A client in Germany owes you $10,000. You can send a PayPal invoice, a Stripe invoice, the details of a euro account at Airwallex, Payoneer or Revolut Business, or the SWIFT details of your bank. The client sees five ways to pay the same bill. You see five different amounts arriving, from $9,500 to a little over $9,900, and most of the difference is not the processing fee. It is who converts the currency and at what rate.
This piece works the same $10,000 through each route using the providers' own published fees, read on 21 September 2026. The grades in brackets are our review grades. It is about invoiced payments from business clients; the cost of a foreign card at a shop counter is a different calculation, covered in our piece on foreign card fees for US merchants.
The two fees, and the one that hides
Every cross-border receipt carries a processing fee, which is printed on a fee page, and a conversion cost, which usually is not. If your invoice is in dollars, the conversion happens on the client's side, at the client's bank's rate, and neither of you sees the markup as a line item; the client simply pays more euros than the mid-market rate implies. If the invoice is in euros, the conversion happens on your side, at your provider's rate, and it is the largest single number in this article. PayPal's conversion spread is 3.00% on the transactions relevant here. Airwallex publishes 0.5% above interbank. That gap on $10,000 is $250, before anyone has charged a processing fee.
So the first decision is not which provider but which currency to invoice in, and the answer depends on the provider. On PayPal, invoice in dollars and let the client's bank do the conversion. On a multi-currency account, invoice in the client's currency, receive it locally for nothing, and convert it yourself at a published margin.
What each route costs on $10,000
- PayPal (A-): $499.49 if the client pays a dollar invoice from a PayPal account. The merchant fee page, last updated 1 September 2026, prices PayPal Checkout and invoices paid through it at 3.49% + 49¢ and adds 1.50% for an international commercial transaction. If the client pays the invoice by card instead, the standard card rate of 2.99% + 49¢ plus the same 1.50% comes to $449.49. Invoice in euros and convert the balance and PayPal's 3.00% spread on 'all other transactions' takes about $300 more, so a euro invoice paid through PayPal costs roughly $750 to $800 to collect. PayPal is the route most clients already have, which is the only argument for it at this size.
- Stripe (A): $440.30 for a foreign card paying a dollar invoice, at 2.9% + 30¢ plus 1.5% for an international card. Present the invoice in pounds or euros and settle to dollars and Stripe adds 1% for currency conversion, $540.30. Stripe Invoicing itself costs 0.4% of each paid invoice on the Starter plan, another $40. Stripe's bank-transfer method lets a US account give a customer in a SEPA country a local euro account number, or a UK customer a sterling one, which removes the card fee entirely; the documentation says cross-border bank transfers 'incur additional fees that are visible in the Dashboard' and does not publish them, and that SWIFT wires into a US account are dollars only.
- Airwallex (B): about $54 on a euro transfer, and nothing at all if the client sends dollars. The free Explore plan includes Global Accounts that 'collect and hold in 20+ currencies', and the fee schedule updated 18 September 2026 charges 0% to receive standard currencies, 0.60% for Korean won, Vietnamese dong, Brazilian real and Malaysian ringgit, and $15 for a US Fedwire receipt. Conversion is '0.5% above interbank rates for major currencies' and 1% for others, with a further 0.04% to 0.30% depending on how long you hold a quoted rate open. A card payment is the expensive door: 4.30% + 30¢ for an international card, $430.30.
- Payoneer (B-): about $151.50 on a euro transfer, on the fee page's standard schedule. A payment into a receiving account 'in a currency that is not your local currency' costs 1% with a $1 minimum, moving it into your dollar balance costs 0.50%, and withdrawing to a US bank costs $1.50. Send the client your dollar receiving account instead and the receipt is free, the withdrawal $1.50, and the conversion the client's problem. A card payment costs 'up to 3.99% + 0.49 USD', $399.49, and an account that receives under $6,000 in 12 months pays a $29.95 annual fee. The page's own disclaimer says fees differ by territory and account type, so treat these as the ceiling to check your own schedule against.
