Payoneer Review
(8) Things You Need to Know Before Sign Up
PAYONEER
Pros
- Wide presence in 200 countries
- Custom invoices and lets you request payment from individual clients
- Customer support
- Free payments between Payoneer accounts
Cons
- There are several different types of fees (see below)
- High card transaction fees
- Many hoops to jump through, with the potential for prohibitive issues.
Payoneer Review – The Basics
Payoneer is aimed at businesses, professionals, digital marketers, product/service marketplaces, and freelancers.
They provide currency conversion, direct payment solutions, integrations, and means for businesses to pay their contractors, employees, and others. They support businesses and professionals in over 20 countries and have over 4 million customers.
Here is all you need to know about Payoneer.
1. When does Payoneer Works?
Payoneer (click link for VIP rate which means you only pay 1.2% instead of 2% on transfers from your bank account 
– opens a new tab) is among the best payment services out there.
However, it may not work for everyone.
Broadly speaking, Payoneer works well in the following cases:
Service Providers or Freelancers: If you need to get paid by your clients or via marketplaces such as Upwork and PeoplePerHour for your services, Payoneer can be a great option.
Small Businesses: SMBs that need to pay or get paid for their goods or services can use Payoneer for all their international transactions.
Online Sellers: If you are an online seller that needs to accept payments from e-commerce marketplaces for your goods, Payoneer will work quite well for you.
Marketplaces or SMBs: Payoneer is great for sending mass payouts to payees across the world.
In short, Payoneer is a good choice for sending or receiving business payments.
While they are a great competitor to PayPal, their services are intended for business use only.
You might also like Payoneer Vs PayPal
2. When Payoneer Doesn’t Work
Personal Payments: If you are looking for a money transfer company for sending or receiving funds between family and friends, or as a primary way to pay for things using their prepaid debit card, Payoneer is not for you.
Payoneer only accepts business transactions and is all about payments.
Large and extra-large business transfers: Also, Payoneer has limits on certain transactions. In case of payments for payment requests or the ones initiated by other Payoneer customers, there is a limit of 15,000 USD/15,000 EUR/15,000 GBP in case of credit card payments and 15,000 USD with eCheck. For payments from other Payoneer customers, there is a monthly limit of 100,000 USD. If you intend to make larger transactions, then you may need to explore other providers.
Our Personal Experience
If you want to get paid by marketplaces and international clients as if you had your own local account then you will want to read this.
Payoneer has many hoops to jump through to receive a Global Payment. This can feel over the top after giving up copies of your ID to get “approved.” You also need to provide all kinds of evidence that whoever is paying you, is actually paying you (even though Payoneer already has the money by this point).
In our case, this included sharing an invoice, reason for payment verification, questions about the payment, and screenshots of account activity and the account showing their address. This can take some time and more than a little zen mastery.
We understand that a lot of this has to do with meeting regulations and overall we think this is a good thing.
But you can get an email saying, “We are sorry to inform you that your access to Payoneer’s Global Payment Service has been discontinued” and the money they have from your client or customer gets returned.
The problem we have here is not that our ability to use Payoneer was discontinued but that there is no recourse nor any helpful information why this would happen.
This is just one experience and not isolated to Payoneer, but it makes us all the keener for you to be aware of what we found when we analyzed the reviews.
Fortunately, Payoneer also has some solid alternatives you might want to know about. For example, in our Wise Vs Payoneer comparison, we uncover the 7 most important differences.
3. How does Payoneer work?
3.1 Creating a Payoneer Account
- Click “Sign Up” on Payoneer’s website – you will be asked whether you are creating an account for professional or personal use
- Enter your personal details such as name, email, date of birth, address, and phone number.
