How We Review and Score Crypto Payment Gateways

What does a gateway score tell you?

A score shows how providers compare on the inputs we've collected, under one set of priorities. It helps you decide where to spend research time, but it can't tell you which account your business should open.

Our work is document review and calculation. We haven't applied for merchant accounts, sent payments, installed integrations, measured uptime or timed support replies. Before you depend on a service, you'll need to see how checkout, refunds and getting paid work on your own approved account. A provider's published claims are what it advertises, while an official register is a different kind of evidence about a named company.

The overall gateway ranking balances several needs. Your shortlist can still look different if you need a specific bank currency, customer wallet or permitted business activity. Start with your hard requirements, using our processor selection guide, then use scores to compare whoever is left.

Where does the review evidence come from?

We use pricing pages, terms, documentation, official registers, plugin listings and dated user reports, and we keep each finding tied to what its source covers. Before comparing two prices, you need to know whether they describe the same product, asset and kind of account.

Coinbase is a good example. Its transition page publishes 1% for merchants migrating from Commerce, while current Business payment-link guidance sends merchants to their account for fees. Neither gives a quote that applies to every new account.^[1][2] Our Coinbase fee guide keeps the two apart.

BVNK's EU policy says crypto-transfer and conversion prices are agreed with the client. A missing price doesn't mean the service is free or bad. It means you need an offer before you can compare cost.^[3] We don't fill that gap with a guessed percentage.

1. 
   01

   Read the original source

   Open the provider's document, register entry or listing, and note the date the check succeeded.

2. 
   02

   Keep the scope

   Attach the finding to its company, product, country, asset, account conditions and effective date.

3. 
   03

   Record the limits

   Mark what's a provider's claim and what's a register entry we've seen, and leave blocked reads or missing prices marked as open.

4. 
   04

   Calculate and review

   Run the inputs through the scoring formula, then explain the costs and restrictions the number leaves out.

How are the ranking weights chosen?

The three lists use the same eight factors with different weights. Cost has the largest share overall, a larger share in the lowest-fees list, and less emphasis than coins and networks in the stablecoin list.

Each column below totals 100%. The stablecoin list just puts more weight on the existing coins-and-networks factor. It adds no check of its own on token safety.

Factors are rounded to one decimal place. The formula multiplies each by its weight, adds the results, divides by ten and rounds to a whole-number score out of 100. Equal scores are ordered by the cost factor, then the support factor. An exact tie keeps the original input order. The tie-break compares the cost factor only, not complete invoices.

How do we score cost?

Cost uses a standard $10,000 month of $100 orders, which is 100 payments, so fixed charges show up. But if you sell low-priced downloads alongside expensive equipment, that average can hide what minimum fees do to individual orders, and it won't match how you withdraw funds through the month.

The basket adds the processing, conversion-spread and withdrawal percentages we have numbers for, a fixed charge per payment, and one fixed withdrawal charge. Unknown extras are left out. The cost factor starts at ten points and loses one for every 0.3 percentage point of cost, and a rate of 3% or more gets zero. A processing rate that isn't published gets two points. Recognised starting-rate labels and some unpriced withdrawal-fee descriptions cap the factor at seven. Those rules won't catch every offer whose price depends on conditions.

Take an approved standard-rate BitPay account. Its published starting tier is 2% plus $0.25 below $500,000 of cumulative monthly volume, and higher-risk pricing isn't quoted.^[4] The example below counts processing only, so it leaves out provider minimum commissions, network costs, conversion or risk margins, and bank, application, account and exceptional costs.

BitPay's merchant terms also require a non-refundable application fee without publishing the amount.^[5] Our BitPay fee guide explains why processing is only part of the budget.

CoinGate's Commercial Policy adds a risk margin, with no price given, to payment quotes on top of its merchant fee.^[6] B2BinPay's first bands charge 0.40% for coins and 0.50% for stablecoins and tokens, and its chain-specific minimum commissions can raise the cost of small payments.^[7] Details like these can change a real bill without showing up in the basket.

