A brand invoices you for 2,000 US dollars for a sponsored post. The money lands in your bank account a few days later, and it is not 2,000 dollars. It is less, and the gap is not one deduction but two, taken by two different mechanisms, and most explainers about getting paid from abroad collapse them into a single vague line labeled “fees.”
The invoice amount and the landed amount are not the same number
The first deduction is a currency conversion spread: the gap between the rate you actually get and the mid-market rate, the real, unmarked-up rate the currency is trading at globally. The second is a receiving or transaction fee, charged by the payout method for moving the money into your account, separate from and on top of the conversion cost.
Most content aimed at creators treats this as one number: “PayPal takes a cut” or “wires have fees.” That framing is incomplete. The spread and the fee are disclosed in different places, if disclosed at all. Wise publishes both separately. PayPal charges both, structured differently. A bank wire discloses one reliably and, in practice, often not the other.
What the mid-market rate is, and why it is the number to compare against
The mid-market rate is the midpoint between the global buy and sell rates for a currency pair at a given moment, the rate you see on Google’s currency converter or on Reuters. No retail payout method actually gives it to you.
Every provider’s conversion spread is measured as a markup against this same number. Wise says it uses the mid-market rate as its baseline and prices its markup as a separate, disclosed fee on top. PayPal applies its own conversion rate, which already includes a spread above mid-market, without quoting the mid-market rate to the payer. Comparing the three only works if each one’s distance from the same fixed point is what gets compared.
Wise: what its own pricing page says about the spread and the fee
Wise’s business pricing page states its position plainly: other providers hide a markup inside the exchange rate, and Wise’s alternative is a separate, visible fee instead.
Sending money varies by currency, starting from 0.23% of the amount sent. Receiving changes by method: getting local account details in 22 currencies is free, and a domestic, non-wire receipt in USD, GBP and EUR carries no fee. Receiving as a wire or Swift transfer carries a fixed fee: 6.11 USD for a USD receipt, 2.16 GBP for GBP, and 2.39 EUR for EUR, per the page as published (checked 2026-09-09). Converting between currencies inside a Wise account is billed separately, again from 0.23%.
The distinction that matters for a creator on Wise is method: a domestic-style receipt is free, a wire or Swift receipt carries a small flat fee, and any actual conversion is billed as its own separate percentage.
PayPal: what its business fees page says about currency conversion
PayPal’s business fees page, last updated September 1, 2026 per the page itself, does not use the mid-market rate as a baseline. It applies its own exchange rate, which already carries a spread above mid-market not quoted to the payer. That spread is disclosed as its own line item, labeled a “currency conversion spread,” separate from any transaction fee.
For the transaction fee, a commercial payment, the category a brand deal invoice normally falls under, starts at PayPal’s domestic rate of 3.49% plus a fixed fee, plus 1.50% for international transactions where sender and receiver are registered in different markets. A further fixed fee varies by currency: 0.49 USD, 0.39 EUR, 0.39 GBP, among others (checked 2026-09-09).
The conversion spread is listed separately again. For receiving a payment in a currency other than the one it was sent in, the disclosed spread is 3.00%, “or such other amount as may be disclosed to you during the transaction.” For payouts where the recipient receives a different currency than the sender paid, it is 4.00% under the same caveat. The shape PayPal discloses matches the one this piece opened with: a transaction fee and a conversion spread, priced separately.
A bank wire: where the deduction is disclosed, and where it usually is not
A wire is the hardest of the three to quote a firm number for, and that difficulty is the finding. The receiving side typically carries a flat fee disclosed in the receiving bank’s fee schedule. What is not reliably disclosed anywhere the customer can see beforehand is the conversion spread applied during the wire, when the receiving bank or an intermediary does the converting.
[EVIDENCE NEEDED: a specific receiving bank’s published wire fee schedule that also states a numeric FX spread for an incoming international wire, checked on the day of writing]. Two major US retail bank fee pages checked for this piece did not resolve to a live page during this session, and no bank was found publishing a stated percentage spread for incoming wire conversions. That is not a claim that no such disclosure exists anywhere, only that this piece did not find one.
