Crypto Payment Gateway Fees Compared (2026): Who Is Actually Cheapest?
Aurpaytech
If you are choosing a crypto payment gateway purely on the headline fee, you are looking at the wrong number. The transaction percentage every provider advertises is only one of five cost layers, and the other four — fiat conversion spread, withdrawal fees, network gas, and hidden operational cost — frequently dwarf it. At a realistic $10,000 in monthly volume across 50 orders, the spread between the cheapest and most expensive option below is roughly 3x once you add everything up.
Here is the short version. BTCPay Server is “0%” but costs you hosting and hours of your time. BitPay advertises tiers but starts at 2% + $0.25 per transaction for most merchants. CoinGate’s 1% hides a payout-fee layer that can exceed the transaction fee at low volume. NOWPayments’ 0.5% only applies to single-currency pass-through. Coinbase Commerce is a clean 1% — until you convert to USD. Aurpay charges 0.8% flat, non-custodial, with no conversion spread, no withdrawal fee, and no monthly cost.
- Cheapest genuine all-in for most small/mid merchants: Aurpay at 0.8% flat, or BTCPay if you have a technical team and process enough to justify the upkeep.
- Most expensive once you read the footnotes: BitPay (tiered, starts high) and CoinGate (payout-fee stacking).
- The number nobody tables: network fees — ERC-20 USDT can cost $2–$15 per transfer; TRC-20 USDT is ~$1–$2; Bitcoin Lightning is under a cent.
- The hidden saving: crypto payments are irreversible, so there are zero chargebacks — card disputes run $15–$100 each.
- Custody matters to your cost: custodial gateways convert on your behalf and bake in a spread; non-custodial means you hold the asset and skip that layer.
The rest of this page builds the full table, runs a worked example at $10K/month, and breaks down the network-fee reality behind what customers pay at checkout.
The fee layers most comparisons ignore
A crypto gateway “fee” is not a single number. There are five distinct cost components, and a gateway can look cheap on one while quietly charging on the other four.
- Transaction percentage — the headline rate, charged per payment. This is the only number most pages quote.
- Fiat conversion / settlement spread — if the gateway converts your crypto to dollars or euros, it takes a cut on the exchange, typically 0.5–1.5%.
- Withdrawal / payout fee — what it costs to move funds out of the gateway to your bank or wallet. Often a flat fee plus a percentage.
- Network (gas) fees — the on-chain cost of moving the coin. Some gateways pass this to the buyer, some absorb it, and the chain you accept changes it by an order of magnitude.
- Hidden operational cost — for self-hosted options, the real bill is hosting, setup time, and ongoing maintenance, none of which appears as a “fee”.
A gateway advertising “0.5%” or “0%” is telling you about layer one and staying quiet about the other four. The only fair comparison adds all five at a fixed volume — which is what the worked example below does.
Crypto payment gateway fees compared: the full table (2026)
A seven-column comparison of the six gateways merchants most commonly shortlist. Competitor figures come from each provider’s official pricing documentation, linked below the table. Aurpay’s figures reflect its published non-custodial model.
| Gateway | Transaction % | Custody | Settlement | Conversion spread | Withdrawal fee | Network fee exposure |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BitPay | 2% + $0.25 (under $500K/mo); 1.5% ($500K–$1M); 1% (above $1M) | Custodial | Fiat (daily) | Bundled into conversion | Settled in fiat | “Network Cost” surcharge passed to buyer |
| Coinbase Commerce | 1% | Self-custodial / on-chain (settles to a merchant-controlled wallet) | Crypto instant; USD via exchange | 0.5–1.5% if converting to USD | On-chain network fee to withdraw | Varies by chain; lower-gas options exist |
| NOWPayments | 0.5% single-currency; 1% multi-currency (auto-convert) | Offers both a custody and a non-custody mode | Crypto instant; fiat 2–5 days | ~0.5% on auto-conversion | 1.5–2.3% on fiat withdrawal | 3 network-fee events (non-custodial) vs 2 (custodial) |
| CoinGate | 1% | Custodial (when settling to fiat) | Weekly (default) | 0.5–1.5% on fiat payout | €0.50 + 0.5% standard; SWIFT 0.5% min €50 | Merchant-side withdrawal minimums apply |
| BTCPay Server | 0% | Non-custodial (self-hosted) | Crypto only (instant on-chain) | None | None | On-chain BTC $0.50–$2.00; Lightning <$0.01 |
| Aurpay | 0.8% flat | Non-custodial | Instant (on-chain confirmation) | None | None | Buyer pays network fee; TRC-20 USDT ~$1–$2 (near-zero with staked energy) |
Sources: BitPay fee schedule · Coinbase Commerce fees · NOWPayments pricing · CoinGate pricing · BTCPay Server docs. For a custody- and integration-first breakdown, see our full crypto payment gateway comparison.
