Banks and money transfer providers rarely charge a simple, visible fee. Most of their profit is hidden inside the exchange rate itself — a markup above the real "mid-market" rate that never appears on your receipt. The FX Markup Checker lets you enter the rate your bank or provider quoted you and see exactly how far it sits from the true mid-market rate, in percentage terms and in dollars lost.
Enter the exchange rate your provider quoted (for example, the rate shown before you confirm a transfer) and the amount you are sending.
The tool compares your quoted rate against RemitRoutes' live measured mid-market rate for the same currency pair, pulled from the same comparison engine that powers our corridor pages.
It calculates the percentage gap between your rate and the mid-market rate, grades it A through F, and shows the dollar amount that gap costs on your specific transfer.
The markup percentage is calculated as the absolute difference between the mid-market rate and your provider's quoted rate, divided by the mid-market rate, multiplied by 100: markup% = |midRate − providerRate| / midRate × 100.
Where a provider in our live results already reports a fxMarkupPercent field (from feeBreakdown), the tool uses that measured figure directly rather than recomputing it from the raw rates.
The dollar cost of the markup is the markup percentage applied to your transfer amount: a 3% markup on a $1,000 transfer costs $30, deducted invisibly from what your recipient gets.
The letter grade bands are: A under 0.5% (excellent, essentially mid-market), B 0.5–1.5% (good), C 1.5–3% (below average), D 3–5% (poor), F over 5% (you are paying a significant hidden premium).
Worked example: Sending $1,000 from USD to INR, the cheapest measured route today is Coinbase at 2.38% better than the mid-market rate (a measured premium, not a cost) — about $23.80 more than a mid-market transfer on $1,000, as of July 15, 2026. Rates are refreshed every 6 hours from live provider data.
A good exchange rate is one that is close to the mid-market rate — the real rate you see on Google or Reuters before any provider adds their margin. Wise consistently offers the mid-market rate with 0% FX markup. Digital asset rails also trade at near-market rates. If your provider's rate is more than 0.5% away from the mid-market rate, you are likely paying a hidden fee.
Look up the current mid-market rate for your currency pair (Google "1 USD to INR" for example), then compare it to the rate your provider is quoting. If the difference is more than 0.5%, your provider is embedding a fee in the exchange rate. A 2% difference on a $1,000 transfer means $20 in hidden cost.
Most banks add a 1.5-4% markup above the mid-market exchange rate on international transfers. This is on top of any wire transfer fee they charge. The total hidden cost on a $1,000 transfer is typically $15-40 just from the exchange rate, plus $15-50 in wire fees.
Wise uses the mid-market rate with zero FX markup — their entire profit comes from the visible transfer fee. Digital asset rails (sending USDC via Stellar or Tron) also avoid FX markup since you trade on open exchanges at market prices. Most banks, Western Union, MoneyGram, and PayPal all include significant exchange rate markup.
Compare live rates across 370+ corridors on RemitRoutes · methodology.