How the markup comparison works.

The mid-market rate

The mid-market rate is the midpoint between the buy and sell price of a currency — the rate you'll see on Google or Reuters, and the one no consumer actually gets. We use it as the honest baseline that every provider's markup is measured against.

Our mid-market rates come from the European Central Bank, fetched through the Frankfurter API and refreshed several times a day. They're reference rates, not tradeable quotes. For pairs that don't involve the euro, we derive the rate by triangulating through a common currency.

Where provider markups come from

We don't have a live feed into every bank's pricing engine, and we don't take affiliate fees to tilt the numbers. Instead we keep a curated rate book: a versioned record of each provider's typical markup and fee for a given corridor, built from public pricing pages, fee disclosures, and currency-conversion policy documents.

These are approximate retail-tier estimates, not personal quotes. Your real rate depends on your account tier, the channel you use (app, branch, wire), the time of day, and the size of the transfer. We review the rate book on a quarterly cycle and stamp each pair page with the month it was last checked.

Turning a markup into what you receive

A provider's markup is how far below the mid-market rate their effective exchange rate sits. We apply it like this:

• Effective rate = mid-market rate × (1 − markup%). A 2% markup on a 1.10 mid rate gives an effective rate of 1.078.
• Amount received = (amount you send − fixed fee) × effective rate. The fee is subtracted in your send currency before the conversion.

Both halves matter. A provider with a tiny percentage markup but a flat fee can still lose to a fee-free competitor on small transfers, and win on large ones. That's why we compare on the bottom line — the amount actually received — rather than on the markup alone.

Send-amount anchors

Fees and markups don't scale cleanly, so we curate each provider's numbers at a handful of representative send amounts rather than assuming one rate fits every transfer size. The amount selector on each pair page snaps to these anchors, and the table recalculates for the one you pick. Anchors are set in the send currency, so the ladder for yen looks different from the one for dollars.

How the "Best" provider is chosen

The Best Provider badge goes to whoever leaves the most money in the recipient's account at your current send amount, after markup and fees. Nothing else feeds into it — there's no featured slot, no sponsorship, no thumb on the scale.

Because it's based on the amount received, the badge can move as you change the amount. A zero-fee provider with a slightly wider spread often wins small transfers, while a tighter-spread provider with a flat fee takes over once the transfer is large enough to absorb the fee. Change the amount and watch it flip — that's the honest answer, not a fixed ranking.

The provider tiers

Each table is organised into three groups:

• Global services — the mid-market reference plus specialist money-movers (Wise, Revolut, Bunq) that operate across most corridors.
• Banks in the send country — the major retail banks someone is likely to walk into on the sending side.
• Banks in the receiving country — the equivalent on the destination side.

On narrow phone screens the bank tiers collapse behind a "Show all banks" toggle so the global comparison stays readable; the full table is one tap away.

Keeping it current

The rate book is reviewed quarterly. Any figure older than 90 days is flagged internally as stale and prioritised for the next review, and the footer of each comparison table shows the month the rates were last reviewed so you can judge for yourself how fresh they are.

Not financial advice

This comparison is an information tool. Mid-market rates are indicative ECB reference rates, and the provider markups are approximate estimates that vary by transfer size, channel, account tier, and corridor. Always confirm the live rate and fees with your provider before you transact. If you spot a number that looks wrong, tell us at admin@currencycalculator.exchange and we'll check it at the next review.