PayPal vs Payoneer

PayPal refers to its fees as a "cross-border personal transaction fee”, and these will change depending on where you are transferring to and the amount you are sending. For the US, Canada, and Europe, PayPal will charge £0.99 for transactions under £49.99, £1.99 for transactions between £50 or over. For the rest of the world, the fees are £0.99 for anything £49.99 and under, £1.99 for transactions between £50 - £99.99, and £3.99 for transactions £100 or more.

Payoneer’s fees depend on the type of transaction you are processing. For example, using Payoneer’s Billing Service to request payments or paying suppliers will incur a fee between 1 - 3%, while receiving money from online marketplaces such as Upwork, Fiverr etc will also incur fees set by each individual marketplace. Withdrawing money to your account in the same currency (USD, EUR or GBP only), will incur a fee of 1.50 in whatever currency you are working with.

PayPal charges an exchange rate margin between 3.5 - 4% on most currency conversions, although the exact percentage added is not clearly shown when you are initiating a transfer. As an example, sending from GDP to AUD would give you a markup of 4% on the mid-market rate.

Payoneer will typically charge a margin of 2% on top of the mid-market rate, although this can go up to 3.5% if you are paying for your transfer by credit card.

PayPal is available in more than 200 countries, but they only support transfers between 25 currencies at the moment.

Currently, Payoneer supports 200+ countries and territories including areas as remote as the Mayotte archipelago, a region under France, but it only supports 7 currencies, and an additional 4 for tax payment purposes.

PayPal’s transfer time can take anywhere from minutes to up to 5 working days. If your recipient already has a PayPal account and you already have the funds in your own PayPal account, your transfer will be processed much quicker. On the other hand, withdrawing from your bank account before converting into another currency will take closer to 3 - 5 working days.

Transfers from Payoneer to a bank account will typically take between 2 - 3 business days, although Payoneer does say this can take up to 5 working days. In some cases, your transfer can be processed within 24 hours, such as transfers from online marketplaces, but variables such as international or local holidays can affect these timings.

PayPal’s payment options include paying by bank transfer, credit card, debit card, or transferring via your PayPal account. You can select for your recipient to receive the funds either by bank transfer or by PayPal account transfer - transferring to and from PayPal accounts will be much faster.

Payoneer’s payment options include paying by credit card, eCheck, or bank transfer. However, Payoneer differs slightly from a conventional money transfer service. You can use Payoneer’s platform to withdraw money from your Payoneer account to your bank account or to pay funds directly to a supplier’s bank account. You can also load money onto your Payoneer prepaid Mastercard to then withdraw at local ATMs, physical stores, or when shopping online.

PayPal has over 13,000 reviews on Trustpilot with an overall ‘Bad’ rating of 1.3 out of 5. It’s worth bearing in mind, however, that these reviews are not just aimed towards PayPal’s services as an international transfer provider, but directed towards PayPal’s service as a whole.

Amongst the negative reviews, users frequently refer to unfair charges, funds being paused or lost, and poor customer service.

Payoneer has 13,959 reviews on Trustpilot with an overall ‘Excellent’ rating of 4.5 out of 5. The positive comments centred on Payoneer’s responsive 24/7 customer service, easy-to-navigate platform, and faster transfers.

The 6% of customers who rated the company’s service as ‘Poor’ or ‘Bad’ were critical of their account being blocked without notice, and card shipments being made to a physical address and not postal addresses.

PayPal is accessible to a wide range of countries, supporting 17 different languages. The app is available on both iOS and Android, allowing you to view your balance, add and withdraw money, and send money. The app receives good reviews for its convenience and ease of use.

To keep accounts secure, PayPal uses advanced encryption technology in order to protect every transaction it processes. It also has security questions in place that you can use if you forget or lose your password, although you can also contact customer service to regain access to your account.

Payoneer has over 300 customer service representatives able to offer support to clients in over 70 languages through live chat, email, and telephone. In addition, the website can be translated into 8 other languages to make sending money more accessible. The Payoneer app has generally positive reviews, giving users the ability to manage currencies, request payments, and withdraw payments to bank accounts.

For security, Payoneer is a registered US Money Service Business (MSB) and is certified at a PCI Level 1 Data Security Standard. Payoneer also uses 2-step verification to help ensure that no malicious actors are able to break into your account.

In addition to payments for friends and family, PayPal’s main territory is in e-commerce. It is most widely used as a method to pay merchants for goods online - to do this, you can authorize a seller to use your PayPal account, or designate a monthly payment for a subscription service.

Payoneer is designed specifically to provide a more convenient way for business professionals to connect and grow through cross-border payments. This is unique to most other online transfer services, whose main function is to provide online transfers to anyone who seeks to send money abroad, whether that’s to a family member, to pay for foreign purchases or something else entirely.

Sending $200

To send $200 USD to SGD with PayPal, you would incur a fixed fee of $0.50, a cross-border fee of 2% of the amount you are sending, plus a 4% markup on the base exchange rate. Your recipient would typically expect to see this amount within 1 - 3 working days in their account.

Sending $1,000

Sending this amount with PayPal would have the same fee structure as listed above - because you are sending a larger amount, you would therefore be charged a higher cross-border fee and a 4% markup on the mid-market rate.

Sending $5,000

This transfer with PayPal would take between 1 - 5 working days and would have the same fee structure listed above. Of course, a 2% cross-border fee adds up to much more expensive fees with a sum this large.

To avoid the excessive costs charged by PayPal you can go for PayPal alternatives.

Sending $200

Sending $200 USD with Payoneer would have no transfer fee when sending to Singapore, and an exchange rate markup between 2 - 3%. The transfer would typically take around 1-5 days to be received. Your recipient would receive a total of $265.90 SGD.

Sending $1,000

You would get the same fees, exchange rate, and transfer time as above when sending this sum with Payoneer. Your recipient would get $1,329.50 (at the time of writing).

Sending $5,000

Sending $5,000 UDD with Payoneer would leave your recipient with $6,647.50 at the time of writing, with the transfer likely to take closer to 3 - 5 working days. Again, there would be no fees attached to this transfer if you were using your Payoneer account.