Which Is Better for multi-currency businesses?
Your decision really comes down to two questions. Are you a sole trader? And do you pay international suppliers in bulk every month?
If you’re a sole trader, Airwallex is off the table. That isn’t a nuance, it’s a hard eligibility cut. Your real choices are Equals Money, Wise, or Revolut.
Run a registered LTD and pay overseas suppliers in several currencies each month? Airwallex is the stronger platform. Push past £10,000 in monthly deposits and the fee disappears, and you can fire off fifty supplier payments in a single CSV upload. Equals Money has nothing like it.
For team expense card spend across currencies, Equals Money holds its own. Pre-load the EUR wallet before your team flies to Berlin and every coffee, taxi, and dinner runs at 0% FX.
Get caught with an empty wallet and every transaction stings you for 1.5%. That’s the real trade-off here. Airwallex takes a predictable 0.5% on major currencies, every single time. Equals Money’s 0% only works if you plan ahead.
Airwallex vs Equals Money Fees and Charges
Airwallex Explore costs you £19 a month, or nothing, if you’re turning over £10,000+ in deposits or holding that much in your wallet. Grow is £49 a month with no waiver. Sit below the deposit threshold and that £19 is dead money each month.
Equals Money Business is £25 a month, or £250 if you pay annually. Business Plus is £35 a month. Neither tier waives the fee, but committing for a year saves you roughly two months’ cost.
On the Business tier you get 20 physical cards and 50 virtual cards, and you can add as many platform users as you like. If half your team only needs dashboard access, they don’t cost you a penny extra. For larger teams, that adds up.
Equals Money charges £10 to issue each physical card, one off, but that stings if you’re kitting out a sales team. Airwallex doesn’t charge for card issuance.
Every Equals Money ATM withdrawal, at home or abroad, costs £1.50. We verified both fee structures from provider pricing pages in May 2026.
| Cost | Airwallex Explore | Airwallex Grow | Equals Money Business | Equals Money Plus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly fee | £19 (free with £10k+ monthly deposits) | £49 (no waiver) | £25 (£250/yr annually) | £35 (£350/yr annually) |
| Physical cards included | Up to 10 free | Up to 50 free | Up to 20 (+ £10 issuance each) | Up to 50 (+ £10 issuance each) |
| Virtual cards | Yes | Yes | Up to 50 | Up to 100 |
| FX rate | 0.5% markup (major currencies) | 0.5% markup (major currencies) | 0% if wallet pre-loaded; 1.5% if not | 0% if wallet pre-loaded; 1.5% if not |
| International transfers | Free (local rails); £10–£20 (SWIFT) | Free (local rails); £10–£20 (SWIFT) | Internal wallet transfers free; no SWIFT payout | Internal wallet transfers free; no SWIFT payout |
| ATM withdrawals | Not applicable | Not applicable | £1.50 per withdrawal | £1.50 per withdrawal |
| Sole trader eligible | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| FSCS protection | No (e-money safeguarding) | No (e-money safeguarding) | No (e-money safeguarding) | No (e-money safeguarding) |
Airwallex vs Equals Money Features and Tools
The accounting story is where these two pull apart. Airwallex feeds straight into Xero, QuickBooks, NetSuite, and Sage, hourly for Sage, real-time for the rest. No CSV export, no manual reconciliation.
Equals Money connects to Xero through Open Banking and that’s it. No native QuickBooks. No Sage. G2 reviewers flag this as a monthly headache, and they’re right to. If your accountant runs Sage, they’ll be hand-exporting transactions every month-end, and you’ll feel that in their bill.
Airwallex expense management goes further. Your team photographs receipts, transactions match automatically, and you set multi-step approvals and custom spend rules.
Equals Money keeps it simpler: per-card limits, ATM blocking, category tracking. Plenty for a small team that doesn’t need approval chains, thin if you do.
Airwallex Core gives your developers an API to embed payment flows, mint cards in code, and automate treasury from your own software.
Equals Money has no developer capability. For custom workflows or programmatic card issuance, Airwallex is the only option of these two.
