One of the things we look forward to as part of being employed is being paid. As a freelancer, there are different payment systems that you can choose from. You just need to see the benefits of each and choose wisely. As part of my freelancer journey, here is a comparison of getting and transfering your pay via Paypal versus Payoneer.
I had my Paypal account for a long time already and I can say if you want a secure way to pay or be paid for transactions; or receive or transfer money then I can recommend Paypal.
Based on my freelancer experience so far, I was told by another freelancer friend that I should try Payoneer since it is faster and the currency conversion (USD to PHP) is higher (not a huge difference but still better). I didn’t use it yet on my first pay though.
I wanted to experiment and see for myself the difference between the two. So I withdrew my first pay from Upwork to my Paypal account and transferred it to my local bank account. Since I had my Paypal from before, my local bank account has been associated with it ever since too. I got my pay Friday 8am (local time) and transferred it to my Paypal account before lunch time. The transfer costs $2. I transferred it to my local bank account right away and waited for it to reflect there via my online banking account. There is a PHP 50 cost for this type of transfer. I got an email from Paypal saying that it usually takes 5-7 business days for the whole process to be done and for the amount to reflect in my bank account. It wasn’t same day but it reflected on Monday instead.
I decided on my second pay to use Payoneer. Since it was my first time, I had to sign up. I got my pay at 8am but got to transfer it to my Payoneer account around 10am. I got an email from Payoneer asking for a photo of my valid ID as part of their security procedure; to allow my pay to be transferred to my Payoneer account. At first I sent a photo of my driver’s license. After 2 hours of no reply, I realized it would be faster to send a photo of my passport instead. So I sent it to Payoneer. In 30 minutes, I got a reply saying my ID has been validated and I proceeded to withdraw the amount and transfer it to my local bank account. I got an email at 2pm from Payoneer saying they have received my request and that the amount will reflect in my bank account in 5-7 days. Unfortunately since it was already in the afternoon, my hopes of getting the amount same day did not happen. I got it the next day in the morning. Still not bad, right? After all that process, a day is not so bad. If we remove all the initial security process I had to do, it can still be considered that I got my pay on the same day. There was no transfer cost from Payoneer to my local bank account and the currency conversion rate was higher alright.
I will try again on my third pay to see if the timeframe will be better with Payoneer. But so far I am pleased with Payoneer: no transfer cost, currency conversion rate is higher, and transfer of money is faster. All the better for us freelancers who look forward to getting paid right away!
omnimademoiselle 