How to Pay International Contractors Without Wire Transfer Fees

If you run a small business and pay contractors in other countries, you're losing money before they do a single hour of work.

Here's the math: a $35 wire transfer fee, once a month per contractor, equals $420/year per person. With five international contractors, that's $2,100 a year in fees — not their pay, not software, not anything useful. Just the cost of moving money across borders.

And that's before you factor in the exchange rate margin your bank is pocketing.

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💸 The Hidden Cost of Paying Global Contractors

Most SMB owners think of international payments as a minor inconvenience. It's not until you add it up that the number lands.

Let's say you have 5 contractors in Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil, each paid $1,500/month.

That's $3,450/year in pure friction. Nobody on your team is better off because of that number.

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🏗️ What the Existing Options Actually Cost

Wire Transfers

The default option most businesses fall back on. Clear, familiar — and expensive.

• $25–45 per transfer, per person
• 2–5 business days
• Requires full SWIFT/IBAN details
• Recipient may also pay a receiving fee

Deel

Deel is a legitimate product for managing contractor compliance and contracts. But you pay for that.

• Starting at $20/month per contractor
• 5 contractors = $100/month, $1,200/year — just in platform fees
• On top of whatever transfer fees apply underneath

If you don't need the compliance infrastructure, you're paying for a lot you don't use.

Payoneer

Payoneer has been around for a long time and works, but the fee structure is messy.

• 2% on USD-to-USD transfers between unconnected accounts
• ~3.5% for card payments
• Annual account fee if below minimum activity
• Receivers often complain about delays and withdrawal fees

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✅ The Blaze Approach

Blaze is built for exactly this use case: fast, cheap international transfers from a USD account to any local currency.

What you pay: 0.5% flat. That's it.

On a $1,500 contractor payment: $7.50.

No monthly platform fee. No fixed wire fee. No exchange rate markup on top.

With 5 contractors at $1,500/month, you'd pay $37.50 in total fees using Blaze. Compare that to $287/month using bank wires. That's $2,990 saved per year.

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🔄 How the Workflow Looks

1. Download Blaze and fund your account via ACH or bank transfer
2. Add your contractors with their local bank details (CLABE for Mexico, Nequi/Bancolombia for Colombia, PIX for Brazil, etc.)
3. Send payments — they arrive instantly in local currency
4. Get receipts for each transfer with full details for accounting

There's no monthly subscription. You pay 0.5% when you move money, nothing when you don't.

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🌍 Where It Works

Blaze supports payments to 80+ currencies, which covers virtually every market where SMBs are hiring remote talent:

• Mexico (SPEI, instant)
• Colombia (bank transfer)
• Brazil (PIX, instant)
• Argentina (bank transfer)
• And more — see blaze.money/for-business for the full list

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📋 Making the Switch

If you're currently sending wires, here's the transition:

1. Open a Blaze business account
2. Collect local bank details from your contractors (CLABE, routing numbers, etc.)
3. Run one payment through Blaze and compare the total cost to your last wire

Your contractors will likely prefer it too — the money arrives faster and without receiving fees eating into their pay.

The people who work with you should get exactly what you agreed to pay. Not that minus $15 in bank fees on their end.

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