Looking for a better way to handle your international payments in 2025?
You've got plenty of options. And because you're reading this article, chances are Revolut is one of the providers you're either considering or already working with.
Founded in 2016, Revolut quickly established itself as one of the world's first neobanks and is now a popular choice for cross-border business payments. It combines multi-currency accounts, expense management tools, payment processing and international payment capabilities under one roof. So, if you prioritise breadth of features over specialised services, it could be the ideal provider for you.
But if you’re a growing European SMB handling serious international payment volumes and needing to manage currency risk effectively, you may find yourself wanting more than just a broad set of features.
In this guide, we'll explore who Revolut works well for, when you might need to look for an alternative and give you detailed breakdowns of six providers that could better serve your cross-border payment needs.
As mentioned, Revolut offers a range of features to help business owners send and accept payments, convert currencies, manage currency risk, handle employee expenses, and more. Revolut positions itself as a solution for everyone, from freelancers to enterprise-scale businesses and everything in between.
By trying to be everything for everyone, Revolut doesn't focus its efforts on SMB-specific solutions.
Its pricing structure means key features are locked behind more expensive plans, such as personalised support at the 'Enterprise' tier, which leaves SMBs to face the complexities of FX alone.
SMBs looking to keep their costs low may find themselves on a plan with limited features or paying more for a plan with features they don’t necessarily need.
Here’s how Revolut’s tiered monthly subscription model works:
Each plan comes with a monthly allowance for currency exchanges at the interbank rate. Once you hit your limit — or if you decide to make a transfer during weekends or outside market hours — the extra fees kick in (typically 0.6% to 1%).
Like a Swiss Army knife, Revolut has a lot to offer in terms of functionality but isn’t a specialised tool for a specific business type. Because it tries to cater to vastly different audiences, you may find yourself paying for features that aren't relevant to your business needs or feeling like the features in your current tier aren’t enough.
Unless you're on the Enterprise plan, you may find Revolut’s chat support and help docs aren’t enough whenever you encounter a problem. So if hands-on human support is a must-have for you, better to look elsewhere.
Now that we've explored when you might need to look beyond Revolut, let's examine some alternative cross-border payment providers that could better serve your growing business.
First up, iBanFirst. Our simple yet powerful platform is combined with support from our in-house FX experts, making us an ideal Revolut alternative for SMBs with significant cross-border payment volumes.
With iBanFirst, there's no setup fee, no tiered monthly subscription costs and no transfer fees — what you see is exactly what you pay.
Our transparent pricing structure is designed with scaling international businesses in mind. iBanFirst gives you a standard exchange rate spread that applies across all your transactions. This means you can predict your costs even as your payment volumes increase, rather than watching fees eat away your profits.
If you want to avoid tiered pricing models that never quite fit your business needs perfectly, manage foreign currency risks and receive hands-on support from FX experts who understand your business, iBanFirst is a great fit. What's more, you’re able to track international payments every step of the way, with detailed, timestamped updates and tracking links you can share with your partners and suppliers.
Founded in 2011, Wise is another name you may recognise. Known for making international money transfers simpler and cheaper than traditional banks, Wise was originally for personal users before expanding into the B2B payments space.
Wise’s multi-currency accounts let you hold 40+ currencies with local account details in 9 of them (including GBP, USD and EUR). For all other currencies, you can send and receive payments using SWIFT account details.
You can integrate Wise with accounting tools in your financial ecosystem, including Xero, QuickBooks and Sage. All of these integrations come standard with every account.
Wise also offers physical and virtual debit cards for team spending, which link directly to the account balance in your chosen currency.
There are very few surprises when it comes to Wise’s pricing. Wise charges a one-time opening fee of €50. After that, there are no recurring monthly subscription fees — you only pay for what you use. It offers currency conversions at the mid-market exchange rate with a percentage-based fee added. There are no hidden markups or fees.
For international payments, you'll pay a percentage-based transfer fee — typically between 0.33% and 1.0% of the payment amount, depending on the currency pair.
Wise is a good option for digital nomads, freelancers and micro-businesses looking for a simpler suite of features at competitive prices. But as your transaction volumes grow and currency risk becomes a major consideration, your international payment needs become more complex and you’ll start noticing Wise’s limitations, particularly its lack of FX risk management solutions and much-needed support.