Airwallex vs Equals Money International Payments
Airwallex applies a 0.5% markup on major currencies, USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, SGD, HKD, CNY, CAD, CHF, NZD, JPY, and 1.0% on everything else.
Local transfers to 120+ countries are free. SWIFT costs £10–£20 where local rails don’t exist. We verified both rate structures from provider pages in May 2026.
Equals Money holds up to 38 currencies, but the FX mechanics are conditional. Spend from a pre-loaded wallet: 0% conversion, no markup. Spend in a currency your wallet doesn’t hold, or spend when the wallet’s empty: 1.5% penalty applies.
For predictable spend, a known EUR invoice, a booked hotel in Tokyo, loading the wallet before the transaction keeps the cost at zero. For ad-hoc travel or unplanned purchases, 1.5% is expensive against Airwallex’s consistent 0.5%.
Airwallex batch payments let you push 50+ supplier payments through a single CSV upload. Useful for agencies paying freelancers across four currencies at month-end, or marketplaces distributing seller payouts. Equals Money processes each payment individually, no batch payout feature exists.
Airwallex vs Equals Money Customer Reviews and Reputation
Airwallex sits at 3.7 on Trustpilot from roughly 2,300 reviews, rated “Average”. The praise clusters around real multi-currency savings and a clean interface.
The complaints cluster somewhere more uncomfortable: AML triggers freezing payments with little explanation, and escalations crawl when your account’s already locked.
Equals Money scores 4.6 from 500+ reviews, “Excellent”. Reviewers name specific agents and describe problems resolved in hours, not days.
The recurring complaint is the missing QuickBooks integration, which turns month-end into a slog if your books aren’t in Xero. We checked both Trustpilot profiles in May 2026 and found the support score gap consistent across review periods, not a one-off spike.
Don’t underestimate this. When a payment gets flagged or a card blocks at the till, you don’t want a tiered ticketing system.
Equals Money picks up. Airwallex at the Explore tier doesn’t always. If you’ve got a supplier waiting on an email, that gap matters.
Airwallex vs Equals Money for Sole Traders and Freelancers
Sole traders can’t open an Airwallex account. The platform restricts onboarding to UK-registered Limited Companies and LLPs. Your business must be registered at Companies House; a sole trader UTR is not sufficient. We confirmed this against Airwallex’s onboarding requirements in May 2026.
Equals Money accepts sole traders and freelancers without a company registration requirement. Standard FCA KYC identity checks apply, but there’s no Companies House number needed.
A sole-trader designer bills a Paris agency £3,000 each month in EUR. She loads the EUR wallet when the invoice lands, then spends at 0% FX on Adobe, materials, and a French printer. That workflow works on Equals Money. It’s unavailable on Airwallex.
Freelancers on project-based work who need physical cards for travel across currencies also benefit. The £25 Business tier covers 20 physical cards and 50 virtual cards, more than most sole traders need, and available from day one without a credit check.
Downsides of Airwallex and Equals Money
Airwallex: the £19/month fee is dead cost below £10,000 in monthly activity. Support for Explore customers is not prioritised: compliance freezes and escalations take longer than they should at this price point.
The sole trader exclusion removes a large share of the UK self-employed market from the platform entirely.
Equals Money: the 1.5% out-of-wallet fee traps businesses with unpredictable travel spend. Ad-hoc currency purchases without pre-loaded wallets cost more than Airwallex’s flat 0.5% markup.
No native Sage or QuickBooks integration is a real accounting gap. And Equals Money doesn’t process card payments from customers, it’s purely a spend tool, not a payment gateway.
Both platforms: no FSCS protection, no overdraft, no branch access, no cheque handling. Neither works as a standalone primary business current account for businesses that need traditional banking infrastructure.
Alternatives to Airwallex and Equals Money
Three alternatives worth considering if neither Airwallex nor Equals Money fits precisely:
- Wise Business, mid-market exchange rate with a small transparent per-transfer fee. No monthly subscription. Accepts sole traders. A strong alternative if you want predictable FX costs without a monthly fee and do low-to-medium volumes of international payments.
- Revolut Business, free Basic plan with 25+ currency wallets, team expense cards, and Xero/QuickBooks/FreeAgent integrations. Covers most SME use cases that Equals Money targets, with broader accounting software support.
