Remittance Guides
Data-backed guides to help you send money internationally for less
How Much Does It Cost to Send Money Internationally?
A comprehensive breakdown of international money transfer fees, including service fees, exchange rate margins, and how costs vary by corridor.
Cheapest Ways to Send Money to Mexico
The US-Mexico corridor is the world's largest. Compare fintech services, banks, and cash transfer options to find the best rate.
Cheapest Ways to Send Money to Philippines
Philippines receives over $36B in remittances annually. Here's how to minimize fees and maximize what your family receives.
Why Are Remittance Fees So High?
Despite fintech disruption, many corridors still charge 8-15%. Understand the structural reasons behind high remittance costs.
Understanding Remittance Fees: A Complete Guide
Service fees, exchange rate margins, correspondent bank charges — everything you need to know to compare transfer costs accurately.
Methodology
Every guide on PlainRemit is built from the same data foundation: the World Bank Remittance Prices Worldwide (RPW) Database, which benchmarks money-transfer costs quarterly across 367 corridors. Costs are standardized as a percentage of a $200 transfer amount and include both the service fee charged by the provider and the exchange-rate margin — the gap between the provider's quoted rate and the interbank mid-rate.
Each guide answers a specific sender question ("What is the cheapest way to send to Mexico?", "Why are fees so high?") using the underlying RPW panel rather than marketing claims from individual providers. Where a guide cites a global or per-corridor average, that figure is drawn from the most recent RPW release available at the time of publication, and we date-stamp each article so readers can verify freshness.
Our data-framing benchmarks reference the UN Sustainable Development Goal 10.c target to reduce average remittance costs below 3% by 2030, which lets us flag corridors that are already affordable against those that still carry double-digit percentage costs. We review every guide against the live RPW data each time the World Bank publishes a new quarter, and outdated claims are refreshed rather than archived.