The €1,000 test: what four providers quoted on the same morning

This is a deep dive, and it assumes the vocabulary from What actually happens to your money between your client and your bank: what a corridor is, what a spread is, and why a published reference rate is not the rate anyone transacts at. If those terms are new, read that post first — this one measures what they cost.

On 8 September 2026, personal-account quotes were collected for the same €1,000 transfer instruction from Wise, Revolut, Remitly and PayPal, in two corridors: EUR→MYR and EUR→USD. The quotes were captured between 09:15 and 09:56 EEST (UTC+3) and compared with the European Central Bank reference rates published on 7 September 2026.¹

The headline differences were not small. For EUR→MYR, the highest displayed recipient amount was MYR 4,696.87 and the lowest was MYR 4,498.50, a gap of MYR 198.37. For EUR→USD, the highest was USD 1,158.10 and the lowest was USD 1,112.30, a gap of USD 45.80.

Those headline figures require an important qualification. Wise and Revolut deducted their visible fees from the €1,000 before conversion. The Remitly and PayPal figures in the test record instead reconcile as €1,000 converted at the displayed rate, with the stated fee apparently separate. Their displayed recipient amounts are therefore not perfectly like-for-like with an all-in €1,000 sender cost. The raw quotes are preserved below alongside an explicit normalisation, rather than treating unlike configurations as equivalent without saying so.

This was a quote test, not a completed-transfer test. It shows what the providers displayed before sending. It does not prove actual delivery time, final credited amount, intermediary charges or recipient-bank charges.

Why test the outcome rather than compare fee schedules?

The useful question is not simply “what fee does the provider advertise?” It is:

If the sender’s total budget is exactly €1,000, how much is the recipient shown as receiving under comparable conditions?

That distinction matters because the visible transfer fee is only one part of the result. The quoted exchange rate, the treatment of the fee, the account market, the payment method, the payout method and any promotion can all affect what appears at the other end.

Published fee schedules are still useful, but they cannot replace a transaction-specific quote. This test therefore records the visible fee, provider rate and displayed recipient amount together. It then compares the result with a named reference rate using the calculation method set out below.

Test conditions

The comparison used the following conditions:

• Quote date: 8 September 2026
• Quote window: 09:15–09:56 EEST (UTC+3) for the four digital providers
• Account type: personal
• Promotions: none shown for any tested provider
• Source currency: EUR
• Transfer instruction: €1,000, subject to the fee-treatment qualification described below
• Corridors: EUR→MYR and EUR→USD
• Providers: Wise,² Revolut Standard,³ Remitly⁴ and PayPal⁵
• Sender-account countries represented: Estonia and Finland
• Payout method: bank transfer except PayPal’s EUR→MYR quote, which used cash pickup
• Reference: ECB rates published on 7 September 2026¹

The sender market and payout method were not identical in every row. Wise and Revolut were quoted using Estonia/EU accounts. Remitly and PayPal were quoted using Finland/EU accounts. PayPal’s EUR→MYR quote used cash pickup while the other MYR quotes used bank transfer. These differences are limitations, not details to normalise away.

All quote times are EEST (UTC+3). Estonia and Finland observe summer time until the last Sunday of October, so 8 September falls inside the summer-time period. The test workbook recorded the times with the label “EET”; that label was a recording error and the times are reported here under the offset that actually applied.

Reference rates and calculation method

The reference point for this test is the ECB’s published euro reference rate, not a mid-market rate taken from a rate-comparison site. The ECB rate is dated, reproducible and citable, which is what a repeatable method needs; it is also explicitly informational rather than transactable, which the limitations below address.¹

The test record uses the following ECB reference rates for 7 September 2026:⁶

• 1 EUR = 4.7023 MYR
• 1 EUR = 1.1622 USD

The ECB reference amount for €1,000 is therefore MYR 4,702.30 or USD 1,162.20.

For a genuinely all-in sender budget of €1,000:

Reference destination amount = 1,000 × ECB reference rate
All-in shortfall = Reference destination amount − recipient amount
Effective cost % = All-in shortfall ÷ reference destination amount × 100
Rate-only spread % = (ECB rate − provider rate) ÷ ECB rate × 100

Where the visible fee is deducted before conversion, the displayed terms can be checked using:

Expected recipient amount = (€1,000 − visible fee) × provider rate

That reconciliation works to rounding precision for Wise and Revolut in both corridors. It does not work for Remitly or PayPal. Their recorded recipient amounts equal €1,000 multiplied by the provider rate, indicating that the quoted fee was not deducted from the €1,000 amount being converted. To make an all-in comparison possible, the tables show both the raw recipient quote and a clearly labelled normalised estimate calculated as (€1,000 − fee) × rate. The estimate is arithmetic, not an observed quote.

EUR→MYR results

Raw quotes and all-in normalisation

The raw displayed gap was MYR 198.37, from Revolut at MYR 4,696.87 to Remitly at MYR 4,498.50. After normalising the apparently separate Remitly fee to a €1,000 all-in budget, the estimated gap becomes MYR 216.32. The raw figure is directly observed; the larger figure is a calculated comparison aid.

Ranking against the ECB reference

Wise’s displayed rate was slightly above the daily ECB reference rate, but its fee reduced the recipient amount below the ECB reference amount. Revolut’s displayed rate was also slightly above the ECB rate, with a smaller visible fee. This illustrates why a rate-only comparison can mislead: the recipient outcome depends on both the rate and how the fee is applied.

For Remitly and PayPal, the rate-only spread versus the ECB reference was approximately 4.33% and 2.96% respectively. Their separate visible fees would add another cost if the sender’s total budget had to remain fixed at €1,000.