What each gateway costs at $5K, $25K, $100K and $500K a month
Fee percentages only become decisions when you attach them to your own volume. Below is the all-in monthly cost for a merchant at four volumes, assuming a $200 average order and settlement in crypto rather than fiat. Every input is linked to the provider’s own pricing page under the table. Where a gateway charges a fixed amount per order or per payout, that fixed component is included — it is the part that quietly doubles your rate at low volume and disappears at high volume.
| Gateway | $5,000/mo (25 orders) | $25,000/mo (125 orders) | $100,000/mo (500 orders) | $500,000/mo (2,500 orders) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aurpay — 0.8% flat | $40 (0.80%) | $200 (0.80%) | $800 (0.80%) | $4,000 (0.80%) |
| BitPay — tiered, + $0.25/order | $106 (2.13%) | $531 (2.13%) | $2,125 (2.13%) | $8,125 (1.63%) |
| NOWPayments — 1% as published | $50 (1.00%) | $250 (1.00%) | $1,000 (1.00%) | $5,000 (1.00%) |
| Coinbase Commerce — reported 1% | $50 (1.00%) | $250 (1.00%) | $1,000 (1.00%) | $5,000 (1.00%) |
| CoinGate — 1% + weekly payout layer | $77 (1.54%) | $377 (1.51%) | $1,502 (1.50%) | $7,502 (1.50%) |
| BTCPay Server — 0% + hosting + your time | $110 (2.20%) | $110 (0.44%) | $110 (0.11%) | $110 (0.02%) |
How these were built. BitPay: 2% + 25¢ per order below $500,000 a month and 1.5% + 25¢ from $500,000 to $999,999, with 1% + 25¢ reserved for $1,000,000 and above, per its pricing page; BitPay also notes higher fees for high-risk industries. CoinGate: 1% per transaction plus its standard crypto payout charge of €0.50 + 0.5%, taken on the weekly settlement its Standard plan applies by default, per its pricing page; choosing a payout with conversion instead raises that layer to €0.50 + 1.5% and the all-in rate to roughly 2.5%. The €0.50 fixed component is treated as $0.50 here; at four payouts a month the currency difference is immaterial at every volume in the table. NOWPayments: the 1% service fee stated on its pricing page — note that the 0.5% figure repeated across most comparison articles is not what the page says today. Coinbase Commerce: 1%, widely reported but not confirmable at a Coinbase-owned URL, which returns an error to automated requests; treat that row as reported rather than verified. BTCPay Server: its own documentation puts a suitable VPS at under $10 a month and is explicit that 0% processing does not mean zero cost, so we add two hours of monthly maintenance valued at $50 an hour, giving $110. All five pricing pages re-checked 1 September 2026.
What changes as you scale
Below about $13,750 a month, a flat-rate managed gateway is cheaper than self-hosting. That is the exact crossover against BTCPay at 0.8% — the point where 0.8% of your volume equals BTCPay’s $110 of hosting and maintenance. If your time genuinely costs you nothing and you only count the server, the crossover drops to about $1,250 a month. Either way, a store doing $5,000 a month pays getting on for three times more to self-host than to use a flat-rate gateway, which is the opposite of how “0% fees” reads.
BitPay moves the other way. Its fixed $0.25 per order and its 2% band mean the effective rate stays at 2.13% right up to half a million a month, and the advertised 1% only arrives above $1,000,000. A merchant reading “1%” and budgeting for it will be out by more than double for as long as it takes to reach seven figures of monthly volume.
CoinGate’s payout layer behaves like a second transaction fee. At every volume in the table it adds roughly half a point on top of the 1% headline, and switching to a payout with conversion adds a point and a half. The default weekly settlement also holds your cash for up to seven days, which is a working-capital cost that never appears on a pricing page.
