Benefit of connecting Wise (TransferWise) to Stripe
Hi,
I've seen multiple connecting their Wise account to Stripe, instead of connecting it directly to their bank account.
One of the benefit I see from it, is to cumulate money in the Wise account for a specific currency and wait for the best exchange rate to transfer it to their local currency.
Now, I am wondering few things:
- Won't you be charge twice for fees (Stripe fees and Wise fees)?
- Apart from having a Wise card, how else do you use your Wise balance?
- In Stripe, for a EUR account, how do you set it up for CAD or USD? (Seems like the option wasn't there in my account)
- If the money is in your Wise account, does it still count as if you would leave money in your business (not taxable on your personal income since it wouldn't be in your personal bank account)?
Thank you for helping :)
Funny stumbling across your Stripe + Wise thread 4 years later. It’s still one of the clearest discussions I’ve found on the setup, and you basically ended up answering everyone else’s questions by the end 😄
I’m researching how founders manage revenue across multiple currencies today, and I’m curious how things evolved for you.
Did you ever manage to consolidate CAD, USD, and EUR under one setup, or do you still keep separate currency balances? And did the original idea of holding funds in Wise to wait for a better FX rate actually work in practice?
Would love to hear how your workflow looks today.
Great point about distribution being the moat. Most indie products fail not because the product isn't good but because nobody finds out about it. Picking one channel and going deep — really understanding the algorithm, the community norms, the content formats that resonate — beats dabbling across five channels every time.
Stripe charges a 3% fee for currency conversion on top of the usual fees. Adding Wise accounts to Stripe skips it. The Wise's fee is around 0.5%.
I mainly use it because of the fees, but it's like any other bank account. Maybe the card is a bit expensive and limited.
It's on the Stripe settings in the same place you added your first bank account. Some currencies like CAD are only available for some countries. But I think USD is available everywhere.
That's very specific to your jurisdiction laws. But I think you usually have to report your business bank accounts. And Wise would be one/some of them.
I have had that setup for around one year and I'm happy with it. Lower fees and no cons.
hi @mzrd, I came across your comment about building a multi-vendor platform and figuring out cross-border payouts.
I’m researching how small businesses and platforms handle payments across currencies today, and your question about purchase-to-payout costs caught my attention.
Curious what you ended up doing. Did you stay with Stripe and Wise, or find another solution for vendor payouts? And were you ever able to get clear visibility into what vendors actually received after fees and FX conversions?
Would love to hear how it worked out.
Got it! So, if I receive money in USD, I should connect it to Wise to receive it in USD. Then if I receive it in CAD, to connect it to my CAD bank account, and if it's in EUR, to connect it to my EUR bank account. That would be the way to go, if I understand correctly, right?
Interesting! How has been your experience with the Wise card so far?
Yeah, that's the problem I had... I was trying to consolidate all my business under one Stripe account, but seems like I can't have CAD in my EUR account, and can't have EUR in my CAD account.
Right, that make sense.
Thank you so much for helping :)
Yes that's correct. Wise gives you a bank account number for each currency and you plug them into Stripe when possible. So Stripe doesn't charge the conversion fee because it's a direct settlement.
Well, the withdrawal limit is very low, something like 2 withdrawals and a max of 200USD / month. And I think there is a fee depending on the payment type, but I don't really remember, and I barely use it, to be honest.
Same here with CAD and AUD. Stripe doesn't allow you to add some bank currencies depending on where you are based. So I use it for USD, GBP, and EUR only at the moment.
You are very welcome. Was asking myself the same a while ago.
Hi @hugohamelcom,
I'm also considering wise/stripe setup for multi vendor project.
Is it possible to receive in payments in multiple currency balances on stripe based on the vendor's currency and send those on wise in corresponding currency balance?
Its a multi vendor setup so vendors have to be paid back again on their bank account after taking the commission
How much would be deducted in total from purchase to payout?
thanks
hi @intellex, I found your comment on the Stripe/Wise thread while researching cross-border payouts.
You mentioned running a multi-vendor setup where vendors needed to be paid back to their own bank accounts. That’s a workflow I’ve been hearing a lot about lately.
I’m curious what solution you ended up with. Did you continue using Stripe and Wise, or move to another setup? And looking back, what ended up being the hardest part: payout fees, FX conversions, reconciliation, or something else?
Would love to hear what worked and what didn’t.
I don't know the details exactly, but I believe it's possible since you can receive money in any currency in Stripe.
Keep in mind that if Stripe has to convert currency to send it to you, it'll charge you some extra fees. So, you'd want to have all your pricing in the same currency (what you charge your customers, the currency your Stripe account is, and the currency sent to Wise).
You would need to add Wise as your bank account in Stripe, and then within Wise you'd have to do that currency conversion.
Check out their pricing page:
Hope that helps :)