The lesson is the absence itself. Wise and PayPal each state their markup as a percentage on a public page. A wire, run through whichever bank happens to convert the currency, routinely gives no percentage to check before the transfer completes. A wire’s real cost is often not knowable in advance the way the other two paths are.
A worked example: the same invoice through all three paths
The numbers below are hypothetical. Picture a creator invoicing a brand for 2,000 US dollars, paid from a country whose finance team pays out in euros, at a hypothetical mid-market rate of 1.00 USD to 0.92 EUR. This uses only the percentages sourced above. The wire’s spread is not sourced, so that line is marked unknown rather than estimated.
| Path | Conversion spread | Receiving/transaction fee | Landed amount (approx.) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wise (wire/Swift receipt) | From 0.23% | 6.11 USD flat | Approximately 1,987 to 1,988 USD equivalent, before the receiving currency’s own conversion |
| PayPal (international commercial payment) | 3.00% (general case) | 3.49% + 1.50% international surcharge + 0.49 USD | Approximately 1,860 to 1,870 USD equivalent |
| Bank wire | [EVIDENCE NEEDED: not published by a bank checked here] | Flat fee set by the receiving bank, not sourced for a specific institution | Cannot be stated with confidence, the spread is the unknown variable |
For this one hypothetical invoice, Wise’s disclosed structure comes out lowest: PayPal’s combined fee and spread run past 5% before any fixed fee, against Wise’s sub-1% conversion fee plus a small flat charge. The wire is unrankable since one of its two costs was never available to check. This is a walkthrough of one invoice and pair, not a verdict across every situation.
What to ask before picking a payout method for the next deal
This assumes the invoice amount is already settled, typically once the agreement is signed with an creator agreement e-signature tool and tracked with one of the invoicing tools for social media freelancers. A few questions apply regardless of which method handles the money:
- Ask the brand or client which currency the invoice will actually be paid in. That decision determines who absorbs the conversion spread, not the payout method.
- Ask the payout method for its stated conversion rate against the mid-market rate at the time of the transfer, not a rate quoted days earlier.
- Ask whether the receiving fee is flat or a percentage. A flat fee favors a larger invoice, since it shrinks as a share of the total. A percentage fee scales with the invoice regardless of size.
Try followed for market coverage that treats numbers this way
Reading a pricing page line by line before assuming what a payout will cost is the same habit followed applies across the social media tools market it covers.
FAQ
Why did I get less money than I invoiced for?
Two separate deductions happen. The payout method converts the currency at a rate that includes a markup above the mid-market rate, the spread, and it may also charge a separate receiving or transaction fee unrelated to conversion. See the worked example above for how these break down for one hypothetical invoice.
Is Wise or PayPal cheaper for an international brand deal payout?
For the hypothetical example above, Wise’s published numbers, a sub-1% conversion fee plus a flat receiving charge, come out lower than PayPal’s combined structure of a transaction fee, an international surcharge, a fixed fee, and a separate spread of 3% or more. The two structures are not built the same way, so check this against your own invoice and pair rather than assuming it holds for every deal.
What is the mid-market rate?
The midpoint between the global buy and sell rates for a currency pair, the same rate shown on Google or Reuters. No payout method gives you this rate directly. It is the fixed point that Wise’s and PayPal’s disclosed spreads are each measured against.
Does a bank wire have a hidden fee?
The receiving fee is usually disclosed as a flat amount by the receiving bank. The conversion spread applied during that same wire is frequently not published anywhere the customer can see before the transfer completes, unlike Wise and PayPal, which both publish their conversion terms. That is a gap in disclosure, not necessarily an intent to conceal it, but it means a wire’s real cost is often found out only after the money has landed.
Sources
- Wise, business pricing page, checked 2026-09-09.
- PayPal, business fees page, last updated by PayPal September 1, 2026, checked 2026-09-09.