- Tide, free UK current account with built-in invoicing and basic expense management. No international focus, but useful as a primary UK account alongside a specialist FX platform like Airwallex or Wise.
Final Verdict: Airwallex or Equals Money?
Airwallex and Equals Money serve different businesses. Picking the wrong one means paying a platform you can’t use (sole traders on Airwallex) or paying 1.5% on every unplanned currency spend (teams not pre-loading Equals Money wallets). Both outcomes are avoidable.
Choose Airwallex if you run a UK LTD or LLP, regularly pay multiple international suppliers, or need Sage, QuickBooks, or NetSuite integration.
The £10k deposit threshold that waives the £19/month fee is reachable for most businesses with active international operations, we’d suggest running the numbers before assuming it isn’t.
Choose Equals Money if you’re a sole trader or freelancer, Airwallex won’t onboard you. Also choose it if your multi-currency need is team expense card spend in predictable currencies.
Load wallets before spend happens and the 0% FX rate is competitive. The £25/month Business tier gives 20 physical and 50 virtual cards from day one, with the strongest customer support track record of the two.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can sole traders use Airwallex?
No. Airwallex restricts UK applications to registered Limited Companies (LTDs) and Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs). You must have a Companies House registration number to apply. Sole traders and freelancers are not eligible. If you are a sole trader needing a multi-currency account, Equals Money, Wise Business, and Revolut Business all accept sole trader applications.
Is Equals Money FSCS protected?
No. Equals Money is an FCA-regulated Electronic Money Institution (EMI), not a licensed bank. Your funds are protected by statutory safeguarding, held in segregated accounts at FCA-approved credit institutions and ring-fenced from Equals Money’s own capital, but they are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). The same applies to Airwallex. For FSCS-covered business banking, you need a licensed bank such as Starling, Monzo, or a high-street provider.
What happens if I spend in a currency I haven’t loaded on Equals Money?
Equals Money charges a 1.5% conversion fee when you spend in a currency that your wallet does not hold, or when the relevant wallet has insufficient funds. The 0% FX rate applies only when you have pre-loaded the specific currency wallet with enough balance to cover the transaction. For predictable spend, a known invoice in EUR or a booked hotel, load the wallet first and the cost is zero. For ad-hoc or unplanned spend, budget for the 1.5% conversion.
Does Airwallex support batch payments to multiple suppliers?
Yes. Airwallex supports CSV batch upload to process multiple international payments in a single batch. This is particularly useful for agencies paying freelancers across currencies, marketplaces distributing seller payouts, or any business with regular AP runs to multiple international payees. Equals Money has no equivalent batch payout capability.
Which has better customer support: Airwallex or Equals Money?
Equals Money is rated significantly higher on Trustpilot: 4.6 out of 5 (“Excellent”) from over 500 reviews, with reviewers frequently praising named support agents and fast resolution. Airwallex scores 3.7 (“Average”) from around 2,300 reviews, with complaints centred on compliance-triggered freezes and slow escalation support for Explore tier customers. If customer service quality is a priority, Equals Money has the stronger track record.
How we reviewed Airwallex vs Equals Money
Ranking criteria. We compared Airwallex and Equals Money on pricing, fees, feature set, eligibility, and contract terms. We also verified regulatory status and deposit protection where applicable.
Data sources. Every provider’s pricing page, terms, and product docs were checked directly in May 2026. No comparison sites, no press releases, no affiliate material. FCA register cross-checked for regulatory status.
Update cadence. We re-verify every provider on this page at least monthly, and whenever a provider changes pricing, eligibility, or terms. The verification date on the page reflects the most recent full review. Some links on this page are affiliate links, see our editorial policy.
Related Pages
Comparing more multi-currency or international business accounts? We have more comparisons and roundups below.
- Revolut vs Airwallex, Revolut Business compared to Airwallex head-to-head
- Best international business accounts, accounts built for cross-border trading
- Airwallex Business Account Review, full review of Airwallex UK features, pricing, and verdict
- Best business bank accounts, full comparison of leading UK providers