Wise built its reputation on honest FX — mid-market exchange rates with a transparent fee shown upfront. For sending $500 or $5,000 to a bank account in another country, Wise is excellent and we recommend it. For sending $20 of credit to a prepaid SIM in rural Nigeria, Wise doesn't quite fit — their minimum fees eat small amounts, their payouts require the recipient to have a bank account, and the settlement time is often one or two business days.
| Feature | FillUpCoin | Wise |
|---|---|---|
| Fee on a $20 top-up | ~$0.50 | ~$2.50 |
| Fee on a $200 top-up | ~$0.50 | ~$3-5 |
| Fee on a $2,000 transfer | N/A (we cap at €200) | ~$10-20 |
| Settlement time | 1-5 minutes | Hours to 2 days |
| Sender account setup | None required | Full KYC signup |
| Recipient must have bank account | No (SIM only) | Yes |
| Output format | Airtime balance on SIM | Cash in bank account |
| Supports crypto payment | ✓ (BTC, USDT, ETH, SOL) | No |
| Regulatory status | Crypto service | Licensed EMI (regulated) |
We're not pretending to replace everything Wise does — if any of these matter to your use case, keep using Wise.
Wise is excellent for medium and large cross-border fiat transfers to bank accounts. FillUpCoin is excellent for small amounts specifically targeted at prepaid phone balances. The two tools belong in different folders of your financial app list — not competitors so much as complements.
Not for small phone top-ups. For a $20 recharge to a parent's SIM, Wise's minimum fee is a huge portion of the amount — about 10-15% effective. FillUpCoin's crypto network fee is pennies regardless of amount.
We don't know Wise's internal roadmap. The two business models are quite different — Wise is a licensed money transmitter with regulatory requirements that make small-value, no-ID transactions expensive to serve.
Wise is regulated — if they fail, there's protection. Crypto is self-custodial — if you lose your wallet, nobody can recover it. For small amounts you can afford to lose the service model matters less than cost; for large transfers Wise's regulated nature is a real advantage.
Yes. Wise doesn't sell crypto directly, but it's a cheap way to fund an exchange account where you then buy USDT or BTC. For some senders this two-step is still cheaper total than Western Union.