Aurpay is the only row that is the same percentage at every volume, because there is no fixed per-order charge, no payout fee, and no conversion spread to scale with you. At $5,000 a month it is the cheapest option in the table; at $500,000 a month it is still the cheapest of the managed gateways, and BTCPay only beats it if you are willing to run the server.
BitPay — high headline, high extras
BitPay’s tiered structure charges 2% + $0.25 per transaction below $500K/month, dropping to 1% only above $1M. For merchants who never clear half a million monthly — which is most — the effective rate is more than double Aurpay’s. Buyers also see a separate “Network Cost” line at checkout, raising the price they pay. BitPay makes sense for enterprises on the $1M tier needing daily fiat settlement; for everyone else, the headline understates the bill.
Coinbase Commerce — clean 1%, until you convert
Coinbase Commerce charges a flat 1% with no monthly fee, and crypto lands in a wallet you control — a real advantage if your strategy is to hold the asset. The catch is the off-ramp: converting to USD through the Coinbase exchange adds another 0.5–1.5% on top. If you keep the coins, 1% is honest. If you want dollars immediately, the true rate is closer to 1.5–2.5%.
NOWPayments — 0.5% headline, read the footnotes
The advertised 0.5% applies to single-currency pass-through — you keep the same coin the customer sends. Enable multi-currency auto-conversion and the rate climbs to 1%. Fiat withdrawals carry an additional fee on top, and non-custodial mode triggers more separate network-fee events than custodial mode. Volume discounts exist but require flows most small merchants never reach.
CoinGate — 1% plus a payout-fee layer
CoinGate’s 1% transaction fee is competitive on paper, but the payout layer is where it adds up: a standard payout costs €0.50 + 0.5%, fiat conversion payouts run €0.50 + up to 1.5%, and SWIFT withdrawals carry a 0.5% fee with a €50 minimum per CoinGate’s published pricing page. At a $200 average order and weekly settlement, those fixed charges can rival or exceed the transaction fee itself at low volume, and the default weekly payout also slows your cash flow. CoinGate does hold a MiCA-compliant license — a genuine compliance signal for EU merchants who need a regulated fiat-settling partner.
BTCPay Server — 0% is not free
BTCPay Server charges no transaction fee, but the cost moves to your infrastructure and your calendar. You need a VPS at $10–$30/month, a multi-day blockchain sync, and 1–3 hours of monthly maintenance. BTCPay’s own docs are upfront about this. Valuing that time at $50/hour puts the real annual cost around $1,800–$3,000 for a small operation — the break-even versus a 0.8% gateway falls around $3,750/month. Below that, a flat-rate gateway is cheaper than self-hosting. See our Aurpay vs BTCPay comparison for the full math.
Aurpay — 0.8% flat, nothing hidden
Aurpay charges 0.8% flat per transaction, non-custodial — funds settle directly to your wallet on on-chain confirmation with no intermediary account. No conversion spread, no withdrawal fee, no monthly fee, no contract. At $10K/month that is ~$80 all-in, versus CoinGate’s $130+ or BitPay’s $212+. Settlement is in crypto; if you need dollars, you convert on an exchange yourself.
What a stablecoin transfer actually costs today (measured 1 September 2026)
Network fees are paid by your customer at checkout, not by you, but a large gas fee on a small order is friction that costs you the sale. Almost every comparison page still repeats a 2021-era rule of thumb: Ethereum is expensive, Tron is cheap. We measured both on 1 September 2026 and the ranking has flipped. The numbers below are ours, taken directly from chain data rather than copied from another article, and we re-take them at the start of every month.
Measured cost per transfer
| Rail | Cost per transfer (1 Sep 2026) | What drives it | Who pays |
|---|---|---|---|
| USDT / USDC on ERC-20 (Ethereum) | $0.01 typical; under $0.03 across our whole sampling window | ~65,000 gas at a 0.062 gwei effective price | Buyer |
| USDT / USDC on TRC-20 (Tron) | $2.10–$2.15 to a wallet that already holds the token; $4.21–$4.31 to a first-time address | ~65,000 / ~130,000 energy at a fixed 100 sun per energy | Buyer |
| Bitcoin on-chain | ~$0.12 next-block; ~$0.04 at a six-block target | ~141 vB for a 1-in-2-out transfer at 1.073 / 0.346 sat/vB | Buyer |
| Bitcoin Lightning | Under $0.01 on a $200 payment | Routing fees quoted in parts per million | Buyer |
Method, and how to reproduce it. Ethereum: base fee sampled across 1,024 consecutive blocks via eth_feeHistory on two independent public RPC endpoints, which returned identical distributions — minimum 0.034 gwei, median 0.049 gwei, 90th percentile 0.090 gwei, maximum 0.122 gwei — plus a median priority tip of 0.013 gwei, giving an effective 0.062 gwei. Tron: the getEnergyFee parameter read from TronGrid chain parameters, currently 100 sun per unit of energy. Bitcoin: Blockstream fee estimates at 1.073 sat/vB for the next block and 0.346 sat/vB at a six-block target. Dollar conversions use spot prices at the moment of measurement, cross-checked against two exchanges: ETH $2,474.80, BTC $78,729, TRX $0.324. All readings taken 1 September 2026 from public endpoints that anyone can query in under a minute.
