BitPay vs CoinGate

Which one can you price before signing?#

CoinGate, comfortably. Processing, conversion, SEPA, SWIFT and crypto payout costs are all on one page, which makes the all-in figure computable for a euro-settling merchant to within a small margin.

BitPay publishes the processing tiers and stops there. Conversion and payout are absent, and the page adds that high-risk industries pay more without naming the rate. A business in one of those industries cannot price the relationship from public information at all.

What does the fiat settlement difference look like?#

BitPay settles daily into a bank account across seven named fiat currencies, which suits a business banking outside the euro area and wanting conventional treasury handling.

CoinGate settles euro over SEPA at no cost, which is cheaper and narrower. For a European company the narrowness is irrelevant and the zero cost is the whole point. For a business banking in Australian or Canadian dollars, BitPay covers ground CoinGate does not.

How different is the underwriting?#

Only one side documents what a merchant must submit. BitPay names business verification and director identity checks openly, which is more than most cards in this index manage and which tells you the process is real.

Silence from the other side is not a lighter process, only an undocumented one, and a launch date cannot be planned against it. Ask both directly; the verification guide covers how to read the answers.

Where does the price gap actually land?#

Below half a million monthly, the American provider takes 2% plus a fixed amount per transaction and the Lithuanian one takes 1%. Before either provider's unpublished costs enter the calculation, that is roughly double.

Set against that, BitPay offers a company trading since 2011 and payout rails reaching seven fiat currencies. A European merchant banking in euro uses neither advantage, which is why this pair usually resolves on geography rather than on the percentage.

Two regulated providers, two regulatory shapes#

BitPay operates under US state-level money transmission licensing, which concentrates the market and produces conservative underwriting. CoinGate operates under a single European authorisation covering the bloc, which is why it can publish one fee table rather than several.

That structural difference explains most of what separates these cards, including why one publishes 79% of the tracked fields and the other 89%.

Who each one turns away#

BitPay states that high-risk industries pay more without naming the rate, which is a soft signal about which businesses it prefers. CoinGate does not publish its verification requirements at all, which is a different kind of unknown.

Neither answer is available without asking, and both are worth asking before any integration work rather than after.

What to send both of them#

Ask BitPay for the high-risk rate if it might apply to you, and for the verification timeline. Ask CoinGate for its verification requirements, which it does not publish at all.

Then ask both which fiat currencies settle into which countries. BitPay names seven and CoinGate is built around euro, and a merchant banking outside both sets needs to know before integrating rather than after.

The rate gap is wide and knowable. The settlement and underwriting answers are neither, and they decide more.

Reading this pair by business type#

A European merchant takes CoinGate almost regardless of the rest: free SEPA, a published table, and no need for the fiat breadth BitPay is charging for.

A US or multi-currency business takes BitPay, where seven settlement currencies and documented compliance are the product rather than an upgrade.

A business in a contested vertical should get BitPay's applicable rate in writing first, since the published tiers explicitly exclude it, and should ask CoinGate for the verification requirements it does not publish at all.

What would change this comparison#

BitPay naming the high-risk rate, and CoinGate publishing its verification requirements. Each provider withholds exactly the field the other publishes, which is an unusual and fairly clean symmetry.

Neither gap affects a mainstream European merchant, for whom this comparison already has a clear answer.

If you only do one thing#

Confirm which fiat currency reaches which bank account, for each provider, before anything else. BitPay names seven currencies and CoinGate is built around euro, and a merchant outside both sets has been comparing the wrong things.

What this comparison leaves open#

What this page does not settle is coverage, where both are narrow by the standards of the wider index. Fifteen assets against ten or so is not a meaningful difference for a business meeting the long tail, and such a business should be reading the broader cards in the catalogue rather than this comparison.

The two published tables behind this comparison are among the more stable in the index, and both cards carry the date they were read. Confirm before signing regardless.

Twice the rate, and both publish it#

BitPay states 2% and CoinGate states 1% plus 1% on manual conversions. Both figures are on the providers' own pages, which makes this one of the few pairs here where a genuine cost comparison is possible from public information.

The gap narrows for a merchant converting everything and widens for one settling in crypto. Work it through with your own conversion share rather than the headlines.