Race a Wire
Pick an amount and a corridor, then run the race. Every figure is an "about", sourced below; real providers vary widely in both directions.
Where these numbers come from
Bank and money-transfer costs come from the World Bank's Remittance Prices Worldwide survey, which prices real $200 sends every quarter. In the latest published issue (no. 54, September 2025), the global average cost of sending money home is 6.36%, more than double the UN's 3% target for 2030; earlier 2025 issues put banks at 14.55% on average and money transfer operators at 5.04%. This race models each incumbent rail the way its pricing actually works: a fixed fee plus a percentage. Published outgoing international wire fees run roughly $15 to $45, so the bank lane charges a modeled $20 flat plus a corridor percentage covering FX margin and deductions; the money-transfer lane charges a modeled $3 flat plus a smaller percentage. The percentages are calibrated so that at the $500 default each corridor's total matches the rounded, survey-anchored figure this tool has always shown. The survey does not publish a fixed-versus-percentage breakdown per corridor, so the split is a disclosed model, not survey data; the structure is the honest part, because fixed fees fall hardest on small sends, and the totals this tool shows at $100 or $250 now say so plainly.
Timing is directional, and the honest version has a tension in it: SWIFT's own gpi figures show roughly half of tracked payments credited within 30 minutes and nearly all within 24 hours, yet real people still wait days. Both are true, because "credited between banks" is not "available to you": cut-offs, batch runs, compliance reviews, receiving-bank posting and weekends sit in between, which is exactly what the race's bank lane walks through and the Friday toggle simulates. Money transfer services increasingly pay out in minutes. A stablecoin transfer settles on-chain in seconds to minutes on networks like the XRP Ledger, Stellar, Solana or Base, every day of the year: see the live numbers on our TPS Reality Board.
The race clock and the hop schedule: the timestamps in the race are a typical schedule built from those sourced ranges (a two-business-day bank arrival sits inside SWIFT's own distribution; two hours is a middling money-transfer payout; thirty minutes covers converting in, settling and paying out on the stablecoin side). The split of the bank total across the hops (wire fee, correspondent deduction and FX margin, beneficiary charge) is illustrative; only the total is the World Bank figure. The clock accelerates in stages so days fit in seconds, which changes the pacing and nothing else.
The stablecoin honesty toggle: moving dollars into a stablecoin and back out through exchanges or payment providers typically costs about 0.5% to 2% combined in fees and spread, depending on venue and corridor; this tool uses the midpoint when the toggle is on. If both ends already hold and accept stablecoins, that cost largely disappears, which is the toggle off. Figures last reviewed July 2026.
What this tool does not say: it does not say stablecoins are better for you. Consumer protections, recourse, deposit insurance and regulatory treatment differ sharply between rails, and none of that fits in a race bar. It says only what the published numbers say: the cost and speed gap is real and large.