Why the old advice is now backwards
Tron’s fee is administered, not auctioned. The getEnergyFee parameter is a governance setting, so a USDT transfer costs roughly the same amount of energy whatever the network load — and when TRX appreciates, the dollar cost of that transfer rises with it. Ethereum went the other way: proto-danksharding moved rollup data off the execution layer and the block gas limit has been raised repeatedly, so base fees now sit in the low hundredths of a gwei outside of demand spikes.
The practical consequence for a merchant is that ERC-20 is currently the cheaper stablecoin rail for your buyer, by around two orders of magnitude, and TRC-20 is the expensive one — the reverse of what almost every gateway comparison still tells you. Three caveats keep this honest. Ethereum is auctioned, so a congestion event can push a transfer well above our measured range within a single block. Tron also runs dynamic energy pricing — the getAllowDynamicEnergy parameter is switched on, with a maximum multiplier of 3.4x — so a heavily used contract can settle above the floor we measured. And a Tron user who has staked TRX for energy pays close to nothing, which is why high-volume crypto-native buyers still prefer that rail.
What to do with this
Offer both standards rather than picking one. Aurpay settles USDT and USDC on ERC-20 and on TRC-20, alongside BTC, Bitcoin Lightning, ETH and DAI on ERC-20, so your customer chooses the rail their wallet is already funded on instead of abandoning a checkout over a fee they did not expect. If you sell low-ticket items where a $2 network fee is a meaningful share of the order, surface the ERC-20 option first while Ethereum is this cheap, and Lightning for Bitcoin buyers. For a fuller breakdown of both USDT standards, read our guide to TRC-20 USDT payment processing.
Note the scale here. On a $200 order, the gateway fee at 0.8% is $1.60 and the network fee is between a cent and four dollars. Gateway fees, conversion spreads, and payout charges remain the numbers that decide your monthly bill; network fees decide whether the buyer completes the checkout.
Chargebacks are a hidden fee too
A single chargeback costs $15–$100 in dispute fees plus lost merchandise, and processors penalize merchants whose dispute rate climbs. At a 1% dispute rate on $10,000/month, that adds an effective 0.15–1% on top of your card processing cost. Crypto payments are irreversible by design — once a transaction confirms on-chain it cannot be reversed — so there are no chargebacks or dispute fees. We break down the full comparison in stablecoin vs credit card fees for merchants.
Custodial vs non-custodial: why it affects your true fee
Custody is not just a security question — it is a cost question. A custodial gateway like BitPay, or CoinGate in fiat-settlement mode, holds your funds while it converts them, and that conversion is where the spread lives: a 0.5–1.5% cut you often can’t see itemized. There is also counterparty risk while your money sits on the gateway’s balance sheet waiting for payout.
Non-custodial gateways — Aurpay, BTCPay Server, and Coinbase Commerce, which settles on-chain to a wallet you control — route the payment straight to your own address. No conversion, no spread, no intermediary. You trade auto-fiat convenience for a lower, cleaner fee and full control of the asset. Our overview of the non-custodial gateway model covers the mechanics.
GENIUS Act and the 2026 regulatory picture
Regulation now shapes which gateways carry compliance overhead. The GENIUS Act, signed into law on July 18, 2025, establishes a federal framework that treats payment stablecoins as payment instruments rather than securities — and that classification lands hardest on custodial gateways. If a provider holds and converts your stablecoins, it sits squarely inside the framework’s reach. Non-custodial models, where you retain the asset throughout, carry less of that exposure. FintechWeekly notes that 2026 is shaping up as the year stablecoins cross into mainstream payments. For EU merchants, CoinGate’s MiCA-compliant license is the relevant credential; for US merchants prioritizing control, a non-custodial gateway keeps the asset — and the compliance question — in your hands.
