How Much Did Moving Money Cost You in 2025?

It’s tax season across most of the world right now.

Canada’s deadline is April 30. The US gave citizens abroad an automatic extension to June 15. The UK tax year just closed on April 5.

If you live and earn across borders, this is probably the one time of year you actually sit down and look at where your money went.

So here’s a question most people skip:

How much did it cost you to move that money?

Not your rent. Not your flights. Not your coworking membership. Just the act of getting paid in one currency and spending in another.

Most people have no idea. That’s the problem.

Every cross-border transfer has layers.

Not one fee. Several, stacked on top of each other:

• The deposit fee (getting money into the platform)

• The FX markup (the gap between what you see and what you get)

• The withdrawal fee (landing money in the destination account)

• The network fee (rails, processing, intermediary cuts)

Most providers show you one number. “No fees!” or “Only $1.99!”

That’s the deposit fee. Maybe.

The rest is buried in the exchange rate. You’d need to compare the rate they gave you against the mid-market rate at the exact moment of your transfer to find the gap.

Nobody does that.

We’re building a cross-border money platform called Glintz. The end goal is one-tap transfers that automatically route your money through the cheapest, fastest path available. Top up, compare, send. Three phases, one product.

We’re not there yet. Right now we’re in phase one: compare. A live comparison engine that pulls data from providers, breaks down every fee layer, and ranks them by what the recipient actually receives.

Here’s what we’re seeing on corridors our users care about, this week:

Sending ~USD 1,000 equivalent:

• CAD to SGD: best provider costs 0.18%. Worst costs 5.03%. That’s a $48 gap on a single transfer.

• USD to THB: best at 0.18%, worst at 5.17%. $50 difference.

• GBP to EUR: best at 0.18%, worst at 6.38%. Over $60 gone.

• EUR to CAD: best at 0.18%, worst at 6.08%. Nearly $60.

Those are real numbers from this week’s data. Not averages. Not estimates.

The cheapest and most expensive provider on the same corridor, same day, same amount.

If you send money once a month, and you’re on the wrong provider, you could be paying $600 to $750 more per year than you need to.

For a lot of nomads earning $60K to $100K, that’s 1% of gross income. Just on money movement.

We interviewed a nomad who’d been moving money across multiple currencies for years.

He used a traditional bank for his company transfers. Never questioned it. The rates were “cheaper than other banks,” so it felt fine.

Then one day he sat down and actually compared. Pulled up newer platforms, ran the same conversion side by side.

His word for what he found: ridiculous.

Not slightly higher. Multiples higher.

He switched within weeks.

The thing is, he’s financially sophisticated. Manages multiple currency accounts, tracks exchange rates, knows the market. But he still didn’t catch it for two or three years. Because nobody sits down and does the comparison unless something forces them to.

Tax season can be that trigger.

Here’s what else came out of that conversation.

When we asked why he stays with his current platform despite knowing cheaper options might exist, his answer was surprising. He said he pays for the premium subscription specifically so he can stop comparing.

Not because it’s the cheapest. Because the mental overhead of constantly checking rates was draining him.

That’s a real trade-off a lot of nomads make:

• Pay slightly more for convenience

• Stop thinking about whether you’re getting ripped off

• Accept the “good enough” rate to get your time back

It’s rational. But it shouldn’t require a premium subscription to stop worrying.

That’s what we’re building toward. Phase two is top-up: fund your account in your home currency. Phase three is send: one tap, and the system routes your transfer through the cheapest, fastest rail automatically. No comparing. No manual switching between apps. The mental overhead goes to zero because the routing does the work for you.

We’re raising to license and build those next two phases. But phase one, the comparison engine, is live now. And it already answers the question this post is about.

This post isn’t about switching providers. It’s about knowing.

If you’ve never sat down and compared what you’re paying against what’s actually available on the same corridor, you might be surprised. Not by a few dollars. By hundreds.

A few things worth checking:

• What corridor do you send on most often?

• What’s the total cost (not just the “fee” but the FX gap)?

• How does your provider rank against alternatives on the same corridor, same day?

We built a tool that answers all three.

Pick your send and receive country, enter an amount, and see every provider ranked by what actually arrives on the other end. Deposit fees, FX markup, withdrawal cost, speed. All visible.

It’s free, no signup, takes about 30 seconds.

Run your inventory check here.

Tax season is the one time of year you’re already looking at your finances.

While you’re in there, check one more line item. The one most people miss.

You might find out you’re paying $25 a month for something that should cost $2. Or you might confirm your setup is solid.

Either way, now you know.

The comparison engine is where we start, not where we stop. We’re building toward a world where you top up once, hit send, and the system handles the rest. The cheapest route, the fastest rail, no spreadsheet required.

If you want to follow along as we build each phase in public, that’s what this page is for.