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Does the amount you send change who is cheapest?
Yes, and by more than most rankings admit. Across 17 providers we can price at both amounts, sending $100 costs 3.75% of the amount on average against 2.55% at $1,000 — a gap of 1.20 percentage points. The cheapest provider is not the same at both: InstaReM at $100, LemFi at $1,000.
3.75%
Average cost, $100
fee plus markup
2.55%
Average cost, $1,000
fee plus markup
+5.96pp
Worst small-transfer penalty
Wise
3
Cheaper on small transfers
of 17 providers
True total cost at $100 versus $1,000, by provider
Cost is the fee plus the exchange-rate markup, as a share of the amount sent. Ordered by the size of the small-transfer penalty, worst first. A negative figure means the provider is proportionally cheaper on the smaller transfer.
#Provider$100$1,000Difference
$100
7.93%
$1,000
1.98%
Difference
+5.96pp
$100
6.36%
$1,000
2.79%
Difference
+3.57pp
$100
4.08%
$1,000
0.94%
Difference
+3.14pp
$100
3.16%
$1,000
1.12%
Difference
+2.03pp
$100
3.63%
$1,000
1.85%
Difference
+1.78pp
$100
2.86%
$1,000
1.32%
Difference
+1.54pp
$100
8.70%
$1,000
7.43%
Difference
+1.27pp
$100
3.13%
$1,000
1.99%
Difference
+1.14pp
$100
1.89%
$1,000
0.83%
Difference
+1.06pp
$100
3.16%
$1,000
2.32%
Difference
+0.84pp
$100
3.16%
$1,000
2.47%
Difference
+0.70pp
$100
4.08%
$1,000
3.51%
Difference
+0.57pp
$100
0.89%
$1,000
0.75%
Difference
+0.15pp
$100
1.58%
$1,000
1.56%
Difference
+0.03pp
$100
0.67%
$1,000
1.40%
Difference
-0.73pp
$100
2.09%
$1,000
2.85%
Difference
-0.77pp
$100
6.45%
$1,000
8.26%
Difference
-1.80pp
Why a flat fee punishes a small transfer
A fixed fee is a much larger share of $100 than of $1,000, so a provider whose pricing is mostly a flat fee looks excellent on a large transfer and poor on a small one. Wise is the clearest case: 1.98% at $1,000 — competitive — against 7.93% at $100, which is about $5.96 of extra cost on a $100 send. The reverse also exists. InstaReM, Skrill, CurrencyFair are proportionally cheaper on the smaller transfer, which usually means pricing weighted toward a percentage margin rather than a fixed fee.
Methodology
Cost definition. True total cost is the gap between what a transfer at the mid-market rate would deliver and what the provider actually delivers, as a percentage of the amount sent. It captures the upfront fee and the exchange-rate markup in one figure, and it is the same definition used by our Remittance Cost Index, computed by the same function — the two pages cannot disagree about what a transfer costs.
Threshold. A provider appears only with 20 or more usable quotes at both amounts, which is why 17providers are compared here rather than the larger number that quote at either one. Comparing a provider’s tiers on a handful of quotes would produce a difference that is sampling noise.
Why there is no $10,000 column. 11 providers quote at this amount, roughly one per corridor — there is no field to compare, so no $10,000 column is published. Publishing it would be a column of near-singletons presented as a comparison, so it is named here instead of shown.
Limits. These are averages across every corridor a provider quotes, so a specific corridor can differ from the table — check your own before sending. Promotional first-transfer rates are excluded. Delivery speed is not measured. Coverage differs between tiers, so a provider dearer on small transfers may simply serve different corridors at each amount.
What this means if you are sending
A ranking priced at $1,000 — including ours — is the wrong guide for a $100 transfer. If you send small amounts regularly, compare at the amount you actually send: the comparison tool prices every provider at whatever you enter. To see who wins most often on your corridor rather than on average, use the Provider Consistency Index, and for whether today is a good day at all, see SendScore. All of our datasets are indexed on the research hub.
Provenance
- Data as of
- How the figures are produced
- Every quote at $100 and $1,000 in the archive is costed with the same function the Remittance Cost Index uses, then averaged per provider per tier. Providers below 20 quotes at either tier are excluded rather than shown with a noisy delta.
Primary sources
- SendMoneyCompare quote archive — every provider’s live quotes, recorded every six hours
- Remittance Cost Index — the same cost definition, priced at $1,000
- How we review and rank providers
- The underlying table, as CSV — check any figure on this page against the row that produced it
Analysis by
Akif HazarviEditor-in-Chief
Akif Hazarvi is the editor-in-chief of SendMoneyCompare with 8+ years in fintech and cross-border payments.
Corrections and independence: figures move with the scrape, so cite the data date above rather than the date you read this. Where we have published something wrong and fixed it, it is logged in corrections. No provider can buy a ranking or a place in these datasets — see our editorial policy and methodology.