NOWPayments vs Cryptomus

Why does the advertised rate mislead on this pair?#

Cryptomus advertises 0.4% and NOWPayments advertises 1%, which looks like a decided question. It is not, because 0.4% is a floor reached by volume or negotiation while new merchants start at 2%. The rate a small merchant actually pays at Cryptomus is double what NOWPayments charges from the first transaction.

This is the single most common pricing pattern in the category and it is why this index scores on published terms rather than on advertised floors. A merchant processing under fifty thousand a month should compare 2% against 1%, and a merchant processing several million should ask both for a quote and ignore the published numbers entirely.

How do the two compare on integrations?#

Cryptomus publishes plugins across seven named platforms, which is unusually wide for a company founded in 2022 and suggests deliberate investment in the long tail of ecommerce carts. NOWPayments does not name its integrations on the page checked here, which does not mean they are absent.

For a store on WooCommerce or PrestaShop that difference is decisive, because a first-party plugin is a maintained dependency and a third-party one is a liability waiting for a security advisory. For an API integration it matters much less, and the asset breadth question takes over.

How should you test the difference?#

Ask Cryptomus, in writing, what rate applies to your account at your current volume. The answer decides this comparison and it is not derivable from the published page, which shows a floor rather than an entry rate.

Then run the same test transaction through both, including a deliberate underpayment. Neither publishes how underpayment is handled, both will encounter it inside your first hundred orders, and the handling differs enough between providers that it is worth the few dollars it costs to find out.

Who is each one wrong for?#

Cryptomus is wrong for a small merchant who read the advertised rate and budgeted on it. Starting at 2% against a flat 1% is the opposite of what the headline suggests, and discovering that after integration is a bad start to a relationship.

NOWPayments is wrong for a store that needs a first-party plugin for a specific cart and cannot verify one exists from public pages. Plugin maintenance is a security question as much as a convenience one.

Where the plugin difference shows#

Cryptomus names seven platforms; NOWPayments does not enumerate its integrations on the page checked. For an API integration that gap is irrelevant, and for a store on a common cart it decides the whole comparison.

First-party plugins matter beyond convenience because they receive security updates. A payment integration maintained by a third party that stops being maintained is a liability in your checkout rather than a feature, which is why plugin provenance belongs in the evaluation.

Custody, which only one of them documents#

NOWPayments is documented as non custodial, so settlement reaches a wallet you control. Cryptomus is custodial. That is the one criterion where being wrong cannot be undone, and it separates these two more sharply than any rate difference.

For a merchant intending to hold crypto anyway, the non custodial side removes a risk at no cost. For one needing conversion to bank currency, custodial is the only workable shape and the question becomes which custodial provider.

What to send both of them#

Ask Cryptomus what rate applies to your account at your current volume, in writing. That single answer decides this comparison and is not derivable from the published page, where the advertised floor and the entry rate differ by a factor of five.

Ask NOWPayments for the conversion spread and whether merchant verification applies to your jurisdiction and vertical. Neither is published, and the second one determines your launch date.

Then run the same test transaction through both, including a deliberate two percent underpayment. Neither publishes how that is handled, both will meet it inside your first hundred orders, and the handling differs enough between providers to be worth the few dollars.

Reading this pair by business type#

Under fifty thousand a month, NOWPayments wins on price despite the higher advertised figure, because the flat rate applies from the first transaction and the Cryptomus entry tier is double it. That inversion is the whole point of this comparison.

Above the volume where Cryptomus negotiates, the ordering reverses and the plugin coverage becomes a second reason to prefer it. Where exactly that threshold sits is not published, which is why the first email matters more than the analysis.

A store on a common cart should weight the plugin question heavily in either case. Seven named first-party integrations against an unenumerated list is a real difference at implementation time and a security question afterwards.

What would change this comparison#

A published entry rate at Cryptomus. The advertised floor and the rate a new merchant pays differ by a factor of five, and closing that gap publicly would move this card from ambiguous to straightforwardly competitive.

On the other side, NOWPayments naming its integrations would remove the one advantage Cryptomus holds cleanly.

If you only do one thing#

Email Cryptomus and ask what rate applies to your account at your current volume. That one reply either confirms this is the cheaper option or reveals it is roughly double the alternative, and nothing else on this page can settle it.

What this comparison leaves open#

What this page cannot resolve is how each provider behaves when something goes wrong. Neither publishes underpayment handling, expiry behaviour or wrong-network recovery, and those three cases arrive inside your first hundred orders. Test them yourself on both before committing traffic, because the documentation will not tell you and the difference is operational rather than financial.

Both cards show a checked date for the same reason: rates here move without notice, and a comparison is only as current as the pages behind it.