Skrill Review: Money Transfer Fees, Safety, Alternatives, and Monito's Verdict

Skrill is a good international money transfer service (8.3/10), often recommended by Monito's experts. By offering competitive fees and exchange rates (7.0/10) on a versatile mobile wallet that's fast and easy to use for international money transfers (8.7/10), Skrill is widely liked by its customers (8.5/10), who frequently praise it for its fast transfers and competitive fees and exchange rates. As a company, Skrill is a well-established and trustworthy player in the industry (8.8/10), with around a million users and transacting around US$1 billion every year.

What Monito Likes About Skrill

• Competitive fees and exchange rates;
• Transfers are secure, fast, and convenient;
• A much-loved service with excellent customer reviews on Trustpilot;
• An impressive number of countries and currencies are supported;
• International transfers are available using debit and credit cards.

What Monito Dislikes About Skrill

• The number of currencies available varies by sending country;
• Money can only be sent to a bank account or a mobile wallet;
• Fees are levied through a nontransparent exchange rate margin.

How We Review Money Transfer Providers

With more than 50 providers reviewed and 100 test transfers made over the past ten years, we pride ourselves on providing the best reviews of international money transfer services online. Curious how we make them and why you can trust us? Take a look at our process below:

Can I Trust Skrill?

Moving around US$1 billion on an annual basis for more than a million users, Skrill is a large and trustworthy money transfer service.

Founded in 2001, Skrill was originally established as Moneybookers, a payment gateway geared toward the gambling industry, before it later rebranded itself to Skrill. Today, Skrill is a fully authorized and regulated money transfer operator serving around a million customers globally and employing some 500 people. What's more, Paysafe Ltd (Skrill's parent company) is a publicly-traded payments giant that specialises in safe and secure money transfers to millions of users around the world.

Is Skrill Safe?

Yes, Skrill is indeed a safe and secure platform. Authorised and regulated by numbers regulators around the world, Skrill is supervised by the likes of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK, as well as the US Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), making them an undoubtedly trustworthy and legitimate money transfer operator.

Skrill's Service Quality

Skrill's mobile wallet is seamlessly designed, with both international money transfers and new signups taking a matter of minutes or even seconds to complete.

What Is Skrill?

Skrill is a mobile wallet that offers transfers between users, international money transfers, and cryptocurrency trading. Established in 2001, Skrill is today owned by Paysafe Ltd, a global payments giant that provides payment services online, in person, and via other channels. Skrill started as an e-commerce payment gateway specializing in gambling but has since expanded its services to include an online service that lets you send money around the world called Skrill Money Transfer.

By default, opening an account with Skrill gives you access to Skrill Money Transfer as well as the Skrill mobile wallet, the former of which provides a fast, simple, and inexpensive way to send money internationally due to attractive pricing, exchange rates, and fees. 

You can fund an international money transfer through Skrill Money Transfer using a credit card, debit card, SOFORT, or bank transfer, depending on where you’re located and which currency you’re using. Your beneficiary will also have the choice of whether to receive funds directly into their bank account or into their Skrill mobile wallet if they have one. (Take note that the latter option is not available in all countries.)

Monito's Impressions During Our Test

Signing up for a new mobile wallet on Skrill was fast and easy, and our experts found the process to be filled with helpful tips and clear, actionable language. Although international money transfers are just one part of the Skrill mobile wallet, navigating to make a new transfer is fast and intuitive. What's more, the service gives a clear overview of how much one can expect to pay in fees, although we didn't like the fact that the exchange rate margin wasn't displayed transparently in addition.

Skrill's Mobile App Review

Skrill’s mobile app, which allows users to make online payments, send money overseas, and trade cryptocurrencies, is available on Android and iOS devices. As of May 2021, the app had garnered good ratings across the board, especially among Apple users. For example, on the App Store, the mobile wallet platform earned 4.4 out of 5 stars from a total of around 6,100 individual reviews. Meanwhile, on Google Play Store, users were more lukewarm about the service and gave it 3.8 out of 5 stars out of a large total of around 112 thousand reviews.

Skrill's Fees & Exchange Rates

Often competitive and sometimes even the cheapest of all, Skrill's fees and exchange rates are generally very well-priced. While you may notice minor differences depending on your country and currency, in general, these fees and exchange rates are structured as follows:

Skrill's Fees

Skrill Money Transfer doesn't charge any fixed fees or other transaction costs for sending money overseas, making the service an especially favourable option for smaller transfers, which tend to be made pricey by additional transaction costs. This is the case if you choose to pay for your money transfer using a debit card, bank transfer, or Paysafecash.

For credit card payments, however, Skrill does charge a commission fee of up to 4.99% per transaction, not including any additional foreign transaction fees that your credit card issuer may charge too.

Skrill's Exchange Rates

For all transfers, regardless of the currencies and payment method, Skrill charges an exchange rate margin (which it calls an "international transfer exchange rate mark-up".) This is essentially a small markup over the mid-market exchange rate that Skrill makes every unit of currency you convert into another and can range as high as 4.99% of the total value of your transfer.

Exchange rate margins are also slightly higher for debit card transfers than for credit card transfers. Given the fact that exchange rate margins are not transparent in the first place, we find this aspect of Skrill's pricing to be the only major drawback.

For many currencies pairs, the above fees and exchange rates are a good deal. However, for others, they can be more expensive. Say, for example, you were to send British pounds to Euros using a debit card. With Skrill, sending £500.00 to Spain in this way would cost 2.88% of your transfer value in exchange rate fees according to Monito's comparison engine at the time of writing. Meanwhile, if you were to send South African rands to Spain, a roughly equivalent R10,000.00 transfer would cost 3.85% in exchange rate fees — highlighting how these rates vary from currency to currency.

Transfer Times

Money sent through Skrill Money Transfer usually arrives on the same business day. However, it can take between three and five business days at the extremes depending on your payment method and how the funds are delivered.

Skrill Customer Reviews

Skrill is much-loved by its customers, receiving an excellent 4.8/5 stars on Trustpilot from around eight thousand reviews to date. In general, many of these reviews reflected the following strengths and weaknesses of the service:

Positive

• Fees and exchange rates are very competitive;
• The mobile wallet is easy to use and well-designed;
• Transfers were very speedy.

Negative

• Frustration over the documentation required to verify identity;
• The fee breakdown can mislead in that it doesn't include the exchange rate.