The big four get compared on everything except the first bill you pay: the visa itself. So here is a student visa cost comparison for the USA, UK, Canada and Australia that includes the part that actually hurts.
The headline fees sit in the same rough band, low-to-mid hundreds of dollars. Honestly, the fee difference between these four will not make or break anyone. I say that plainly because I have seen people agonize over sixty dollars. The thing that breaks people is proof of funds. The UK wants maintenance money parked in an account for weeks. Canada wants a full year of tuition plus living costs on paper. Australia runs its own financial capacity framework. These numbers dwarf the application fee. A study visa requirements database by country is the fastest way to line the rules up side by side, because official pages bury the differences in PDFs.
Then the add-ons. Health surcharges, biometrics, medicals for some nationalities, translations, getting yourself to the visa center. A few hundred more before you blink.
My take, and I will stand by it: pick among the four based on post-study work rights and the total degree cost, not the visa fee. The visa is a one-time toll. The degree is a multi-year mortgage. Optimize the big number. Ask how much does a student visa cost per country if you want, but then ask the bigger question too.
One more: currency traps. A fee in pounds versus dollars looks very different after conversion, and some countries index fees yearly. Check the current figure on the official immigration site right before you pay, not in a year-old blog post. Keep the paperwork straight with a student visa document checklist app. And when you are ready, practice your visa interview before it counts at globalstudyconsulting.fyi.