Wise vs Revolut Business for Your Estonian Company

Quick verdict

Open Wise Business first. It costs nothing per month after a one-time setup fee of about €50 for your account details, converts currency at the mid-market rate for 0.4–0.6%, and syncs automatically into Xolo — which means your bookkeeping happens without you touching it (Wise pricing verified 17 July 2026 via the e-Residency Marketplace and wise.com).

Add Revolut Business only for a specific job. Revolut earns its place when you need many virtual cards, per-employee spend controls, or a bank licence with deposit protection behind your balance. Those are real advantages. They are not advantages a solo founder invoicing five clients a month will ever use.

The fee difference between the two is small enough that it should not decide anything. The bookkeeping difference is large enough that it should decide everything.

Comparison at a glance

Wise wins on cost transparency and accounting integration; Revolut wins on cards, spend controls, and regulatory protection. Everything else between them is close enough to ignore.

Wise figures verified 17 July 2026 against wise.com and the official e-Residency Marketplace. Revolut's plan pricing changes by country and by plan tier often enough that I will not restate a number I have not re-checked at source — take the current figures from Revolut's own pricing page before you decide.

What Wise actually costs

Wise Business costs nothing per month. You pay a one-time fee of roughly €50 to unlock full local account details, and after that the only money that leaves your account is the conversion fee: 0.4–0.6% at the real mid-market rate, shown in full before you confirm each transfer (verified 17 July 2026). SEPA transfers are free.

For an all-EUR business, the running cost of Wise is effectively zero. My own account only generates fees in months where a US or UK client pays in their own currency and I convert.

What matters more than the headline rate is what Wise doesn't do: there is no spread hidden inside the exchange rate. The fee is charged separately and visibly, where banks advertising "no transfer fee" typically take a margin inside the rate instead. That comparison — Wise against a traditional bank — is far more consequential than Wise against Revolut.

The full fee table, including card and ATM costs, is in my Wise Business review.

How Revolut Business prices its accounts

Revolut Business sells tiered monthly plans rather than a single flat account. Each tier bundles an allowance of fee-free currency exchange and a number of free transfers; above the allowance, conversion is charged as a percentage. There is a free tier, which is what most single-founder Estonian companies would land on.

I am not quoting Revolut's current plan prices on this page. I could not re-verify them at source on 18 August 2026, and Revolut's pricing varies by country of registration and changes more often than most providers'. Publishing a number I haven't checked is how comparison pages go stale and start misleading people. Take the current figures from Revolut's pricing page, then come back to the decision framework below — which doesn't depend on them, because for a solo founder the realistic monthly gap between these two accounts is a few euros either way. That's not a business decision. It's noise.

The difference that actually costs you money

Neither account's fees will meaningfully change your P&L. Your bookkeeping workflow will. This is the section that should decide your choice.

Xolo syncs automatically with Wise, Revolut, and LHV — transactions are pulled in and categorised without manual entry. In practice, though, the Wise integration is the one I've run for years without intervention: every transaction lands in my Xolo dashboard already matched, and my accountant sees my position in real time. I have never uploaded a CSV, never reconciled a statement by hand, and never had a "which payment was this?" conversation.

If your provider does not auto-sync your chosen account, you're signing up for a monthly manual export-and-upload ritual — and providers charge for the extra reconciliation work when your books arrive messy. 1Office, for instance, integrates primarily with LHV and offers no automatic Wise sync, so the right bank genuinely depends on the provider you've picked (Xolo vs 1Office covers that side).

That compounds into your filings. Estonian companies file a monthly VAT return by the 20th of the following month once VAT-registered, and an annual report within six months of the financial year end — mandatory for every OÜ regardless of where it banks, with VAT registration compulsory from €40,000 in annual turnover (source: EMTA and the Estonian Business Register, verified 17 July 2026). Every one of those filings is built from transaction data. My annual report takes about twenty minutes because the data was already in Xolo.

Getting paid: receiving client money

Both accounts give your Estonian OÜ a SEPA-reachable IBAN that clients across the EU can pay into as a normal domestic transfer. Wise issues a Belgian IBAN, Revolut a Lithuanian one. Since 2019, Estonian companies owned by e-Residents may hold business accounts anywhere in the EEA (EU Payment Accounts Directive 2014/92/EU, transposed into Estonian law), so neither is at any disadvantage against an Estonian EE-prefixed IBAN.

Wise's edge is non-EUR receiving. It gives you genuine local account details in multiple currencies: a US client pays into a US routing number, a UK client into a UK sort code — a domestic payment on their side, with no international wire fee and no correspondent-bank deductions. If a meaningful share of your revenue comes from outside the eurozone, that's the most practical difference between these two accounts.

Cards, spend control, and expense management

Revolut wins this category outright. It issues many virtual cards, sets per-card and per-user spending limits, and provides real expense categorisation and approval flows. Wise gives you a physical card and limited virtual cards, and that's the extent of it.

