The Bottom Line
You have a wealth of good options when it comes to money transfer apps. If you want to send money domestically to family, friends, and acquaintances, it’s hard to beat Venmo for convenience and affordability. With fast, free transfers, it’s a great way to split the tab or pay back someone you owe. If you need to send money to people in other countries, we suggest going with Wise or WorldRemit. Check the specific fees for the countries, currencies, and payment methods involved to see which is cheaper.
Zelle is an excellent choice for bank-to-bank transfers, and if it’s not already built into your banking app you can download the Zelle app itself. Cash App is another good choice for domestic transfers, with the added ability to send and receive bitcoin. If you need something mostly for domestic transfers and occasional international transfers, PayPal could be right for you—as long as the other party has a PayPal account, too.
Finally, Meta Pay and Apple Pay are also very convenient and free to use for P2P payments—but again, only if the other people involved have the required accounts or phone.
Why You Should Trust Us
Investopedia was founded in 1999 and provides original recommendations for the best money transfer apps based on independent research. Investopedia’s research and editorial teams are committed to giving readers the best recommendations for a variety of circumstances. To that end, Investopedia evaluated nine popular apps across 25 objective criteria, collecting over 200 data points to determine the best companies for people in a variety of situations.
How We Pick the Best Money Transfer Apps
Investopedia’s full-time research and editorial teams conducted independent, comprehensive research into money transfer apps in March 2024 and again in January 2025.
We identified nine well-known money transfer apps to study based on public interest and prior Investopedia research. We evaluated each service based on 25 criteria in the following categories. Each criterion was weighted based on its importance to the average user of money transfer apps.
- User Satisfaction: 35.00%
- Fees: 30.00%
- Availability: 18.00%
- Limits: 14.00%
- Features: 3.00%
Investopedia collected over 200 data points to score apps, including information on domestic and international transfer fees, transfer speeds, transfer limits, country and currency availability, and customer satisfaction. Additional data points were collected for background and to improve content qualify. Investopedia’s full-time researchers collected data directly from company websites and media representatives. The information on this page is monitored and maintained by Investopedia’s compliance team.