Capi vs Melio
Capi is a European alternative to Melio: same payments & finance use case, headquartered in United Kingdom and governed by UK GDPR, while Melio is based in the United States.
By the EU Alternatives team Last updated
Fast, reliable foreign currency payments in 30+ currencies for importers. 24-hour settlements, competitive rates, real-time tracking with enterprise security.
- Jurisdiction
- United Kingdom
- Primary privacy law
- UK GDPR
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- No
- Open source
- No
- Free tier
- No
Small businesses lean on it to pay bills by ACH, card or check with tidy approval workflows and QuickBooks sync. Five ACH payments a month are free; paid plans start at 25 dollars a month and card payments cost 2.9 percent. New Zealand's Xero bought the New York company for 2.5 billion dollars in October 2025, and day-to-day operations stay under US law.
- Jurisdiction
- United States
- GDPR by default
- Requires DPA + TIA
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- Yes
Capi vs Melio at a glance
| Capi | Melio | |
|---|---|---|
| Headquarters | United Kingdom | United States |
| Data jurisdiction | United Kingdom | United States |
| Primary privacy law | UK GDPR | Requires DPA + transfer assessment |
| US CLOUD Act exposure | No | Yes |
| Best for | Teams that need payments & finance built for European data-protection requirements | Teams already invested in the Melio ecosystem |
Choose Capi if…
- You want a provider governed by a European privacy regime
- GDPR or public-sector data-protection requirements apply to you
- You'd rather back the European tech ecosystem
Stick with Melio if…
- You depend on integrations only available in the Melio ecosystem
- Your organisation has no EU data-residency constraints
- Migration costs outweigh the jurisdiction benefits for now
Why choose Capi over Melio?
The decisive argument is data jurisdiction. Melio is headquartered in the United States, which means personal data processed through it can be subject to non-EU legal regimes: the US CLOUD Act, FISA 702, or similar laws depending on the provider. After the 2020 Schrems II ruling, EU organisations must carry out a transfer impact assessment for every such data flow.
Capi removes that overhead. As a United Kingdom-based provider, it operates under UK GDPR, and data stays in the United Kingdom, which the European Commission recognises as offering an adequate level of protection. For regulated sectors such as health, public administration, and finance, that's not a nice-to-have but a requirement. For everyone else, it's concentration-risk insurance: you avoid depending on a single jurisdiction that can change the rules without warning.