Conserved proteins drive clathrin-mediated endocytosis (CME), which from yeast to humans involves a burst of actin assembly. To gain mechanistic insights into this process, we performed a side-by-side quantitative comparison of CME in two distantly related yeast species. Though endocytic protein abundance in  S. pombe  and  S. cerevisiae  is more similar than previously thought, membrane invagination speed and depth are two-fold greater in fission yeast. In both yeasts, accumulation of ~70 WASp molecules activates the Arp2/3 complex to drive membrane invagination. In contrast to budding yeast, WASp-mediated actin nucleation plays an essential role in fission yeast endocytosis. Genetics and live-cell imaging revealed core CME spatiodynamic similarities between the two yeasts, although the assembly of two zones of actin filaments is specific for fission yeast and not essential for CME. These studies identified conserved CME mechanisms and species-specific adaptations with broad implications that are expected to extend from yeast to humans.