Cryptomus vs NOWPayments: Fees, Access and Your Money

Can your business use either gateway?

We wouldn't begin a new Cryptomus relationship, and NOWPayments is an option only if you qualify. On 8 October 2026 the UK designated Xeltox Enterprises Ltd under RUS3755, listing Cryptomus and Heleket among its name variations. The measures include an asset freeze and restrictions on payment processing, which apply specifically to UK credit or financial institutions and to specified ownership or control cases.^[1]

OFSI guidance covers activity in the UK, UK nationals and UK-established legal entities abroad, and cryptoassets are included. That isn't a worldwide ban under every country's law.^[2] An existing merchant should keep its agreements, balances, invoices and correspondence for its adviser and bank. We don't give withdrawal, refund or recovery instructions. The Cryptomus–Heleket comparison explains the official connection. This is general information, not legal advice.

NOWPayments' Terms, which we read successfully in an earlier review, exclude EU, UK, US and UAE residents or citizens, plus people located in or resident in Russia. Nothing shows the exclusion applies only to bank withdrawals.^[27] Ask how the wording covers your company, directors and owners before you pay a developer for integration, since incorporating elsewhere doesn't get around a citizenship or residence exclusion.

Neither service offers a shortcut around checks. Cryptomus's AML policy requires identity, company and beneficial-owner checks and continuing review, and it prohibits gambling and adult content or services unless a licensed-operator exception applies.^[4] Whether forex and VPN businesses get approved is still unclear. NOWPayments can ask new or regular customers for personal, company, director and owner information.^[17] Its marketing and industry labels are no approval of your activity, and its earlier Terms also prohibit prostitution or escort sites and unlawful businesses, leaving any necessary licences with the merchant.

What do the scores and comparison rows tell you?

They compare the public information we collected, and they don't decide which account you can lawfully use. The cost score rests on limited reference pricing, and generic custody and feature labels say little about whether you'd have unrestricted access to your funds.

Cryptomus

46/100

Model comparison

NOWPayments

63/100

Cryptomus: Informational entry. This model is not a recommendation to open a new merchant account. Check current availability directly with the provider.

3.3

Cost

6.7

1.0

Fiat cash-out

6.0

6.0

Licence

0.0

4.0

Coins and networks

10.0

8.0

Integrations and API

7.0

10.0

Features

10.0

2.0

Support and reliability

9.0

6.0

Onboarding

3.0

The Cryptomus review and NOWPayments review cover the products in more depth. FINTRAC's October 2025 notice names Xeltox operating as Cryptomus and records an appeal, but it doesn't verify which company signs today's merchant agreement or its current registration.^[24] NOW's policy names FD Transfers LLC in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, which isn't proof of a financial licence, operating headquarters or bank permission.

The table below uses reference prices for incoming payments, and it isn't an offer of a new Cryptomus account. Your company, owners, country and activity would all have to qualify for either service. Minimums, network transfers and who pays them, the quote or spread, and bank, refund and exit costs may be left out, and unknown isn't free. Asset counts, network samples, plugin labels, licence claims and custody fields describe a provider in general, not what's enabled for you. We couldn't find which networks Cryptomus supports for USDT, and neither NOW's coin count nor its broader marketing tells you which options your checkout would offer.

	Cryptomus Informational entry. This model is not a recommendation to open a new merchant account. Check current availability directly with the provider.	NOWPayments
Score	46/100 · #20	63/100 · #8
Payment fee	2%	1%
Cost on $10k/month	$200	$100
Pays out to bank	Not stated	EUR
Stablecoin networks	USDT: Not stated	USDT: TRC20, BSC, ERC20, Solana, Polygon · USDC: ERC20, Polygon, Solana · DAI: ERC20 · TUSD: Standard, TRC20 · USDP: ERC20 · BUSD: BSC · GUSD: ERC20 · USDD: TRC20 · PYUSD: ERC20 · USDE: ERC20
Coins	100	300
Custody	Custodial	Custodial or non-custodial
Merchant KYC	Required	Not stated
Rolling reserve	Not stated	Not stated
Licence	Historically stated FINTRAC MSB registration, Xeltox Enterprises Ltd; current status unverified (M2269585)	Not stated
Plugins	WooCommerce, WHMCS, PrestaShop, OpenCart, Magento 2, BigCommerce	WooCommerce, WooCommerce (CoderPress WordPress.org package), WHMCS
Legal entity country	Not stated	Not stated
Founded	Not stated	2019

