next row down, "1.2% - 4%", with a minimum that can reach 20.00 USD in some countries.
So if you are in Nigeria or Pakistan, Payoneer's flat fee is not available to you at all, and the comparison is over before it starts: 1.2%-4% against Wise's 0.58%-0.63%.
The number Payoneer does not print
If you are in one of the flat-fee countries - Vietnam, say - then 1.50 USD against Wise's 6.67 USD looks like Payoneer winning by a factor of four.
It is not that simple, and here is why. Your Payoneer balance is in dollars. Your Vietnamese bank account is in dong. Something has to convert them, and a conversion has a price. The only conversion figure on Payoneer's public fee table is 0.50% to "move funds between your Payoneer balances". For the withdrawal itself, the page says this:
"Currency conversion rates are based on wholesale market rates obtained at the time of transaction and include the conversion fee where indicated."
"Where indicated" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. On the withdrawal rows, it is not indicated.
So the honest comparison is:
| $1,000 from a US client, into a local bank | Payoneer | Wise |
|---|---|---|
| To receive it | 0, or 1% if their table means what it says | 0 |
| To convert it | not published | 6.67 USD to dong, quoted before you sign up |
| To move it to your bank | 1.50 USD in listed countries; 1.2%-4% elsewhere | included above |
| Total you can work out in advance | no | yes |
Payoneer may well come out cheaper for some people in some corridors. I cannot tell you whether it does, and neither can their pricing page. That is the finding. For money you receive every month, an account that will not quote you a total before you commit is a different kind of product from one that will.
The fee that catches small earners
One more line from Payoneer's table, and it is the one I would want somebody to tell me:
"Annual account fee. Only applies if account receives less than 6,000.00 USD or equivalent in any 12 consecutive months. Not charged in the first year for paid annual plans - 29.95 USD"
Six thousand dollars a year is five hundred a month. A freelancer building up, someone with one recurring client, anyone whose income dipped for a couple of quarters - all of them are under that line. On $3,000 of yearly income, that single fee is 1% of everything you earned, before any transaction fee, and it repeats every year you stay under.
Wise has no equivalent charge. An idle Wise account costs nothing to keep.
There is a separate 29.95 USD annual card fee if you take the Payoneer card, which is a fair price for a card and not a trap - just budget for it as a second line, not the same one.
So which one
Wise, if your clients pay in one of the currencies it gives you account details for, and if your country is eligible. It is free to receive, it is cheaper to convert in every corridor I checked, it charges nothing to sit still, and it will tell you the price before you commit.
Payoneer, in two cases that have nothing to do with fees. First: the platform that pays you supports Payoneer and not Wise. Upwork, Fiverr, and a long tail of marketplaces and ad networks fall here, and if that is your situation the comparison is decided for you. Second: you are in a flat-fee country, you move large amounts infrequently, and you are willing to verify the conversion cost inside the account and do the arithmetic yourself.
Both, if a marketplace forces Payoneer on you but the rest of your income is direct. Keep Payoneer for that one platform, keep the rest in Wise - but watch the 6,000 USD line, because a Payoneer account that only handles one small client is exactly the account that gets billed 29.95 USD a year.
Ready to compare against what you are on now, the real question is not which of these two is better. It is how either compares to what your money is doing today - and if that is PayPal, the arithmetic is not close. If you are not yet sure how the money would even arrive, start with how foreign payments actually reach you.
Fees and country lists on both sites change without notice. Every figure above is dated and linked below - open the sources and check your own country before you act on any of it.
Where I would not use this
- Do not open Payoneer if you receive under $6,000 a year. Their own fee table charges a 29.95 USD annual account fee that "only applies if account receives less than 6,000.00 USD or equivalent in any 12 consecutive months". On $3,000 of yearly income that fee alone is 1% of everything you earned.
- Do not open Wise expecting it to work everywhere. Wise gives account details in 22 currencies, but eligibility depends on where you live, and several countries are excluded from USD account details entirely. Check your own country on their page before you plan around it.
- Do not pick either on the headline fee. Receiving is free or near-free on both. Almost the entire difference is in the conversion, which is the number the marketing pages are quietest about.
- Neither is a solution if you need to take card payments from strangers at checkout. That is a payment gateway problem, not an account problem.
Common questions
Is Payoneer or Wise cheaper for a freelancer?
