Paysend Review: Exchange Rates, Safety, Alternatives, and Monito's Verdict
Paysend is an excellent money transfer service (8.2/10) roundly recommended by Monito's experts for card payments across borders. With nearly four million customers and moving more than four billion US dollars annually, Paysend is a trustworthy service (7.8/10), although not fully transparent about its pricing. On Paysend's clean, fast, and user-friendly web and mobile apps (8.0/10) that attract all-around positive feedback (9.7/10), users can take advantage of decent fees and exchange rates (7.1/10) for international payments using their debit or credit cards.
What Monito Likes About Paysend
- Consistently low and competitive fees and exchange rates;
- A true specialist in international card payments;
- An impressive network of around 110 receiving countries is available.
What Monito Dislikes About Paysend
- Around 77% of fees are hidden away in nontransparent margins;
- Bank transfers are not supported as a pay-in method in all countries;
- Only one sending country (the country of residence) is available.
Monito's Recommendation
Paysend is a world-class option for international credit or debit card payments, one we recommend for transfers of all sizes. However, if you'd prefer to make a bank transfer to send money abroad, or if you'd like to make sure you're getting the cheapest service on your next transfer, we recommend running a search on Monito's real-time comparison engine to find the best deal instead.
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Description
Key Questions About Paysend Answered
Who Is Paysend For?
With its global reach, impeccable reputation, and competitive pricing, Paysend is available to residents of 49 countries across the globe and is the ideal service for those looking for low-cost international card payments. Eligible countries do not yet include India, Ukraine, China, New Zealand, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, and others.
See How Paysend Stacks Up
How Monito Reviewed Paysend's Services
As with all services reviewed by Monito, Paysend underwent a rigorous evaluation to assess the quality of its service. To begin with, our experts opened a Paysend account to test out its functionalities, including the ease of registration and speed of transferring money, which provided a well-rounded overview of the platform's strengths and limitations. Next, we weighed this score against several other key criteria, including customer reviews, percentage of fees constituted by exchange rate margins, pay-in options, access to customer service, as well as business and legal metrics such as volume transferred, appropriate authorization, and company size. Finally, we analyzed nearly 700 thousand searches on Monito's comparison engine to determine how often Paysend was the cheapest service and how often it was competitive against its rivals over the past three months, giving a reliable overview of the service's pricing in relation to the market. As with all Monito Scores, Paysend's score was peer-reviewed by at least one Monito expert.
Reviews are written independently by Monito's editors and recommendations given are our own. Services you sign up with using our links may earn us a commission.
Trust & Credibility
Background check
Paysend Group Ltd is duly authorised and regulated by the FCA and HMRC in the United Kingdom, as well as by the relevant authorities in all the countries in which it operates.
Security & reliability
Paysend's website is fully secured and makes use of top-notch security protocols, including segregated user accounts and HTTPS.
Company size
Founded in 2017, Paysend is a rather new company in international payments. However, the company already boasts over US$3.2 billion transferred in the past year, four million customers, and 120 employees.
Transparent pricing
Paysend is not fully transparent about its pricing, sliding around three quarters (77%) of total fees into its exchange rates.
Can I Trust Paysend?
Moving more than US$3.2 billion across borders for around 3.7 million customers every year, Paysend is, without a doubt, a trustworthy choice as a money transfer partner.
Is Paysend Safe?
The short answer is yes, Paysend is safe indeed. Moving more than US$3.2 billion across borders for around 3.7 million customers every year, Paysend is a trustworthy service that offers institutional-grade security and preventative measures, such as two-factor login and verification procedures. What's more, Paysend holds its clients’ funds completely separately from their own business accounts, as per FCA requirements, meaning that should the company have any financial difficulties, your money will remain safe.
Service & Quality
Opening an account
Opening an account with Paysend is quick and intuitive thanks to the platform's clean user interface and lack of information overload.
Making a transfer
Transferring money with Paysend is fast and straightforward, regardless of whether you're sending money for the first time or on a daily basis.
Contacting support
By offering a speedy, around-the-clock live chat feature, Paysend makes it easy to find help when needed.
Paysend's Service Quality
Opening and managing an account, contacting customer service, and funding a transfer with Paysend is very convenient, although sending options are quite limited.
Monito's Impressions During Our Test
Quick, clean, and user-friendly, Paysend's website and mobile apps impressed our reviewers with their simple user experience and helpful prompts and tips. What particularly stood out to us was that the entire transfer process could be completed on a single web page, making it one of the fastest money transfer services we've reviewed. What's more, users can deposit money into their own bank accounts from prepaid cards at almost no cost — a big feather in Paysend's cap. Finally, we liked that Paysend came across as approachable and avoided complicated phraseology and money transfer jargon.
