The short version: Western Union charges 0.79% to send $1,000 to India and 3.07% to send the same $1,000 to the Philippines — on the same day, from the same country, through the same service. Nothing changed except the destination. Meanwhile Wells Fargo charged between 3.06% and 3.26% to every country we tested. The lesson: asking “is this provider cheap?” is a question with no answer until you say where the money is going.
Captured 28 August 2026 · $1,000 from the US to five countries
The question nobody tests
Comparison articles pick a corridor, usually US to somewhere large, and rank providers. We have written two of them ourselves: one comparing providers at $1,000, and one testing nine different amounts.
Both hold the destination fixed. So we flipped it: hold the amount and the provider fixed, and change only the country.
We sent the same $1,000 to India, the Philippines, Mexico, Nigeria, and Vietnam, captured in a single window, and recalculated the true cost of each against the mid-market rate.
What it costs to send $1,000, by destination
True cost as a percentage of the amount sent — advertised fee plus exchange-rate margin combined.
| Provider | India | Philippines | Mexico | Nigeria | Vietnam | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wise | 0.69% | 0.75% | 0.77% | 0.78% | 0.88% | 1.3× |
| Western Union | 0.79% | 3.07% | — | 1.51% | 1.50% | 3.9× |
| Wells Fargo | 3.09% | 3.26% | 3.06% | — | — | 1.1× |
| Chase | 3.58% | — | 3.49% | — | — | 1.0× |
| PayPal | — | 5.26% | 5.01% | — | — | 1.1× |
| Remitly | — | — | — | — | 1.21% | — |
Dashes are corridors where that provider did not appear in the comparison. Mid-market rates at capture: INR 95.6112, PHP 62.3125, MXN 17.0345, NGN 1,383.62, VND 26,072.5.
Two kinds of pricing
Read the Spread column and the providers split cleanly into two groups.
The banks barely notice where the money is going. Wells Fargo charged 3.06%, 3.09%, and 3.26% to three different continents — a spread of 1.1×. Chase was flatter still at 1.0×. PayPal, 1.1×. These are not corridor prices; they are a house margin applied to everything, and the destination is close to irrelevant.
The specialists are almost entirely corridor-driven. Western Union ranged from 0.79% to 3.07% — a 3.9× spread across four countries. That is not one price with variation. That is four different businesses wearing one brand.
Wise sat in between at 1.3×, which is roughly what you would expect from genuine underlying cost differences between currencies rather than pricing strategy.
The part that actually changes your decision
Look at Western Union against Wells Fargo, corridor by corridor.
| Destination | Western Union | Wells Fargo | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| India | $7.86 | $30.91 | Western Union saves $23.05 |
| Philippines | $30.71 | $32.61 | Western Union saves $1.90 |
In India, Western Union costs a quarter of what the bank costs and lands within a dollar of Wise. In the Philippines, it costs about the same as the bank.
Same provider. Same amount. Same day. The advice “use Western Union instead of your bank” is worth $23 in one country and $1.90 in another — and no article that tests a single corridor can tell you which one you are in.
Why this happens
We are describing what we measured, not what any provider told us, so treat this as a reasonable reading rather than an inside account.
A bank moving money abroad is running one generic process and applying a standard margin to it. It has no particular reason to price India differently from Mexico, and the flat spreads we measured are consistent with that.
A specialist remittance business is competing corridor by corridor. US–India is one of the largest and most contested remittance markets in the world, with many well-funded providers fighting over it. Competition in a corridor pushes the margin down. In corridors with fewer serious competitors, there is less pressure holding it there.
The practical implication is uncomfortable: the price you are offered has less to do with what the transfer costs to perform than with how many other companies want your particular route.
What to do with this
Do not carry a provider recommendation across borders. A friend’s advice about the best way to send money to India tells you very little about sending money to Vietnam.
If you send to a heavily served corridor, shop it. Where competition is fierce, the difference between the best and worst option is large and easy to capture.
If you send to a thinly served corridor, expect less spread. In Nigeria and Vietnam the gap between providers was narrower — there is simply less competition working on your behalf.
Re-check when you change destination or amount. Both move the ranking, independently. Our threshold article shows how far the amount alone can shift it.
How we did this
Five corridors, $1,000 each, captured in one window on 28 August 2026. For each we recorded the amount the recipient receives, then computed true cost against the mid-market rate using the method on our Methodology page.
Provider sets differ by corridor. The comparison shows different competitors for different destinations, which is why the table has dashes. We report only what we captured. This limits the spread figures to the corridors where a provider actually appeared — Western Union’s 3.9× is across four countries, not five.
Nigeria had only two providers in the comparison, so conclusions there rest on a thinner base than the others.
Where the numbers came from
The figures came from Wise’s published comparison tables, and Wise is one of the providers in them. That is a conflict of interest and we treat it as one. In our first article we recomputed the same source against XE’s independent mid-market rate and it reconciled to the cent; that check is what gives us enough confidence to use it again here.
What we did not do: we did not obtain our own quotes directly from Western Union, Wells Fargo, Chase, PayPal, or Remitly. Their figures are as published by a competitor — arithmetically consistent, independently recomputed, but not separately sourced.
Note that the finding here does not flatter the source. It shows Western Union nearly matching Wise in India, which a table built to sell Wise would have no reason to surface.
What this article does not answer
Which provider you should use. That is the whole point: it depends on where you are sending, how much, and when.
Corridors we did not test. Five destinations out of many. The pattern — flat bank pricing, variable specialist pricing — may well hold elsewhere, but we have not measured it.
Speed, limits, delivery method, and reliability. Cost only.
Whether these figures still hold. Captured 28 August 2026. Rates move continuously and fee structures change without notice. We re-run this quarterly and date every revision.
Found a number that is wrong or out of date? Email us. We correct errors and publish the correction openly at the bottom of the article, with the date.
finance404 — The numbers they leave out.
This article is financial education, not financial advice, and not a recommendation of any product or provider. We are not licensed advisers. Exchange rates and fees change without notice; verify current figures before you transfer money. See our Methodology and Disclaimer.
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