PayCek vs CoinGate

A stated zero and a stated one percent#

PayCek states that account creation, maintenance and the transaction fee are all free to the merchant. CoinGate states 1% on processing and 1% again on manual conversions.

In a category where two percent is common, a stated zero deserves reading twice — and then reading a third time, because the money has to come from somewhere and the pages do not say where.

The conversion into euros happens inside the zero-fee provider's wallet the instant a payment is detected. The spread taken at that moment is the price, and it is not published anywhere we could find.

The most complete fee table in the index, against a blank#

One card publishes processing, conversion, SEPA, SWIFT and crypto payout costs together. Almost nothing else in this index lets a merchant compute an all-in figure before speaking to anybody.

The other publishes a payout mechanism but not a payout price: automatic IBAN withdrawal once the balance passes a threshold the merchant sets between thirty and a thousand euros.

A knowable one percent can be defended to a finance function. An unknowable zero cannot, and the finance function will ask.

Fifty-nine assets against ten#

This is the line where the zero-fee card wins outright. An exact published count of fifty-nine, against ten or more — the narrowest general-purpose asset list in this index.

The breadth sits oddly beside a zero merchant fee, since supporting an obscure asset costs real money in liquidity and monitoring. Whatever funds that model, it is not a strategy of supporting three coins cheaply.

For a merchant selling internationally the difference is sales that either happen or quietly do not. For a European store whose customers pay in bitcoin and a stablecoin, ten is enough and the gap is theoretical.

Plugins against an API#

Five maintained ecommerce plugins on one side — WooCommerce, PrestaShop, WHMCS, Wix and OpenCart — against a documented API and a free web point of sale on the other.

That reverses the asset comparison neatly. The card with fewer assets is the one a shop owner can deploy this afternoon, and the card with more is the one that needs a developer.

The free web point of sale is the exception and it is genuinely useful. For a counter operation it needs no integration work at all, which no plugin shelf can match.

Both are inside the European framework#

A Croatian operator established in 2014 with authorisation under the European crypto-asset regulation, against a Lithuanian company operating since the same year.

Neither position is scored as a proxy for quality and neither should be. Both mean a merchant can establish who they are contracting with, which is not true of most of this index.

For a European business with a compliance review ahead, this pair is unusually comfortable on that axis and the decision moves entirely onto cost and coverage.

Verification is answered on neither card#

One records merchant verification as undisclosed after checking; the other does the same. Two European regulated operators, and neither publishes what a merchant must submit.

That is a category-wide failure rather than a fault of either. It is also the question a business in a sensitive vertical should settle before anything else, because it can end the conversation.

The verification guide covers what a European operator typically asks for, which is more than either card suggests and less than most merchants fear.

How to price the zero properly#

Ask the zero-fee provider for a live quote on a hundred euro payment and compare the euros credited against the same amount converted at a public exchange rate. The gap is the price.

Then compare that gap against one percent plus the published settlement costs on the other side. SEPA is free there, which removes a component many competitors charge for.

The exercise takes ten minutes and it is the only honest way to compare these two. Anything less is comparing a number against an absence.

What each gives up#

The zero-fee card gives up computability, five plugins and any published statement about what conversion costs. Those are real losses for a business that has to model a year.

The one percent card gives up forty-nine assets and charges a visible fee on every transaction. Those are real losses for a business selling to unpredictable customers.

Neither is trying to be the other. One is competing on the invoice line and the other on the spreadsheet, and merchants tend to know which of those they answer to.

Where this pair actually lands#

A Croatian or regional shop with a physical counter takes the zero-fee card, uses the free web point of sale, and accepts that the spread is the cost of not seeing a fee.

A European online merchant that must defend an all-in number takes the published table, pays one percent, and gets SEPA settlement for nothing on top.

A merchant selling worldwide should take the broad asset list and then price the spread hard, because forty-nine extra assets are worth a great deal and an unmeasured conversion cost can be worth more.