The fee calculator gives published-rate estimates for your own volume and basket size. It filters out pending inputs, so it won't always match the preliminary score calculation. Before you put its result in a budget, read the omissions and rate conditions in its guide and in the CoinGate fee breakdown.

What do the other factors measure?

The other factors reward what's listed and how broad it is, not proven service quality. A feature can earn points and still need checking on your own store or account.

• Fiat cash-out: whether fiat payout is available and how many currencies are listed. It doesn't measure transfer speed, minimum balances, bank acceptance or when the money lands.
• Coins and networks: coin-count bands, plus stablecoin network names that match a shortlist. Network names are a rough indicator, not live transfer prices, and the aliases aren't fully standardised.
• Integrations: listed plugins, an API and a sandbox. We haven't installed any of them. CoinGate's WordPress listing has compatibility metadata and a changelog, which give your developer a place to start but don't prove your setup works.^[8]
• Features: whether tools such as invoices, refunds and recurring payments are listed. The factor counts availability and doesn't grade how well the tools work.
• Support: listed channels and hours, whether there's a status page, and a Trustpilot aggregate with enough reviews behind it. It doesn't measure response time, incident resolution or uptime.
• Onboarding: lighter verification earns more points. That describes the paperwork only, not lower risk, lawful access or suitability, and sign-up checks can differ from later ones.

Dated user reports suggest questions to ask. They aren't a merchant failure rate: BitPay's Trustpilot page includes reports from shoppers and wallet users, and the platform warns that reviews may not be representative.^[9] We don't treat them as a survey of approved merchants or proof of any named allegation.

Ask support what happens to a held transfer outside normal hours, and ask your developer to check order updates and refunds. The NOWPayments fee guide shows why even a published description needs confirming for your own account.

What does the licence factor tell you?

The licence factor sorts providers by how strong their licence evidence is. It doesn't decide whether a provider may serve your business. The strongest entry sets the factor, and having more entries adds no points and isn't a sign of worldwide permission.

Register-verified entries earn more points than numbered or unnumbered claims. Entries labelled as applications, pending, under review, not authorised or suspended get a low value, even when another field carries a number. An empty licence list gets no points, and so does an entry we can't match to the merchant service, such as a licence held by another company in the same group. This mechanical rule doesn't fully weigh enforcement history, country coverage or product scope.

As checked on 11 October 2026, NYDFS lists Bitpay, Inc. with a virtual currency licence, and its guidance treats that licence as different from money-transmission permission.^[10] The company that signs your agreement and the service you use both need to match the permission you require. The BitPay review covers the eligibility questions.

The formula has no sanctions factor, so sanctions need their own check, and a restriction like the one below outranks a numeric position when you build a shortlist.

A score doesn't override account, verification or legal requirements. This is general information, not legal advice.

How are unknowns, changes and corrections handled?

An unknown stays an open question. A check date means we read the source on that day. It doesn't certify that every older page was freshly reviewed or that the source will stay the same.

A blocked register or failed page read isn't evidence that a company lacks permission. We note the limitation, keep dated evidence where it's relevant, and don't turn an unread source into a verified fact. Missing information hits factors differently: it can reduce points, while an unknown extra fee stays outside the cost arithmetic.

Effective dates matter too. Confirmo Limited's archived Irish schedule took effect on 30 December 2025.^[13] Its replacement takes effect on 1 November 2026, so it's still upcoming as of this page's date.^[14] New charges don't become active just because a document was updated recently.

Changed pricing, account restrictions, permissions, terms, integration listings or source conflicts are reasons to revisit a finding and recalculate affected scores. To check a correction, we need the original source and enough detail to match it to the product, entity and date. There's no fixed monitoring schedule, and we don't promise to catch every change instantly.

Crypto payment gateway ranking methodology FAQ

Updated 14 October 2026 to clarify B2BinPay's minimum-cost limits. First written 11 October 2026, with the preliminary inputs and evidence limits spelled out.