- Using the email address as your Payoneer username, enter a password and choose a security answer and question
- Enter your account details
- Confirm your Payoneer account by clicking on the link sent to your registered email. As an additional security measure, you will be asked to choose two more security questions
- Payoneer will then carry out a credit check. Verifying identity and running credit checks may take up to 2 days
- Once approved, you can start requesting and sending payments through Payoneer
3.2 Receiving Funds
There are two ways in which you can receive funds through Payoneer:
3.2.1 When you use Payoneer to get paid by clients by sending them a payment request, Payoneer sends them an email with details of the payment and the options to pay you. You will receive the funds in your Payoneer account within a few days depending on the payment option used.
3.2.2 To get paid by marketplaces and companies by bank transfer, Payoneer provides receiving accounts that work like local bank accounts. This means you can receive local bank transfers in local currencies. Payments that come to your receiving account are transferred directly to your Payoneer account.
Other Payoneer customers can make business-related payments to you using one of the many ways available to them depending on their eligibility.
If you provide services through marketplaces such as Airbnb and Upwork, you can just choose Payoneer as the payment method and get paid.
3.3 Making Payments
When you use Payoneer to pay another Payoneer user, you don’t have to pay any fee and the balance is transferred from your account to theirs within minutes.
You can also use Payoneer to make payments to those who do not use Payoneer. You simply need to add their bank account details and make the payment from your Payoneer account to their bank account directly.
4. How Much Does Payoneer Cost?
Opening an account with Payoneer is free. It offers various ways to send, receive money and handle money. Given the complexity of their fee structure, we have broken down and simplified it into the main ways you will want to use Payoneer. This way you can focus on what you will be using Payoneer for and see what you will pay.
4.1 Making a Payment
Through ‘Make a Payment’, receiving and making payments as a Payoneer customer is free.
4.2 Paying Your Service Providers
With Payoneer, you can easily make payments to your freelancers and other service providers anywhere in the world at very competitive rates.
The fees are as follows:
- eCHECK: 1%
- Credit card: 3%
- Local bank transfer: 1%
When making payments to service providers, Payoneer lets you choose whether you want to pay the fee or pass it on to the recipient. In case the service provider is located in an EEA country, the fee is automatically charged to them.
4.3 Receiving Money
There are two ways in which you can receive money via Payoneer.
4.3.1 Global Payment Service
If you have registered for the Global Payment Service of Payoneer, you will get receiving accounts for euros (EUR), U.S. dollars (USD), Japanese yens (JPY), and British pounds (GBP).
This lets you receive different currencies. It is like having a local bank account in the UK, the US, Canada, Japan, Mexico, and Australia.
For EUR, GBP, JPY, AUD, CAD, MXN: No fees
For USD: 1% fee
4.3.2 Receive Payments from Customers
If you use the billing service to receive payments via Payoneer, you will have to pay different fees for payment by eCheck or credit card.
Via eCheck (USD): 1% fee
Via credit card (all currencies): 3% fee
4.4 Exchanging Currency
If you need to exchange from one currency to another, you will need to pay a 0.5% fee above the mid-market rate. This fee is very competitive and one of the main reasons you might find Payoneer is a good choice for your needs.
4.5 Marketplaces and Networks
Payoneer is used by many leading marketplaces and freelancing platforms. These platforms, including Upwork, Fiverr, and Airbnb set their own fees for withdrawing money. So, you need to check the rates with the respective platforms.
4.6 Transferring Money from Payoneer to a Bank Account
For withdrawing money, you will need to pay a different fee depending on whether you are withdrawing funds in a different currency or the same currency.
- For withdrawing funds from a Payoneer account to a bank account in a different currency, you will need to pay 2% above the interbank rate. While the normal rate of 2% is much better than a bank, you can click here to signup (opens a new tab) and get a VIP rate of 1.2% which is much closer to what you would expect from a specialist international money transfer company.
- For withdrawing money into your bank account in the same currency, you will have to pay $1.50 for the transaction.
The fees may be lower for high-value transactions.
