The two turned out to be nothing alike. Oanda used to let little people convert currency on the same platform as proper FX traders (speculators). This meant you could pay a tiny fee and get some of the most competitive rates in the world because you were trading directly in their two-sided market.
WorldFirst is different. They make you declare the amount you want to exchange and then they synthesize a rate that expires soon after. There is no way to put in an order at a specific price and they do not show you a two-sided quote which would make it plain how much they're taking.
From what I saw, WorldFirst aims to take about 1.5% of each side of each trade at the when they are large, and even more on small trades.
If you're exchanging $500 you may as well use a bank. If you're exchanging $50000 you may as well use a true trading platform.
When exchanging currency at any online or physical marketplace, look at their two-sided quote to see the spread they charge. If they try to show you only one side (buy or sell but not both), go elsewhere.
On average I send between 500-1000 GBP to USD per month on Transferwise and pay 2.50 - 5 GBP in fees. Compared to a wire at a bank that charges 30 GBP fixed + a % on a sliding scale depending on the amount, it's not really competitive until you get over 10k per transaction. But then at that point you can contact TransferWise customer service to negotiate a better rate.
Thanks
For larger transfers (ie above £5k/$6k) you have a slew of them; Global Reach Partners, Moneycorp, World First, and Rational FX to name a few.
Disclaimer: I am a co-founder of CurrencyTransfer.com, an aggregator of some of the above larger transfer companies.