So what you are looking at is Starling moving your money, at Starling's fees, on Starling's schedule. The fees are visible. On a small send to a country with Starling's low-cost option, it is a fair way to send. Elsewhere you pay a delivery fee Wise does not have, and many countries are not on Starling's list at all.
If the country has no low-cost option, or Starling does not send there, close the app and open Wise.
What Starling actually charges
Two things stack on every international send.
The conversion fee is 0.4 percent of the amount you are sending. On £200 that is 80p. On £1,000 it is £4.
The delivery fee depends on the option you choose. Starling's 
country fee table lists 34 countries, and all of them have SWIFT, the bank-to-bank network. It costs £5.50, no matter how much you are sending. Starling calls this priority delivery.
21 of the 34 also have a low-cost local option. It costs 30p to the US, Poland and most euro countries, and 90p to the Czech Republic and Hungary. Starling says this option can take a little longer for some currencies. The other 13 have SWIFT only. They include South Africa, Turkey, Romania, Australia and Canada.
The low-cost option has limits. 
Starling says it cannot guarantee that your name and reference reach the bank exactly as you entered them. These payments can be harder to track. If you make a mistake, Starling may not be able to contact the bank that received the money. For important payments, such as bills, Starling says to think about using SWIFT.
Check the payment method before you press send. On Starling's website calculator, SWIFT is the option already selected.
Starling says the exchange rate it uses is the actual market rate it is charged for buying and selling currency, and that it has no hidden fees. Check the amount that will arrive before you send.
The £200 test
Take a small send, £200 to a bank account in the euro area, on a weekday.
On Starling's low-cost option: 80p conversion fee, plus 30p delivery.
On Wise, the same send: a small percentage fee plus a small fixed fee. On 4 November 2026 that came to £1.18.
On a send that size, the fees are about the same. The rates were close too: that day, the rate on Starling's website calculator was within about 0.1 percent of Wise's. We did not check the rate inside the app. If you are already logged into Starling and you send one or two of these a year, it is not worth opening a second app. Check the amount that will arrive, then press send in Starling.
Now try the same £200 to a country with SWIFT only, such as South Africa or Turkey. The £5.50 delivery fee applies. On a small send, £5.50 off the top is nearly 3 percent before the rate is even in the picture. Wise has no separate delivery fee. When we checked on 4 November 2026, its whole fee on £200 to South Africa, Turkey or Australia was less than £5.50.
For some sends, Starling is not an option at all. Nigeria, India, the Philippines and Kenya are not on its list, and South Africa is the only African country that is. For those sends, open Wise.
So the rule is simple. If the country has Starling's low-cost option, and you are already in the app, Starling is fine. If it does not, open Wise.
The weekend catch
Starling does not process international payments at weekends or on bank holidays. The cut-off is 10pm on Friday. The next send window opens at 2am on Monday.
This matters when something at home cannot wait until Monday morning. Starling does not help you. Wise shows a time estimate before you send, but it says a send over the weekend may only go through on the next working day, because it works with banks. If you use Revolut as well, Revolut Standard adds a fee on the exchange at weekends. Check the time and the cost in each app.
For a Sunday-night send, Starling is not in the running. Do not sit on the app waiting for it to work.
The one narrow reason to keep the money in Starling
Starling is a fully licensed UK bank. Money in your Starling current account is protected by the 
Financial Services Compensation Scheme, up to £120,000 per eligible person, per bank. If the bank fails, money up to that limit is protected.
Wise is not a bank. It is a payment firm. Wise keeps the money you hold with it apart from its own money, as cash at banks and in assets such as government bonds. That money is not covered by the same scheme.
For a person who moves money in and straight out again, this does not matter. For a person who sits on the transfer money in Starling for a week while they wait for the rest of the amount to come in from work, it is a real reason not to move it into Wise ahead of time. Send from Starling, or move it just before you send. Do not park it in Wise for the sake of a small saving on a send you are not going to make for another five days.
The verdict
Sending from the Starling app is not a bad deal. It is a fair one, on a small send to a country with the low-cost option, on a weekday, in an app you already have open. For that reader it is worth the pound.
If the country has SWIFT only, or is not on Starling's list, close the app and open Wise. If the send has to move at the weekend, Starling cannot do it, so check Wise and Revolut. The money that arrives in the family's account is the number that matters.
Corrections
- 2026-11-05: An earlier version of this page called Starling's international payment a "Send money abroad" button in its app. That is the name of a page on Starling's website, and we could not show that label in the app, so the page now gives the route from Starling's help pages.
- 2026-11-05: An earlier version of this page said the £200 test was a send on a Tuesday. The figures in that test were read on Wednesday 4 November 2026, so the line now says on a weekday.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said Starling reaches Nigeria, India, the Philippines and most of Africa at £5.50, that most countries pay that fee, and that South Africa has the cheap option. Starling's fee table lists 34 countries, without Nigeria, India or the Philippines. 21 of them have a low-cost option at 30p or 90p, and South Africa has SWIFT only.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said Starling picks the cheaper route for you and that the £5.50 route is slower, and it left out Starling's warning on the low-cost option. Starling says you choose, calls SWIFT its priority delivery, and says the low-cost option can take longer and be harder to track.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said money in Wise sits in ring-fenced accounts at partner banks. Wise says it keeps the money apart from its own, as cash at banks and in assets such as government bonds.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said Wise runs every day of the week and can move money in minutes, and that Revolut's weekend charge is often less painful than waiting until Monday. Wise says a weekend send may only go through on the next working day, so those lines are gone and the page tells you to check each app.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said Wise delivers more on most sends, and that a safe balance is the only case where Starling wins by more than a euro. On 4 November 2026, on £200 with the low-cost option, neither app was always ahead, so those lines are gone.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said FSCS-protected money is safe if the bank fails. It is protected up to the limit, and the page now says so.
- 2026-07-27: Removed dated route-specific numbers to keep the review accurate as rates move. The "£200 test" section previously named specific arrival amounts (around 234 euros on Starling's cheap connection, around 235 euros on Wise, a one-euro gap between them, and around £6 less than Wise on the slow-network send). Those live-rate numbers have been replaced with structural framing: Starling and Wise both quote near the real rate on the cheap connection and deliver almost the same amount, so the gap fits inside a single euro either way; on the slow network Wise wins because the £5.50 delivery fee is the load-bearing gap and Wise does not charge one on those routes. The fee mechanic on the page (0.4 percent conversion, £5.50 slow-network delivery, as little as 30p on the cheap connection) is unchanged.
- 2026-07-13: An earlier version of this page said money in a Starling current account was protected by the FSCS up to £85,000 per person. The FSCS deposit protection limit has been £120,000 per eligible person, per bank, since 1 December 2025. The figure on this page has been updated. An earlier version also said Starling's delivery fee on its cheap connection was "somewhere between 30p and 90p"; Starling's published price list is "from 30p" and the 90p ceiling was not sourced. The line has been changed to "as little as 30p".