This matters if you run ad spend across several platforms, hold a dozen SaaS subscriptions you want isolated on separate cards, or have team members spending company money. A one-person consultancy with four subscriptions needs none of it. Revolut's card tooling replaces a category of software most e-Resident companies are too small to need — and when you are big enough to need it, running Revolut alongside Wise is a reasonable answer.

Regulatory status and deposit protection

Revolut holds a bank licence in Lithuania (since 2018), so balances are covered by the EU deposit guarantee scheme. Wise is a payment institution, not a bank: client funds are safeguarded in segregated accounts at partner banks rather than covered by deposit insurance.

Safeguarding is genuine protection — your money is legally separated from the institution's own funds and unavailable to its creditors — but it is a different mechanism, and the payout process in a failure scenario is not the same. For companies holding an operating balance for a few weeks between invoice and distribution, the distinction is academic. If you park a large cash reserve for months at a time, it isn't.

Can you use both?

Yes, in one configuration: Wise as the primary account that all revenue and provider-synced activity flows through, Revolut as a secondary account holding only isolated virtual cards for ad spend or subscriptions.

Avoid splitting real operating activity across both. Two accounts with genuine transaction volume means double the reconciliation for your accountant, and providers bill for that. A narrow second account also serves as an operational backup — payment institutions occasionally freeze accounts for compliance review, and being unable to pay a contractor for a week is a real problem.

Who should choose what

Choose Wise if:

• You're a solo founder, freelancer, or consultant with straightforward transaction volume
• You use Xolo and want bookkeeping that runs without you
• You invoice clients outside the eurozone and want local account details in their currency
• You want zero monthly cost and fees you can see before you confirm them
• You'd rather make one banking decision and never revisit it

Choose Revolut if:

• You need many virtual cards or per-user spending controls
• You have team members spending company money and need approval flows
• You want a bank licence and deposit protection behind a large operating balance
• Your currency mix fits a plan's bundled FX allowance better than Wise's flat percentage
• You're not relying on your provider's automatic bookkeeping sync

Disclosure, stated plainly: Wise is an affiliate partner — open an account through my link and I earn a commission, you get a fee-free first transfer. Revolut is not an affiliate partner; I earn nothing whether you choose it, choose both, or ignore this page. I recommend Wise because it has been my company's only business account for eight years, not because it's the one that pays.

Bottom line

For the overwhelming majority of e-Residents, Wise is the account to open, and Revolut is the one to add later if a specific need appears. The fee gap between them is a rounding error on any real business; the bookkeeping gap is hours per year, and it compounds every month you run the company.

Pick Revolut as your primary account only if you can name the feature you're buying — virtual card fleets, spend controls, deposit protection on a large balance. "It might be a bit cheaper" is not that feature.

Frequently asked questions

Is Wise or Revolut cheaper for an Estonian company?

For a solo founder the difference is a few euros a month either way — small enough that it shouldn't decide anything. Wise costs nothing monthly after a ~€50 one-time setup and charges 0.4–0.6% on conversion (verified 17 July 2026); Revolut bundles an FX allowance into tiered plans, including a free tier. Model your actual conversion volume rather than comparing headline prices.

Does my Estonian company need an Estonian IBAN?

No. Since 2019, Estonian companies can hold business accounts anywhere in the EEA. Wise's Belgian IBAN and Revolut's Lithuanian IBAN are both accepted by the Estonian Tax and Customs Board, the Business Register, and service providers. See the banking setup guide for the full picture.

Can I open a Revolut Business account as an e-Resident?

Yes. Revolut Business accepts Estonian OÜs owned by e-Residents, with verification comparable to Wise — identity check plus company documents, typically 1–3 business days. Confirm the current plan pricing for an Estonian-registered company on Revolut's own site before opening, since it varies by country.

Is my money safe with Wise if it isn't a bank?

Wise is a payment institution, so your funds are safeguarded in segregated accounts at partner banks rather than covered by deposit insurance — legally separating your money from Wise's own funds. Revolut's Lithuanian bank licence means deposit-guarantee coverage instead, a stronger protection if you hold a large balance for long periods.

Will switching banks disrupt my accounting?

It creates a one-off reconciliation gap: your provider needs the closing data from the old account and the opening data from the new one. Switch at the start of a financial year rather than mid-year, and tell your accountant before you move, not after. Your company registration, OÜ, and provider contract are unaffected.

Continue reading

• Wise Business Review — Eight years of daily use, with the full fee table
• Banking Setup — Step-by-step setup, plus LHV and Paysera as alternatives
• All Service Providers Compared — Which providers integrate with which banks
• Choosing a Service Provider — Why integration should drive this decision
• Xolo vs 1Office — The provider side, where Wise sync is a deciding factor