Best PayPal Alternatives For Paying In A Foreign Currency: Multi-Currency Cards

Jun 9, 2020

Advertiser disclosure

Often these days, searching for something you need online will bring you to a site in another country and a checkout page in another currency. Whether you’re shopping for shoes, trying to track down a rare video game, or looking to donate to a charity, that checkout page can seem like a roadblock. Your credit card isn’t in the same currency, you want to avoid international fees, your billing address isn’t in the country in question, and you know PayPal charges some of the highest exchange rates (even if you’re charging to a connected credit card rather than your PayPal balance). What to do? Are there alternatives to PayPal?

What You Need to Know When Making Paypal Transactions In Different Currencies

PayPal can be used in different ways: as a mobile wallet, it can store different credit cards as well as keep a balance. You can use either your cards or your PayPal balance to send money to other individual users, or to make online payments.
When making payments that do not require conversion – either because you have a balance or a credit card in the currency – PayPal won’t charge you a fee, though your card issuer still might if the payment is processed abroad.
When making payments in another currency, however, things get more complicated. If you use your balance, PayPal will handle the conversion, charging you a conversion fee of 4%. If you use a credit card, PayPal can either handle the conversion for the same 4% fee, or it can directly charge the amount to your card, letting the issuer handle the conversion.
Since your card issuer very likely charges less than 4% when spending money in another currency, it is always a bad idea to let PayPal handle the conversion if you can.
Making multi-currency transactions via PayPal also comes with fees, though those are less transparent: they consist of a mark-up on the mid-market exchange rate, exchange rate fees, and destination delivery fees. PayPal needs to show their fees, but often finding these details on the page can be like looking for a needle in a haystack!

How to Make a Foreign Currency Transaction with PayPal:

Check the Mid-Market Exchange Rate on Monito. This is the most important thing you can do to make a series of informed decisions. No matter where you are and what currency you want to interact with, the Mid-Market exchange rate will tell you that banks themselves are using when exchanging currencies and let you know just how much PayPal and your traditional bank cards are marking up your transfers.
If PayPal is your only payment option, select the option to pay by card and not with PayPal credit. You can connect credit cards to your PayPal account, and it’s likely that your bank offers a better exchange rate than PayPal. Make sure to read about how to reduce Paypal conversion fees on Monito.
Don’t connect just any card to your PayPal account. Choose to pay with a multi-currency card. What’s that? We’ll answer in depth below, but in short, it’s a borderless card that will let you shop like a local – no exchange rate fees and no international fees full stop!
Choose to pay in the local currency.

Consider Using a Multi-Currency Card as an Alternative to PayPal What is a multi-currency card?

A multi-currency card – sometimes also known as a travel money card – is usually a prepaid debit card provided by internet-only banks that can be used in multiple currencies around the world without facing extra hidden fees. You charge them up through your account and are free to use them just as you would any debit card, whether online or in person. Sometimes, though rarely, a multi-currency card can be a credit card.

When dealing with foreign currency, a multi-currency card is always your best option.

Are they safe? Multi-currency cards acquired through reputable online banks are safe.

Check out Monito's Comparison of the Best Travel Money Cards

PayPal Vs. the Multi-Currency Card

Online multi-currency accounts are becoming more and more common as internet-only banks like TransferWise, N26, Revolut, Bunq, Monese, and Monzo are launching around the world and allowing you to spend money internationally with exchange rates that rival the interbank rate. Many of these institutions have cards that you can use around the world – whether in person or virtually – mostly fee-free. All are better alternatives than Paypal!

Lucky for you, even though these cards are often known or treated as travel cards, you can use them as you would any other card… just without many of the drawbacks. Since the cards allow you to shop in different currencies, you can avoid fees. If, for example, you’re in Germany and shopping in the US, then you can pay in USD and not pay large exchange rate fees.

But is it worth it? Are multi-currency cards really better than Paypal's own payment methods?

The short answer: YES.

The long answer?

