Adyen vs. Airwallex: compare fees, features, and benefits

If your business sells online, you need a reliable, scalable online payment gateway to manage global revenue and effectively meet customer expectations. The right fit depends on your business model, whether you need to fine-tune large-scale payment operations or manage everything from collections to payouts across multiple markets.

Adyen and Airwallex both offer robust global payment capabilities. Adyen is a compelling choice for enterprise payments, and it is known for its acquiring network and advanced processing tools. Airwallex, meanwhile, combines payment acceptance with a powerful business account, multi-currency wallets, spend management, and embedded finance solutions – helping businesses gain control over how money is collected, held, and spent globally. 

Which solution is right for your business? Read on to find out how Airwallex compares against Adyen in terms of price, features, and benefits.

What is Adyen?

Adyen is a global payments platform that enables businesses to accept payments across online, mobile, and in-person channels. It supports a range of payment methods through a single integration, including major card networks, mobile wallets, and local options.

Adyen initially focused on enterprise-grade analytics to optimize payment performance and has since expanded its offerings to include embedded financial products, such as card issuing and business financing.  

With licenses in multiple regions, Adyen supports payouts to bank accounts in 190+ countries. Local rails are available in over 40 markets for faster, lower-cost transfers.¹ 

Adyen is built for enterprises wanting complete control over payment performance, especially those handling high-volume transactions across physical and digital channels.

What is Airwallex?

Airwallex is a global payments and financial platform built for businesses that need to collect, manage, and spend funds across borders. The platform enables businesses to accept online payments via major card networks, mobile wallets, and over 160 local payment methods in more than 180 countries, with strong coverage across the APAC, North America, and Europe regions.

While Adyen is focused on global payment acceptance, Airwallex offers a broader financial platform that supports every stage of the money movement lifecycle. Businesses can hold multi-currency balances in 23 currencies, open local accounts in over 60 countries, send payouts to more than 150 countries using local rails in 120+ markets, and issue corporate and employee cards to manage global spending. Airwallex also offers the ability to embed these financial services into enterprise platforms.

Built-in tools for expense management, reimbursements, and accounts payable help businesses gain greater control over financial operations. The platform also includes a suite of AI–powered payment optimization tools to help improve authorization rates, reduce fraud, and lower processing costs. These capabilities are integrated directly within Airwallex’s payments infrastructure, making it especially valuable for enterprises managing large transaction volumes.

Airwallex integrates with leading platforms, including Xero, QuickBooks, NetSuite, Shopify, WooCommerce, Shopline, and more.

By combining payment acceptance, multi-currency wallets, FX optimization, and global spend management, Airwallex provides the financial infrastructure businesses need to operate and scale internationally.

Compare Adyen vs. Airwallex

First-party financial operations

For businesses managing their own payments, revenue, and spend (e.g., merchants, retailers, SaaS companies managing internal ops).

*Additional payout fees may apply for embedded finance offerings. Additionally, while there are no FX conversion fees for like-for-like settlement, a 1% foreign currency settlement fee may apply in some instances.

Embedded finance for third-party use cases

For platforms that offer financial features, such as payments, cards, or payouts, to their users, including marketplaces, SaaS tools, or creator platforms that serve sellers, contractors, or any other type of end user.

Compare payment use cases between Adyen and Airwallex

While Adyen and Airwallex both support global transactions, their approaches to payments – and who they're built for – are fundamentally different.

Adyen is an acquiring platform that is ideal for large businesses that need to unify in-store and online payments across multiple geographies. It’s well-suited for organizations with complex commerce operations, high volume, and the engineering resources to build custom financial workflows.

Airwallex, on the other hand, is designed for businesses that prioritize speed, flexibility, and operational efficiency, especially those operating fully online or across multiple countries, who need more than payment acceptance. It offers a global financial infrastructure that includes collections, payouts, FX, card issuing, and spend management. With Airwallex, businesses can manage their own operations or power financial services for their customers, all through a unified AI-enabled payments platform.

When to consider Adyen

• Omnichannel retailers that need to unify in-store and online payments with advanced PoS hardware and centralized reporting (e.g., fashion chains, hotel groups).

• Global enterprises with high payment volumes that want to negotiate acquiring fees directly in each market to improve margin and control.

• Platforms with large in-house engineering and compliance teams that want to build and fully control custom financial features, like split payments, compliance workflows, and user onboarding, using modular APIs (e.g., Adyen for Platforms).

• Large companies in regulated industries (e.g., ticketing, telecom) that require certified PoS hardware and tailored settlement flows across geographies.

When to consider Airwallex

• Digital marketplaces and SaaS platforms that want to quickly launch global collections, payouts, and embedded finance features without managing compliance or infrastructure.

• Online businesses expanding internationally, prioritizing multi-currency acceptance and wide LPM coverage, that want to avoid unnecessary FX fees and optimize local collections with multi-currency accounts and local rails.

• Lean teams that need out-of-the-box tools to issue cards, automate reimbursements, and manage global spend – no backend development required.

• Finance and ops teams that want instant visibility into global cash flow, approvals, and currency balances, with the option to scale via automation and APIs.

• Travel companies that need to collect payments in multiple currencies, settle with global suppliers, and simplify FX and reconciliation across regions.

Final thoughts: Why consider Airwallex vs. Adyen?

Both Adyen and Airwallex support businesses looking to scale their payments globally, but they take different paths to achieve this.

Adyen gives enterprises tight control over payment infrastructure. It’s engineered for companies that want to fine-tune every transaction, manage acquiring relationships directly, and consolidate complex commerce operations across channels and regions.

Airwallex enables companies to scale financial operations without the burden of backend complexity. It’s designed for businesses that want to launch quickly in new markets, move funds efficiently across borders, and integrate financial services into their products without investing heavily in backend development or compliance operations.

Where Adyen offers optimization at the transaction layer, Airwallex provides flexibility across the entire money movement process, including collections, conversions, payouts, and more. 

Your choice depends on what you're solving for: granular control over processing, or streamlined infrastructure that supports rapid expansion and operational efficiency.

Sources

1. https://www.adyen.com/payouts 

2. https://www.adyen.com/pricing 

3. https://docs.adyen.com/account/supported-currencies/ 

4. https://www.adyen.com/payment-methods-guides

5. https://docs.adyen.com/platforms/

6. https://help.adyen.com/en_US/knowledge/account/access-your-customer-area/how-do-i-reach-adyen-support?

7. https://docs.adyen.com/issuing/

8. https://docs.adyen.com/api-explorer/transfers/latest/overview

Disclaimer: We wrote this article in Q2 2025. The information was based on our own online research, and we were not able to manually test each tool or provider. The information is provided for educational purposes only. Readers should consider their business's specific requirements when evaluating providers. If you would like to request an update, feel free to contact us at [email protected].