How do the processing fees compare?

Cryptomus's published default is higher than NOWPayments' same-coin reference, but neither percentage is the full bill. Cryptomus publishes 2% for new users and negotiated rates from 0.4%, depending on the business, turnover and integration. It also claims free internal transfers and automatic conversion, but external withdrawals and spread can still cost you.^[3]

NOW's dedicated fee answer gives 1% when the same coin goes in and out, or 1.5% for conversion, fixed-rate or customer-paid settings. Approved verification discounts can bring qualifying same-coin accounts to 0.5%, but that isn't the standard default.^[5] A fixed rate holds a quote for a set payment window, so a later transfer may not complete at that price.

NOW's own pages conflict. The Integration Guide gives fixed rate as 1%, while the about help also has a 1% plus 1% exchange answer. We went with the dedicated fee schedule rather than the cheapest wording.^[7][26] The NOWPayments fee guide covers the differences, and your approved quote and settings will settle them.

What you need is a comparable bill: what the customer pays, what your business receives, which charges come out along the way and who handles an exception. A percentage applied to sales covers only part of that.

The calculator uses reference prices for incoming payments only: Cryptomus 2% and eligible NOW same-coin 1%, with the same limits as the table above. Its highlighting, lowest-price label, differences and annual totals say nothing about permission, full savings or released money, and moving the sliders doesn't switch on conversion or verify a discount.

Where will your money arrive?

NOWPayments offers an outside-wallet flow and optional held balances, while Cryptomus's hosted balances mean relying on the platform in a different way. Custody can make consolidation convenient, but credited funds and funds you can use aren't the same thing.

Cryptomus's earlier Terms describe pooled, uninsured assets that may be held by third parties, restrictions, and returns or closure that come with conditions.^[28] Automatic withdrawal doesn't guarantee release. NOW's external destination wallet still leaves intermediaries in the payment's path while it's processed.

NOW's Custody help describes external payouts with no service fee but a network fee per transfer, and a 0.5% fee on balance swaps. That swap fee doesn't apply to every converted invoice, and external sending isn't entirely free.^[8] The dedicated fee flow describes the customer's initial network transfer plus two merchant network deductions for direct-wallet processing, so how often you move money and who pays the network fee belong in your budget.

Bank receipt is a different question. Cryptomus advertises SEPA/SWIFT on its white-label page, which doesn't tell an ordinary merchant the partner, currencies, minimum, full price or arrival time.^[18] NOW's earlier Terms describe EUR-only withdrawal through a third-party Custody service, starting from USDT on TRON; other balances get an account-quoted conversion, and partner checks may apply. NOW's guide names Guardarian, with no promise of universal access.

1. 
   01

   Decide where the money should end up

   Pick an outside wallet, a held balance or your business bank account. Each one is a different thing.

2. 
   02

   Find out who's responsible

   Work out which company holds the contract, whether a partner is involved, and who is responsible for a payment under review or a restricted balance.

3. 
   03

   Budget for uncertainty

   Leave room for unpriced transfers, conversion and exceptions, and remember that a pending credit isn't money you can use to pay suppliers.

If you depend on bank payouts, NOWPayments versus CoinGate compares how each handles receiving, subject to each provider's eligibility. It says nothing about moving an existing Cryptomus balance.