4.7 Using the Payoneer Prepaid Mastercard
If you use Payoneer Mastercard to make a purchase with a currency other than the card’s listed currency, the exchange will happen at the Mastercard’s official exchange rate. In addition to this, you will pay a currency conversion fee of up to 3.5%.
If you are looking to make regular purchases we suggest a more competitive exchange rate perhaps from these prepaid cards.
5. How Fast is Payoneer?
Payoneer-to-Payoneer transfers (sending and receiving funds) are almost instant. But transactions with non-Payoneer accounts may take longer depending on the payment methods used.
Both global and local transfers for withdrawal to your bank account usually take 2-5 business days. This means, that once you receive the confirmation mail from Payoneer, it may take 2-5 days for the funds to reach your account.
Transfers within the US generally take 2-3 business days.
6. Customer Reviews of Payoneer
Payoneer enjoys a score of 4.4 with over 23000+ reviews on Trustpilot with most of the reviews being excellent or great.
However, 6% are poor and bad reviews (one and two stars), and we were curious to get to the bottom of it.
The Real Deal
We sifted through 100s of reviews to get an idea of what went wrong and caused people to write poor reviews.
One thing we really liked about the Payoneer team was the way they have responded to all the negative reviews, provided logical solutions to all the problems, and assured them of all the support they can provide to improve the user experience.
Here are the two most common problems reviewers faced with Payoneer:
Long waiting times for customer support: Some reviewers have complained that they had to wait for a long time before they could get in touch with a live agent. However, we found there are other channels to contact customer care rather than waiting indefinitely for live chat. For better response times, Payoneer even recommends using phone, email, or social media channels.
Delayed or canceled payments: Sometimes, delays can occur due to the review process or while making transactions, which they have to carry out due to regulatory requirements. This makes sense, but we just wish it was easier to somehow fix the issue. For example, in some cases, delays occurred due to the customer’s inability to provide necessary documents but in other cases, the issues seem to be “undisclosed”.
You may get a response like this, “Your account seems to have been closed for undisclosed reason. The common reason that an account can be blocked without any notice is due to a breach in our terms and conditions. The reason is usually undisclosed for confidentiality reason.”
7. Is Your Money Safe?
Payoneer is a legit, fully regulated US company registered as a US Money Service Business (MSB).
They have also been in operation since 2005, and are certified at a PCI Level 1 Data Security Standard which means they need to uphold a high standard of security on their network and systems.
Apart from electronic protection, they have implemented procedures to ensure physical security and integrity of all data.
They regularly update their protocols to prevent data losses due to theft, fire, or accidents. All-access points are protected by virus detection systems and firewalls to prevent hacking and tampering.
Moreover, their IT systems undergo compulsory comprehensive annual PCI audits.
Each transaction is safeguarded by sophisticated anti-hacking techniques and firewalls in order to prevent fraud, phishing encounters, identity theft, and other types of attacks. Payoneer also sends email notifications about all business transactions and account changes. Any unusual transaction is also immediately notified through email, which helps you keep complete track of your account.
While we are not security experts by any means, we feel assured that your money is safe as reasonably possible at Payoneer.
8. Finally – Right for You?
Payoneer is a compelling choice for freelancers, professionals, and small businesses looking for a simple cost-effective way to send and accept payments. Using Payoneer’s services makes sense for anyone who wants to break free of ridiculous fees and just needs a service that does the essentials really well.
How much they will save you depends on many cost factors (above), but they are almost certainly going to save you money compared to old-school banking.
Click here to signup and get a VIP rate of 1.2% for transfers from your Payoneer account to your bank account (normally 2%).
Payoneer can also issue a prepaid Mastercard which can make spending (the money you make) really easy but there are more cost-effective cards you might want to consider.
Overall, the pricing for their primary function (getting paid and paying others) is very competitive – so if that’s what you’re after, Payoneer is an excellent option.
For many people operating in a more global economy – Payoneer is a long overdue and very welcome option, assuming you don’t have your access discontinued.
Happy Money!