Which gateway is actually cheapest? A decision framework
There is no single cheapest gateway — there is a cheapest one for your profile.
- Technical team, $5K+/month: BTCPay Server. The 0% rate wins once your volume covers hosting overhead.
- EU merchant needing regulated fiat settlement: CoinGate, accepting its payout-fee layer in exchange for the MiCA-compliant license.
- Crypto-hold strategy: Coinbase Commerce at 1%, as long as you skip the USD conversion.
- Simplest non-custodial, predictable fee: Aurpay at 0.8% flat — no hidden layers, settle straight to your wallet.
- High-volume enterprise needing daily fiat: BitPay, but only above the $1M tier.
For most independent and mid-market merchants, the math points to a flat non-custodial rate — no infrastructure to run, no conversion spread to absorb. That is the slot Aurpay fills at 0.8%.
Frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest crypto payment gateway in 2026?
By headline rate, BTCPay Server (0%) and NOWPayments (0.5% single-currency) look cheapest, but both add cost elsewhere — BTCPay in hosting and maintenance time, NOWPayments in fiat-withdrawal premiums. For an all-in, no-hidden-layer rate, Aurpay’s 0.8% flat is among the lowest genuine total costs for merchants who don’t run their own node.
Why is BitPay more expensive than its 1% claim?
BitPay’s 1% rate only applies above $1M in monthly volume. Below $500K — which covers most merchants — the rate is 2% + $0.25 per transaction. Buyers also pay a separate “Network Cost” surcharge at checkout, so the effective cost is higher than the lowest advertised tier suggests.
Do customers pay the network (gas) fee, and how much is it?
Yes, the buyer typically pays the on-chain network fee. It ranges widely by chain: ERC-20 USDT can be $2–$15, TRC-20 USDT about $1–$2 (near-zero with staked energy), Bitcoin Lightning under a cent, and Bitcoin on-chain $0.50–$2.00. Enabling TRC-20 USDT and Lightning keeps that cost low and reduces checkout friction.
Does a non-custodial gateway really lower my fees?
It removes the conversion spread. Custodial gateways convert your crypto to fiat and take 0.5–1.5% on that exchange, often without itemizing it. A non-custodial gateway sends payment straight to your wallet, so there is no spread — you only pay the transaction percentage and the on-chain network fee.
Does Aurpay charge a withdrawal or monthly fee?
No. Aurpay charges 0.8% flat per transaction with no monthly fee, no withdrawal fee, no conversion spread, and no contract. Funds settle directly to your wallet on on-chain confirmation. If you want dollars, you convert on an exchange yourself, since Aurpay settles in crypto rather than fiat.
Which gateway is best for accepting USDT specifically?
Since USDT is the single most-used merchant stablecoin, pick a gateway that supports the cheap TRC-20 standard, not just ERC-20. Aurpay supports USDT on both ERC-20 and TRC-20, so your customers can choose the low-fee TRC-20 path at checkout.
Accept crypto at 0.8% flat — non-custodial, no hidden fees
If your takeaway is “I want a predictable rate with no conversion spread, no payout layer, and no server to maintain,” that is exactly what Aurpay is built for: 0.8% flat, non-custodial, instant on-chain settlement, no monthly fee, no contract. It integrates natively with eight platforms — Shopify (via a Custom App in your Shopify Admin), WooCommerce, Ecwid, BigCommerce, PrestaShop, OpenCart, Paid Memberships Pro, and Easy Digital Downloads — and accepts BTC, Bitcoin Lightning, ETH, USDT (ERC-20 and TRC-20), USDC (ERC-20 and TRC-20), DAI (ERC-20), and BNB. Beyond plugins: add a Payment Button, send a crypto Invoice, spin up a no-code hosted checkout, or build against the REST API. Start accepting crypto at a fee you can actually predict.
Related guides
- Shopify USDC vs a crypto gateway
- High-risk payment processor alternative
- Stablecoin checkout policy template for merchants
- Crypto payment gateway for SaaS companies
- On-chain subscription billing for recurring revenue
Processing fees also determine what a referral partner earns, since commission is a share of the gateway fee rather than of transaction volume. We work through that arithmetic in crypto affiliate commission rates explained.