Say you live in Germany and you’re buying a pair of shoes from a retailer in the US that’s worth 100 USD. You don’t check the Mid-Market Exchange Rate and you check out with PayPal because it’s easy. They have your card information stored, along with your address, and you don’t have to do anything beyond clicking one button. PayPal charges you 91.41 EUR, and you don’t question it for a second. What you don’t realize is that PayPal has charged you 4.55 EUR in hidden fees, which is approximately 5% of your purchase! With higher values, that can quickly add up.

Now that we’ve seen how much PayPal marks up the exchange rate and charges in hidden fees, let’s see how much the same transaction would cost you with PayPal alternatives.

For this same item, worth 100 USD and converted to 88.5 with the Mid-Market rate:

Paypal Alternatives

If your conversion is handled by…	PayPal	TransferWise	Revolut	N26**
What You Would Pay Total	91.41	88.86	88.53	88.53
Of Which … is Fees	4.55	0	0	0
	Results from June 2020

Which Multi-Currency Card Is the Best PayPal Alternative For You?

If you’re in Europe, then it’s easy! You have lots of choices. Check out Monito’s comparison of the four best travel cards to consider location, fees, currency exchange rates, customer service, and reputation, and choose whichever one is best for you and your needs.

If you’re outside of Europe, then you have less choice: very simply, your best bet for a multi-currency card is TransferWise. The good news, though, is that TransferWise is often users’ first choice: it’s available and usable just about everywhere and has a very high number of positive reviews on TrustPilot, with a score of 9.2/10 (TransferWise itself also has a Great in-house rating according to our Monito score.)

Now that you’ve decided on your PayPal alternative, what to do?

How to Set Up Your PayPal Alternative

TransferWise	Revolut	N26	Monese
Visit the Monito review of TransferWise to learn more about the card and company. It isn’t always easy to adopt a new resource – especially when your money is involved – so we want you to feel sure about your choice and reassured by your research.	1.Visit the Monito review of Revolut to learn more about the card and company.	1.Visit the Monito review of N26 to learn more about the card and company.	1.Visit the Monito review of Monese to learn more about the card and company.
Visit TransferWise.	2.Visit Revolut to download the Revolut mobile app.	2.Visit N26	Visit Monese to download the Monese mobile app.
Sign up for TransferWise and get to know the service, whether you’re using its web service or mobile app. (Fun tip: You can add Revolut to your mobile wallet to make future use even easier!)	Sign up for Revolut and get to know the app and the services that it provides. (Fun tip: You can add Revolut to your mobile wallet to make future use even easier!)	Sign up for N26. Download the app, and get to know the services that it provides.	Sign up for Monese, download the mobile app if you haven’t already done so, and get to know the services it provides.
Get ready to shop! Enter your new multi-currency card details just as you would for any credit card, and watch the borders disappear.	Get ready to shop! Enter your new multi-currency card details just as you would for any credit card, and watch the borders disappear.	Get ready to shop! Enter your new multi-currency card details just as you would for any credit card, and watch the borders disappear.	Get ready to shop! Enter your new multi-currency card details just as you would for any credit card, and watch the borders disappear.

Frequently Asked Questions about PayPal Alternatives

PayPal fees are ridiculous. Can I avoid them altogether?

The best way to avoid PayPal fees is to use a multi-currency card. You can find more tips and tricks to minimize PayPal fees through the Monito guide to reducing conversion fees.

Why Trust Monito?

You’re probably all too familiar with the often outrageous cost of sending money abroad. After facing this frustration themselves back in 2013, co-founders François, Laurent, and Pascal launched a real-time comparison engine to compare the best money transfer services across the globe. Today, Monito’s award-winning comparisons, reviews, and guides are trusted by around 8 million people each year and our recommendations are backed by millions of pricing data points and dozens of expert tests — all allowing you to make the savviest decisions with confidence.

Learn More About Monito

Monito is trusted by 15+ million users across the globe.
Monito's experts spend hours researching and testing services so that you don't have to.
Our recommendations are always unbiased and independent.