The cash-flow question is simple. If suppliers expect bank money while your sales arrive as crypto or a balance under review, who covers the gap, and how long can you wait when no release date has been promised?

What happens when a customer pays the wrong amount?

Before it ships an order, your shop has to check how much arrived and the confirmed payment state. Cryptomus allows underpayment tolerance up to 5% and credits only what arrived, and its invoice window defaults to one hour within a configurable range. A paid label needn't mean the full price arrived.^[20] Its notifications report the invoice, paid and merchant-credit amounts individually and require authentication; a customer returning to your shop isn't the same kind of evidence.^[21]

NOW's minimum depends on the exact coin pair. Below-minimum payments can fail and usually can't be refunded, and we haven't found a universal dollar floor.^[6] Its settings can mark an underpaid payment finished, and a cancelled payment isn't necessarily refunded. Its seven-day expiry is a different rule from Cryptomus's invoice window.^[11]

The risk is your warehouse dispatching the full order while your bookkeeper wonders why the payment report shows less than the invoice, especially when a setting can make the status sound more final than the amount warrants.

Refund responsibility differs too. NOW says completed wallet payments, including partially paid ones, are the merchant's responsibility to refund. Wrong-asset or unsupported-network cases come with conditions, including a review and possible validation, and aren't treated as a normal sale return.^[10] Cryptomus's docs describe refunds for completed payments and a choice of who pays the commission, but they leave open whether partial refunds, returned original fees or a completion deadline apply across the board.^[19] Its refund-in-progress and refund-successful states are distinct, and there's an AML-locked state besides.^[12]

The standard also contains service targets, which aren't measured performance or a binding support guarantee.^[9] NOW's advertised round-the-clock support and five-minute average transaction time don't resolve an individual delayed payment.^[25] We haven't built a current reputation sample, and mixed-product ratings wouldn't give you a merchant failure rate anyway.

Are subscriptions and WooCommerce equally straightforward?

Both publish relevant tools, but what the customer agrees to and the specific package both matter. Cryptomus describes payer login, plan approval and a first payment before renewals. NOW treats emailed renewal invoices and scheduled deductions against a funded customer balance as different things.^[13][14] Neither shows that you can debit an arbitrary outside wallet, carry a payment mandate elsewhere, or get approval for your subscription business.

For WooCommerce, Cryptomus's WordPress directory listing has been closed since 18 April 2025 for the guideline violation the listing cites. That isn't a security finding or proof of a permanent ban.^[15] Its PHP helper lists a July 2022 release and an October 2026 listing update, and an updated listing isn't a new release.^[23]

NOW's WordPress listing is CoderPress's version 1.4.1, with subscriptions and priority support among its paid features, while NOW's own Woo page lists version 2.0.0. They aren't one official package, and we haven't installed either.^[16][22] Before committing development time, have whoever maintains your store identify the exact package, its compatibility and who supports it.

Which choice fits your situation?

NOW is only a possible choice where it qualifies, and existing Cryptomus obligations need their own advice. How you need to receive money narrows the decision.

If neither fits, the NOWPayments alternatives and processor selection guide cast a wider net. Start with approval and how you'd receive the money, then use the fee calculator guide for the arithmetic.

What should an existing merchant review before switching?

A replacement checkout is a new commercial relationship, and it doesn't erase the old one. Someone needs to own outstanding orders, customer correspondence, returns and accounting records, because subscription consent, credentials and contractual responsibility don't automatically travel to another processor.

1. 
   01

   Review your current exposure

   Give the agreement, balance and transaction records to your adviser and your bank before any funds move.

2. 
   02

   Choose a replacement

   For a permitted replacement, confirm the contracting company, account approval, how you'd receive money, the full charges and who supports you.

3. 
   03

   Assign unfinished work

   Write down who handles open orders, customer returns, reconciliation, subscription consent and integration credentials, and avoid promising customers that anything moves over automatically.

Frequently asked questions