Delivery estimates

The EUR→MYR screens showed:

• Wise: 2 minutes
• Revolut: same day
• Remitly: 48 hours
• PayPal: in minutes, using cash pickup

These are provider estimates, not measured arrival times. PayPal’s apparently rapid option is also not directly comparable because it used cash pickup instead of recipient-bank payout.

EUR→USD results

Raw quotes and all-in normalisation

The raw displayed gap was USD 45.80, from Revolut at USD 1,158.10 to PayPal at USD 1,112.30. With PayPal’s fee normalised inside the €1,000 sender budget, the estimated gap becomes USD 48.01.

Ranking against the ECB reference

The USD corridor also shows why the lowest visible fee is not automatically the lowest all-in cost. PayPal’s stated fee was €1.99, but its quoted rate produced the lowest displayed recipient amount. Wise showed the highest provider rate, slightly above the ECB daily reference, but its €6.21 fee left the recipient below Revolut’s result.

Delivery estimates

The EUR→USD screens showed:

• Wise: 15 hours
• Revolut: next day
• Remitly: 3–4 days
• PayPal: 2 days

Again, these are estimates from quote screens. No transfer was completed, so the test cannot establish which provider would actually have delivered fastest.

What about a normal bank?

A conventional bank is deliberately not ranked in the provider tables because no destination amount or bank exchange rate was available without initiating an actual payment. Ranking it from the fee schedule alone would contradict the central method of this article.

The published fee information still indicates the possible order of magnitude. In the bank schedule reviewed for this test, an ordinary foreign payment to a country not subject to a special-country surcharge was listed at €7 with shared fees or €29 when the remitter pays all fees.⁷ For LHV Pank payments to Malaysia, the bank’s payments FAQ states that “a service fee of 100 euros will be added to such foreign payments, irrespective of the channel of payment or the chosen service fee type”, Malaysia being on its list of higher-risk jurisdictions.⁸ The United States was not on the referenced list at the time of review.

These are published fee-schedule observations, not complete transfer prices. They do not reveal the exchange rate that would be applied, the recipient amount, correspondent bank deductions or the final amount credited. The bank example therefore supports only a cautious conclusion: the full route determines the cost, and a familiar bank transfer is not automatically the cheap one.

What the test shows

Under the recorded conditions, Revolut produced the highest recipient amount in both quote sets. Wise was second in both. Remitly and PayPal showed lower recipient outcomes in at least one corridor, on visible fees of €1.99 to €3.99.

That is a description of this snapshot, not a universal ranking. The result may change with:

• sender country and legal account market;
• personal versus business account;
• Revolut plan and monthly usage;
• new versus existing customer status;
• promotional rates and introductory offers;
• funding and payout method;
• transfer speed;
• amount transferred;
• currency corridor;
• quote time and market movement;
• intermediary or recipient-bank charges.

The test also exposed a methodological trap: “send €1,000” and “spend €1,000 in total” are not always the same configuration. A comparison must identify whether the fee is deducted from the principal or added on top. Otherwise, a provider can appear to deliver more simply because the sender is actually paying more than €1,000.

What the test does not show

No money was sent. Therefore, this article does not verify:

• actual arrival time;
• final amount credited;
• intermediary-bank fees;
• recipient-bank fees;
• quote expiry or changes after the captured screen;
• whether a provider would request further verification before completing the transfer.

The ECB rate is also a daily informational reference, not an executable market rate at the exact second of each quote. The ECB publishes these rates for information purposes and states that they are not intended for transaction use.¹ The 7 September reference is used consistently because it is reproducible, not because a consumer could necessarily transact at that rate on 8 September.

How to check your own transfer

The same process applies to any specific account, amount and corridor:

1. Fix a total sender budget, rather than a principal amount alone.
2. Record whether the visible fee is included in that budget or added separately.
3. Capture the provider rate, recipient amount, funding method, payout method and delivery estimate.
4. Record a dated reference rate, keeping the quote timestamp separate from the reference publication date.
5. Calculate the reference destination amount and subtract the provider’s recipient amount.
6. Read the result as an all-in shortfall versus reference, not automatically as a provider “fee”.
7. Where the transfer is completed, record the final credited amount and every additional charge.

The FX Reality Check tool performs the same arithmetic for a specific amount and corridor.

Method, sources and evidence

Every quote record behind the tables above is reproduced in full in the appendix at the end of this article: provider, timestamp, sender country, account type, plan tier, fee, rate, displayed recipient amount, payout method, delivery estimate and the fee page consulted, for both corridors, together with the ECB inputs. Nothing in the analysis draws on a figure that is not in that appendix.

Affiliate disclosure. None of the four providers compared in this article — Wise, Revolut, Remitly and PayPal — is an affiliate partner of this site, and no money is earned from any link to them. This site’s only current affiliate relationship is with a nomad health-insurance provider, unrelated to money transfer. The full statement is on the affiliate disclosure page.

Before you use these numbers

This is a reproducible quote snapshot for two corridors and specific personal-account configurations. It is not a permanent or universal provider ranking, and it is not financial advice. No provider is recommended on the basis of this test.

Provider quotes and every calculation above were verified against the recorded test workbook on 8 September 2026. The fee-schedule figures in the bank section were verified against the linked provider pages on the same date.

Appendix: the raw test record

These are the observations the article is built on, exactly as captured on 8 September 2026. Every figure in the tables above is either taken directly from this record or derived from it using the formulas in the method section.

EUR→MYR quotes

The LHV Pank column is the €100 risk-country service fee for payments to Malaysia. No exchange rate or recipient amount was obtainable without initiating a payment, which is why the bank is not ranked.

EUR→USD quotes

The LHV Pank column here is the ordinary shared-fee foreign payment charge. The United States was not on the bank’s referenced risk-country list at the time of review.

Reference rates

Source: ECB euro foreign exchange reference rates.¹⁶