Ranked #34 of 46 · checked 2026-08-31
BitPay review
BitPay scores 5.6 of 10 on this index and ranks #34 of 46. Processing starts at a published 2%. It lists 15+ assets. Verification is kyb and kyc. It publishes 79% of the fields tracked here.
The longest-running processor in the category, priced at the top of it.
- Score
- 5.6/10
- Processing from
- 2%
- Assets listed
- 15+
- Merchant verification
- KYB and KYC
- Custody
- Custodial
- Discloses
- 79%
BitPay at a glance
Provider site| Processing from | 2% |
|---|---|
| Conversion | |
| Payouts | |
| Assets listed | 15+ |
| Networks | Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dogecoin, XRP, Bitcoin Cash |
| Merchant verification | KYB and KYC |
| Custody | Custodial, the provider holds funds before settlement |
| Jurisdiction | United States |
| Operating since | 2011 |
| Integrations |
A dash means the provider does not publish the figure, not that we did not look. Fee figures come from the provider's own pricing page.
What can BitPay do?
Verticals the provider names publicly: ecommerce, retail-pos, nonprofit.
How does BitPay score?
Weights| Criterion | Weight | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Assets, networks and geography How many assets and chains are live for merchants, and in which markets settlement actually works. | 25 | 6 |
| All-in cost Processing percentage, conversion spread and payout cost taken together, not the headline number alone. | 25 | 4 |
| Onboarding and verification What a merchant must submit before going live, how long it takes, and which verticals are refused outright. | 20 | 4 |
| Integrations and API Maintained plugins, API surface, webhook reliability and whether a developer can reach a test transaction from public docs alone. | 18 | 8 |
| Support and operations Reachable channels, published response commitments, and documented handling of underpayment and wrong-network sends. | 12 | 7 |
| Weighted total | 5.6 |
BitPay across the five criteria
Scored 0–10 · weighted total 5.6
Where it is strong
- Daily fiat settlement direct to a bank account, published as a standard term rather than an upgrade.
- Operating since 2011, which is longer than most of this index has existed.
- Volume tiering is published, so a merchant can see the rate fall from 2% to 1% at stated thresholds.
Where it is weak
- At 2% + $0.25 below $500k monthly volume, the entry rate is the highest published figure in this index.
- The pricing page states that higher fees apply to high-risk industries without naming the rate.
On this page
The oldest provider here, priced accordingly#
Operating since 2011 makes this the longest continuous track record in the index by several years, and in a category where providers appear and vanish that is worth something real. It is also the most expensive entry tier here, at 2% plus a fixed amount below half a million monthly.
On a hundred thousand a month the difference against a flat 1% competitor runs to around a thousand dollars every month. That is a hiring decision rather than a rounding error, and it should be weighed against what the premium actually buys rather than dismissed or accepted automatically.
What the premium buys#
Daily fiat settlement into a bank account across seven named currencies, published as a standard term rather than an enterprise upgrade. For a business that wants money in a bank rather than value on a chain, that is the product, and several competitors here cannot offer it at all.
Legibility is the second thing. Full business verification and director identity checks are documented, which is more than most cards in this index manage, and a counterparty whose process you can describe is easier to put in front of a board than one whose process is undocumented.
The sentence on the pricing page worth reading twice#
Higher fees apply to high-risk industries, and the rate is not named. For a business anywhere near that boundary, the practical consequence is that the relationship cannot be priced from public information at all, and the published tiers describe somebody else's cost.
That is not unusual in the category and it is unusual to state it openly. Treat it as an instruction to get your own quote in writing before doing any integration work. The high risk page covers how that conversation tends to go with US-domiciled providers.
Who should pay it#
Businesses that need conventional fiat rails, a counterparty with history, and documented compliance, and whose volume is high enough that the tiering brings the rate down. Above a million monthly the published rate reaches 1%, at which point the comparison changes entirely.
Businesses settling in crypto anyway are paying roughly double for rails they will not use. The catalogue has cheaper options for that case, and the choice is genuinely straightforward once you know which side of it you are on.
How this card scores where it does#
Cost carries the lowest fee score in the index because the published entry rate is the highest, and the method scores the published figure rather than the negotiated one. Onboarding also scores low, on documented full verification.
Both of those are the correct reading of the published facts and both understate the provider for a business that wants exactly what it sells. A merchant who values documented compliance and daily bank settlement should reweight onboarding downward and read the total again.
What the volume tiers actually mean#
The rate falls at half a million and again at a million in monthly volume, and the published tiers make that path visible in a way most competitors do not. A business approaching either threshold can plan around it rather than discovering it.
It also means comparisons drawn at low volume expire. A merchant projecting past a million monthly should compare the 1% tier against the flat-rate competitors, at which point the settlement rails stop costing a premium at all.
The threshold that changes everything#
Half a million in monthly volume, where the published rate drops, and a million where it drops again. Comparisons drawn below the first threshold expire once you cross it.
Plan the comparison against where your volume will be in a year rather than where it is today.
Where BitPay sits in the index#
The short version of this card: documented compliance and daily bank settlement, at the highest entry rate here. Every figure above was read off the provider's own pages on 2026-08-31, and the fields it declines to publish are recorded as such rather than left blank.
Two criteria hold this card down and both are correct readings of published facts: the entry rate and the documented verification. If you want exactly what those buy, lower their weights on the methodology page and the position changes substantially.
How should you read this card?
The score of 5.6 comes from the five weighted criteria above, applied identically to every provider in the catalogue. If you weight the criteria differently, the methodology page re-ranks the whole index against your weights, and the order you get is as valid as this one.
The disclosure figure of 79% is a separate measurement and often the more useful one. It counts only the fields BitPay publishes itself, so it predicts how much of your evaluation will happen over email rather than from documentation. If you are already using BitPay and looking to leave, the switching page covers the closest replacements.
What BitPay does not disclose
Checked against the provider's own pages on 2026-08-31. BitPay does not publish what conversion costs, what payouts cost, which ecommerce platforms it supports, whether white label is available.
Ask for each of these in writing before signing. A provider that answers a factual question with positioning has told you something useful about the next two years.
BitPay compared
All comparisonsWhere else BitPay appears
Questions about BitPay
Is BitPay legit?
BitPay has operated since 2011 and is based in United States. It publishes 79% of the fields this index tracks. Nothing here is a security assessment: run your own checks on custody and settlement before sending volume through any processor.
What does BitPay charge?
The published processing rate starts at 2%, checked 2026-08-31. Conversion cost is not published, so this is a floor rather than an all-in figure.
Does BitPay require KYC?
BitPay requires kyb and kyc for merchants, per its published documentation.
What are the best BitPay alternatives?
The three closest substitutes are Coinbase Commerce, CoinGate, OpenNode. Which one fits depends on whether you are leaving over cost, coverage or onboarding.