Paysend App Review
The Paysend app has garnered excellent reviews from users across the world. For example, on the App Store, the Paysend app has earned 4.3 out of 5 stars out of a total of around 800 ratings, while on Google Play Store, the app garnered a more considerable 4.7 out of 5 stars from as many as 47 thousand ratings. The Paysend app allows users to make international card payments to bank accounts, cards, Paysend wallets, and cash pickup locations worldwide using a simple, clean interface.
Fees & Exchange Rates
Transfers to a bank account
Paysend was the best deal on around 12% of money transfer corridors analysed.
Paysend's Fees & Exchange Rates
Paysend is consistently one of the cheapest and most competitive services compared to its top competitors on Monito's comparison engine. When using the service to send money abroad, you'll encounter the following two costs:
Paysend Transfer Fees
Paysend charges a single, low fixed fee for card-to-card and card-to-Paysend-wallet transfers for most money transfer corridors, which remains flat regardless of the amount of money that you send. By default, these fees apply to most money transfer corridors. However, some of the more popular money transfer corridors are fee-free entirely. Card-to-bank transfers always come without a transfer fee.
These Paysend card transfer fees for some of the major sending countries are as follows:
From the USA: US$2.00
From Canada: C$3.00
From the Eurozone: €1.50
From the UK: £1.00
From Australia: A$3.00
From Switzerland: CHF 2.00
Paysend Exchange Rates
All in all, Paysend offers very attractive exchange rates, the margins on which typically range between 0.5% and 2% above the mid-market exchange rate. This makes Paysend a highly competitive service for most transfer corridors, in particular for transfers from the UK to Poland where the margin is as low as 0.3% of the transfer value.
Take a look at the graph below to see how Paysend's exchange rates differ across a number of key money transfer corridors:
Compare Paysend's Fees & Exchange Rates
Customer Satisfaction
Customer review score
Earning 4.7 out of 5 stars from more than 22 thousand reviews on Trustpilot, it should go without saying that Paysend's service consistently delights its customers.
Number of positive reviews
Having earned nearly 21 thousand four- or five-star reviews on Trustpilot so far, Paysend is without a doubt a trustworthy and reliable service in the eyes of its customers.
Customer Reviews of Paysend
Paysend has received overwhelmingly positive reviews from customers across all platforms. On Trustpilot, around 89% of 23 thousand customers who gave their feedback rated the service five out of five stars. Among the hundreds of reviews we surveyed, the following key themes and sentiments emerged from Paysend customers:
Positive Paysend Reviews
- Convenient card payments that are easy to make;
- The exchange rates are favourable;
- Money arrives quickly at the destination.
Negative Paysend Reviews
- Live chat customer support can be delayed;
- Default maximum sending limits are low;
- Raising sending limits can take a long time.
How Paysend Works
Step 01
Check Paysend's rates
Use Monito's comparison engine to see how Paysend's fees and exchange rates weigh up against the rest and make sure they are indeed the cheapest option for your international money transfer. There, you'll be able to discover both the cheapest ways to fund your transfer and have the money received.
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Step 02
Create a Paysend Account
Sign up with Paysend by providing your mobile phone number. Once you've verified the number with an SMS code, you'll be asked to add your full name, date of birth, email address, and residential address.
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Step 03
Set Up a Transfer
Once registered, Paysend will direct you to your dashboard, from which you'll be able to confirm your email address and send money. (If you'd like to send abroad a large amount, you'll be required to raise your limits and verify your identity using a photo ID over email.) To get started with your transfer, click the 'Send money' button, and enter the amount you'd like to send, your destination currency, and the pay-out method.
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Step 04
Add a Beneficiary
Further down the page, you'll have the opportunity to enter your beneficiary's payment details. These will be slightly different for bank transfers versus cash pickups but will include your beneficiary's full name, residential address and specify a reason for your transfer regardless of the pay-out method.
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Step 05
Enter Your Card Details
At the bottom of the page, you'll be required to enter your credit or debit card details. This includes your card number, as well as its expiry date and CVC/CVV number.
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Final step
Review and Pay
Try PaysendAfter clicking 'Continue', you'll have the opportunity to review your transfer details and then instruct the payment. Once you've paid, the money should be deducted from your card and processed in a matter of seconds.
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