For receiving, both are free or close to it. The difference shows up when you convert. Wise quoted 6.67 USD to turn $1,000 into dong on 4 September 2026, and publishes that quote before you open an account. Payoneer publishes 1.50 USD to send to a local bank in the countries it lists, but does not publish the conversion markup applied on the way, so the total is not knowable from outside.
Can I have both?
Yes, and plenty of people do, for the boring reason that some marketplaces pay into one and not the other. There is no cost to holding an idle Wise account. There can be a cost to holding an idle Payoneer account, because of the 29.95 USD fee that applies below 6,000 USD received in 12 months.
Does Payoneer really charge 1% to receive US dollars?
Their table charges nothing for "a receiving account in your local currency" and 1% with a 1.00 USD minimum for "a receiving account in a currency that is not your local currency". If you live outside the US, US dollars are not your local currency, so on a plain reading that 1% applies. The page does not spell out the case, and this is exactly the kind of line worth confirming inside the account before you plan around it.
Why does the same $1,000 cost different amounts to send to different countries?
The conversion fee is set per currency pair, not globally. On the same day and the same $1,000, Wise quoted 0.48% to Indian rupees and 0.67% to Vietnamese dong. That spread is normal and it is why a comparison written for one country does not transfer to another.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure above was read off the page below on the date shown, not copied from another article. Open them and check me.
- Payoneer - Pricingchecked 2026-09-04
Receiving: "Via a receiving account in your local currency - Free", "Via a receiving account in a currency that is not your local currency - 1% (minimum fee of 1.00 USD or equivalent)", "From another customer's Payoneer balance - Free", "From a payer using a credit card - Up to 3.99% + 0.49 USD or equivalent". Withdrawing: "To a bank account in the same country as yours, in local currency (in supported countries)" listing "All EU countries, USA, Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Japan, Kenya, South Korea, Mexico, Malaysia, Norway, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam ... UK" at "1.50 USD"; "To a bank account in the recipient's local currency (no currency conversion) - 1.2% - 4%. In some countries, a minimum fee of up to 20.00 USD or equivalent may apply."; "Move funds between your Payoneer balances - 0.50%". Account: "Annual account fee. Only applies if account receives less than 6,000.00 USD or equivalent in any 12 consecutive months. Not charged in the first year for paid annual plans - 29.95 USD". Cards: "Annual card fee - 29.95 USD", "Card transactions with currency conversion - Up to 3.5%". And the footnote: "Currency conversion rates are based on wholesale market rates obtained at the time of transaction and include the conversion fee where indicated."
- Wise - Account fees for receiving and adding moneychecked 2026-09-04
"Getting account details to receive in 22 currencies - Free". "Receiving domestic payments (non-Swift / non-wire) - Receive AUD, CAD, EUR, GBP, HUF, NZD, PHP, SGD, USD - Free". "Receiving USD wire and Swift payments - Fixed fee per payment - 6.11 USD", "Receiving GBP Swift payments - 2.16 GBP", "Receiving EUR Swift payments - 2.39 EUR". And: "It's free to receive money into your Wise Account. Some faster methods of sending money, like wire payments in US dollars, have a fixed fee - but there'll always be a free alternative."
- Wise - price quote for USD 1,000 converted from balance (their own pricing calculator)checked 2026-09-04
Paying from an existing Wise balance, USD 1,000: to VND the fee quoted was 6.67 USD (25,908,530 VND out); to PKR 6.29 USD; to INR 4.76 USD; to NGN 5.79 USD; to PHP 5.43 USD. Same quotes with the money arriving by USD wire instead add a 6.11 USD pay-in fee on top.
Payoneer's fee table and Wise's receive-fees page are the primary sources here. Both companies change these pages without notice, and both apply different fees by country - open them with your own country in mind before acting on anything below. The Wise conversion figures come from Wise's own quote for USD 1,000 taken on 4 September 2026; rates move, so treat the percentage as the stable part and the dong amount as a snapshot.
General information, not financial, tax or legal advice. I am not a licensed advisor. Fees and country rules change often - open the provider's own fee page and check before you move money.
Phan Trong HungI am based in Da Nang, Vietnam, and I get paid from abroad for a living — two years buying Meta ads for a client and running my own stores, which means moving money in and out of the country every month. This site is my working notes. I am not a banker and I have not opened every account here, so instead of asking you to take my word for anything, I quote the provider’s own published page, link it, and date it. If a number is not from first-hand use, the post says so.