Founded in 2015, Airwallex is a cross-border payment provider that offers multi-currency accounts, international transfers and payment acceptance tools. Much like Revolut Business, Airwallex positions itself as a comprehensive, all-in-one solution for payments, spending, and expense tracking with the goal of streamlining global financial management.
Similar to Revolut, Airwallex offers a tiered pricing structure for EU businesses:
Airwallex also charges a 0.5% to 1% exchange rate markup on all conversions, depending on the currency.
Airwallex is similar to Revolut in that it's a feature-rich provider with plenty going on under the hood. But this extra functionality means Airwallex is trying to be everything for everyone, the downside being a lack of SMB-specific tools. Plus, if you value having an account manager who understands and supports your business, you'll need to look at their Accelerate or Custom plans, which come with hefty monthly fees.
Payoneer is a payment provider that specialises in facilitating payments to and from freelancers, contractors and online sellers who use marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, Fiverr and Upwork and these marketplaces themselves.
Payoneer's pricing structure is transaction-based with varying fees depending on how you send and receive money:
Similar to Revolut, Payoneer goes beyond payments and currency conversion features, but this additional functionality adds complexity. This makes it less suitable for SMBs looking for a simple yet comprehensive solution for payments and FX risk management.
Ebury is a financial services provider that specialises in foreign exchange services, international payments and trade finance for SMEs and mid-sized corporations with cross-border operations. It takes a more tailored approach to helping businesses manage international risks and grow across borders.
Ebury takes a tailored approach to pricing.
While a good choice for more advanced hedging tools to manage currency risk, Ebury's platform isn’t the most user friendly and the opaque custom pricing structure doesn’t appeal to everyone. The payment tracking capabilities aren’t as advanced as other providers on this list.
Convera is a rebranded and refocused branch of Western Union Business Solutions with an extensive global network capable of processing significant volumes of transactions. Convera’s platform offers a broad range of services designed to meet the needs of larger businesses managing international payments and FX.
Convera uses a custom pricing model with FX spreads that vary based on your transaction volume and the currency pairs you're working with. Unlike some of the other Revolut alternatives on this list, Convera doesn't publicly disclose its typical spreads, making it harder to compare costs.
Most SMBs will likely find Convera's platform overwhelming and potentially more expensive than alternatives like Wise or iBanFirst. Plus, the platform isn't as intuitive or user-friendly as other Revolut alternatives. Its primary focus is clearly on enterprises rather than SMBs looking to scale their international operations.
You may be considering going to your bank as an alternative to Revolut. But that isn’t necessarily the best option for SMBs like yours...
Traditional banks can be a decent Revolut alternative if you're a large enterprise with significant negotiating power. Banks typically focus their efforts on serving these clients ahead of SMBs, meaning you’ll likely end up overpaying and feeling frustrated with the lack of support.
Sending international payments through traditional banks often requires a lot of legwork upfront to get set up. You're potentially looking at in-person branch visits, a stack of paperwork to fill in and extended wait times just to get up and running.
Traditional banks often apply a substantial markup to the interbank exchange rate, ranging from 4% to 6%, sometimes higher. Added to this are the transfer fees, often higher than those of modern international payment providers, and in many cases, hidden fees for things like account maintenance or access to bank transfer messages.
Once your money leaves your account, good luck tracking it. In some cases, you won't even receive so much as a simple confirmation notice when the funds arrive. This lack of transparency makes it incredibly difficult to keep your suppliers and partners in the loop — and it makes managing your cash flow a real headache.
In short, traditional banks aren't designed to meet your specific international payment needs. Their legacy systems and opaque pricing structures and processes create unnecessary friction when what you really need is for things to flow smoothly. Most growing SMBs will be better off with a specialised cross-border payment provider like iBanFirst.
Thousands of growing SMBs trust us with their cross-border payments. Why? Well, there's no tiered pricing structure and our features aren’t trying to be everything for everyone — they’re specifically designed for growing SMBs like yours.
With iBanFirst, you can:
So if you're a growing SMB looking to switch from Revolut or get started with your first cross-border payment provider, choose the best alternative today. The longer you wait, the more it could potentially cost you. Request an account today and join thousands of growing SMBs who use iBanFirst to manage their cross-border payments.