- Revolut Business (B): $54 plus the plan on Basic, or $0 plus the plan on Grow. Revolut's US business pricing page, as of this week, lists Basic from $10 a month with $1,000 of exchange at the interbank rate, Grow from $40 with $20,000 and Scale from $140 with $80,000; above the allowance the fee is 0.6%, and 1% outside market hours. Its help centre says inbound EUR, GBP, USD and CHF transfers do not count against the plan's transfer allowance, that a US domestic wire in costs a flat $10, and that on a SWIFT receipt 'fees may be charged by intermediary and beneficiary banks'. Our review notes that Revolut publishes no US card-acceptance rates, so here it is the account, not a processor.
- Your bank: $15 at Chase plus whatever the correspondents take. Chase's business account fee schedule effective 14 June 2026 lists an incoming international wire at $15 on Business Complete Checking, waived only if the sender used Chase. Chase's own guide to wire fees says the money 'usually passes through one or more intermediary banks' which 'typically charge a fee for handling the transfer', deducted from the amount. The client's bank sets the exchange rate on dollars sent and charges its own outgoing fee. A wire is the one route on this list where the total is unknowable in advance, which is the case against it, not the $15.
The table, in one line each
Dollar invoice, client converts: PayPal $499.49 from a PayPal balance or $449.49 by card; Stripe $440.30 by card; Airwallex $0 by transfer; Payoneer $1.50; Revolut $0 plus plan; bank wire $15 plus correspondents. Euro invoice, you convert: PayPal roughly $800; Stripe $540.30 by card; Airwallex about $54 to $80; Payoneer about $151.50; Revolut $54 on Basic or $0 within a Grow allowance, plus the plan.
Two things follow. The card processors are the wrong tool for an invoiced business payment above a few hundred dollars, and both of them know it: Stripe built a bank-transfer method and Airwallex prices its own card acceptance at eight times its transfer route. And a multi-currency account only pays off if the client will actually send a local transfer. A German company paying a German IBAN by SEPA is routine; asking a client in a country without local rails to wire into a US-dollar account puts you back on SWIFT.
What the fee pages do not tell you
The interbank rate is not a fixed thing, and 'above interbank' is only as good as the reference. Airwallex and Revolut both say their rate is derived from the interbank market; neither guarantees a particular source, and Revolut's page footnotes that rates 'cannot be guaranteed'. The honest check is to convert a small amount and compare the rate you got with a mid-market quote at the same minute. PayPal's fee page gives its spread as 4.00% or 3.00% 'or such other amount as may be disclosed to you during the transaction', which is the one virtue of a large number you can see. On timing, a multi-currency account is the balance itself, while PayPal and Stripe put you on their payout schedules, and an instant payout from either costs 1.5% on top.
None of the multi-currency accounts is a bank. Airwallex US describes itself as a licensed money transmitter that partners with Evolve Bank & Trust for some customers, and says funds are 'safeguarded in line with the local regulations where Airwallex operates', which is not the same thing as deposit insurance; each provider's terms say what its own arrangement is, and our reviews cover the reserve and hold terms. For a business that collects a few large invoices a year, that argues for receiving into the account and withdrawing to your bank the same week rather than treating it as a treasury.
What to do
- If the client can pay by local transfer, invoice in their currency to a local account number at Airwallex or Revolut Business and convert yourself. On $10,000 that is $54 to $80 against $440 or more by card.
- If the client insists on a card, use Stripe over PayPal and invoice in dollars: $440.30 against $499.49, and no 3% spread waiting on the conversion.
- If the client insists on PayPal, invoice in dollars. The 4.99% is unavoidable; the 3% conversion is not.
- If the payment is a one-off and you have no account to receive it, a wire to your bank at $15 is fine; ask the client to send it 'OUR', with all charges paid by the sender, so the correspondents do not take their cut from your side.
- Whatever the route, check the arrival against the invoice and the mid-market rate for the day, once. The first payment tells you what the provider's rate is actually worth.
