Last Updated on September 14, 2026
15.6 million active customers, year to 31 March 2025
£145.2bn of cross-border volume, up 23%
Take rate cut from 0.67% to 0.53% in a year
Direct listing on the London Stock Exchange, 7 July 2021
The move
Wise launched in 2011, founded by Kristo Kaarmann and Taavet Hinrikus, on a complaint rather than a product idea. The complaint was that banks quoted international transfers as free or near free, then took their money in the exchange rate, where the customer could not see it.
The move was not a clever advert. It was a design decision on the checkout screen. Before you send anything, Wise shows the mid-market exchange rate it is using, the fee in pounds, the total cost, and the exact amount the recipient will receive.
It then did the part almost nobody does. It published a comparison table on its own website showing what the same transfer costs elsewhere, by name. Checked on 14 September 2026, the UK comparison page priced sending £1,000 to euros against Western Union, HSBC, Barclays, Santander UK, Nationwide, Lloyds and PayPal, showing each provider’s fees and the amount the recipient gets. The fees ran from £3.81 with Wise to £48.94 with PayPal. Rates on that page move, so those figures are a snapshot.
At listing in July 2021, Wise said research indicated around £150bn a year was paid in hidden fees, and that only 4% of customers surveyed understood what they were being charged.
In the year to 31 March 2025 the company reported 15.6 million active customers, £145.2bn of cross-border volume and underlying income of £1,362.3m, while cutting its take rate from 0.67% to 0.53%.
Why it worked
A price you only understand afterwards is not a price. It is a surprise.
Wise did not invent a cheaper way to move money and then advertise it. It took the thing the industry deliberately obscured and made it the first thing on the page. That is a positioning move disguised as a user interface. Once a customer has seen a total cost stated plainly, every competitor who does not state one starts to look like they have a reason.
It also turned the price into a piece of content. The comparison table is a page that answers the exact question a customer types into a search engine, using numbers rather than adjectives. Most brands write about why they are good value. Wise published the arithmetic, and arithmetic does not need to be believed, only checked.
The slow proof came from outside. In May 2025 the Financial Conduct Authority published good and poor practice on international payment pricing transparency, finding that transaction fees were not always clearly displayed and that extra costs were often not displayed up front. Its description of good practice reads like a list of what Wise had already been doing for over a decade: the rate applied, any markup named as a cost the firm keeps, fees stated clearly, total fees in pounds, and the amount the recipient receives.
The principle
Take the number your industry hides and put it first. Every trade has one, and customers know it is there, which is why they brace before asking. Publishing it costs you the customers you were going to lose at the quote stage anyway, and wins you the ones who were tired of asking. Clarity is a position, and it is one competitors find hard to copy, because copying it means admitting what they were doing before.
Steal this
This is free. It costs a page on your website and a bit of nerve.
Name the number your trade hides. For a plumber it is the call-out charge and what it does and does not include. For a salon it is what the long hair surcharge actually means. For an accountant it is what happens when the work is messier than the quote assumed. For an agency it is the monthly minimum. Write it down. If you flinched, it is the right number.
Publish it on its own page, with the arithmetic. Not “prices from”. A worked example with real figures. A standard boiler service is £95, that covers up to an hour on site, and if we find a faulty part we quote before touching it. Give the page a title a customer would actually search, such as how much a boiler service costs in your town.
State the total, including the bits that usually appear later. VAT, parking, materials, waste, travel outside a radius, the second visit. The complaint is almost never the price. It is the fourth line on the invoice nobody mentioned.
Show the comparison honestly, including where you lose. Wise’s table always has Wise at the top, which is fine for Wise and dangerous for you, because you will not always be the cheapest. Compare on total cost and what is included, and say plainly where a cheaper option makes sense. That earns more trust than a table you have rigged, and it survives a customer checking.
Hold the line when someone asks you to hide it again. The first time a customer uses your published price against you, the temptation is to take the page down. Do not. The page is doing its job, which is to end the argument before the visit rather than after it.
Sources & further reading
- Wise plc results for the financial year ended 31 March 2025 · Company announcement, 5 June 2025
- Consumer Duty, international payment pricing transparency, good and poor practice · Financial Conduct Authority
- Compare international money transfer services · Wise
- Wise lists on the London Stock Exchange · Wise Newsroom
- Wise G20 report on hidden fees and stalled reforms · Wise Newsroom, company research
The Whito verdict
Wise built a business on a checkout screen. It showed the rate, the fee, the total and the amount arriving, and it published the competition’s numbers beside its own. That is not a campaign, it is a decision about what the customer is allowed to see, and it held for fourteen years while the company reached 15.6 million active customers and £145.2bn of annual volume. In 2025 the regulator described roughly the same thing as good practice.
Your job is smaller and harder. Pick the one number your customers are bracing for, put it on a page with the working shown, and leave it there. You will lose some enquiries you were never going to win. You will stop having the awkward conversation at the end of the job, which is the conversation that costs you the repeat.
Start Stage
Which number are your customers bracing for?
Check your site free and find out whether your pricing answers the question or dodges it.
Frequently asked questions
What exactly did Wise do differently on pricing?
It showed the mid-market exchange rate, the fee, the total cost and the amount the recipient would receive before the customer committed, rather than taking a margin inside the exchange rate. It also published a comparison table naming banks and other providers with their costs for the same transfer.
Should a small business publish its prices online?
Publishing the number customers are anxious about usually removes friction rather than creating it, because the people who leave over a published price were unlikely to convert at the quote stage. Publish a worked example with the total, including the extras that normally appear on the invoice, and use a page title that matches what people search.
Is it risky to compare yourself to competitors on your own website?
It is risky if you rig it. Wise’s own comparison table shows Wise as the cheapest in every row, which suits a company operating at that scale. A small firm should compare on total cost and what is included, and be honest about where a cheaper option genuinely fits, because a customer can check your table in about two minutes.
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