How we compare crypto platforms

In short: you choose a coin, an amount and how you pay. We take each licensed platform's live prices, deduct every fee we know about and work out how much crypto you would receive. The list is sorted by that amount, highest first. Below is exactly how we do it, and where the limits are.

Which platforms we include

Only platforms with a MiCA licence. Under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, a company needs authorisation from a national regulator to provide crypto-asset services in the EU, and the last transitional periods ended on 1 July 2026. We look up every licence ourselves in the interim MiCA register of ESMA, the EU's securities markets authority, and only add a platform once that check is complete.

We currently compare eight platforms: Bitvavo, Kraken, Coinbase, Crypto.com, Bitpanda, OKX, Bybit EU and Bitstamp. Our overview of MiCA-licensed exchanges shows the company that holds each licence, its regulator and how many EU and EEA countries it has notified. For Bybit we only include Bybit EU, the Austrian company that holds the licence, never Bybit's global platform. Binance is not included because it was not in ESMA's register when we last checked; read why.

Which coins we compare

Up to 100 coins: the largest by market capitalisation in CoinGecko's ranking that you can buy with euros on at least two of the licensed platforms. For each platform we confirm the market in the platform's own list of markets, and we compare its price with the market price, so that a different coin with the same ticker never slips in.

We leave out stablecoins, wrapped and staked versions of other coins, tokenised products and privacy coins. The list is updated every quarter.

What you choose

• Coin and amount. Any amount from €10 to €100,000. The default is €100.
• Payment method. Card, or euro balance: euros that are already in your account, for example after a bank transfer.
• Simple app or advanced trading. Simple app is the one-tap buy button, where the price often includes a markup. Advanced trading means placing the order yourself on the platform's trading screen, directly against its order book.

How we calculate a purchase

For every platform, in this order:

1. Payment fee. What the platform charges for the payment method you picked, such as a percentage for card payments. A fee you paid earlier to deposit euros into your balance is not included.
2. Trading fee. The platform's fee for the purchase, deducted from what is left of your amount.
3. The purchase. We work out what the remaining euros buy. Where a platform has a public order book, we go through the sell orders one by one, starting with the cheapest, so a larger amount that needs several orders is priced the way it would really fill. Where a platform publishes a single price per coin instead, we use that price.
4. App markup (simple app only). Many apps add a markup to the price of a one-tap buy. Platforms do not show it in their public data, so we use the markup the platform publishes, with its source and date. If a platform only publishes a maximum, as OKX does, we use the maximum and say so. If the markup depends on the time of day, as with Bybit EU's One-Click Buy, we use the one that applies when you compare.
5. What you get. The amount of crypto that remains. This is the number we rank on.

In advanced trading we use the platform's standard fee for an order that fills straight away (the taker fee) at its entry level, for customers with low trading volumes. We add no markup there, because the difference between buying and selling prices is already in the order book.

We compare standard fees. Subscriptions, volume discounts and welcome offers are not included.

How we show the costs in euros

To put a euro figure on the costs, we need a fair reference price. We take the median of the mid prices (halfway between the best offer to buy and the best offer to sell) across all order books we have at that moment. Your total cost is the difference between the amount you put in and what your crypto is worth at that reference price.

Each result breaks the total down:

How fresh the data is

We fetch prices directly from each platform's public API, at most once a minute per platform and coin. When we calculate, we only use market data that is less than three minutes old. If a platform's data is older, or we cannot fetch it, the platform is shown as temporarily unavailable instead of with old figures. Every result shows the time of its data, in Central European Time with the time zone.

Platforms we cannot rank in every view

Not every platform publishes the full cost of a one-tap buy; some only show the markup at checkout. In the simple-app view we still list those platforms, with an explanation, but leave them out of the ranking, because we would otherwise have to guess. At our last fee check on 7 October 2026 this applied to Kraken, Coinbase and Crypto.com. Kraken and Coinbase are ranked in advanced trading, where their fees are published.

Crypto.com and Bitpanda are not part of the advanced-trading comparison yet. And if we cannot confirm a fee, for example a card fee, we leave that platform out of that particular comparison and say why.

Payment methods

You can compare paying by card and buying from your euro balance. Card fees can depend on your country and the type of card, so check the amount at checkout. SEPA bank transfers, Apple Pay and Google Pay are not in the comparison yet. We will add them once we have checked what each platform charges for them.

The comparison does not yet filter by country. Our MiCA overview shows how many EU and EEA countries each platform has notified, and which one is missing where that applies. Whether a platform offers a particular coin or payment method in your country, you can check on the platform itself.

How often we check

• Prices: live, as described above.
• Fees: we check every fee by hand once a month against the platform's own fee page, help centre or terms, and record the source and the date. The last full check was on 7 October 2026.
• Licences: we check ESMA's register every month. ESMA publishes a new version of the register every week.
• Coin list: every quarter.

The price chart

The price chart shows CoinGecko's average price for a coin across many exchanges, weighted by trading volume. It is not the price on any one platform. It starts in US dollars, because crypto prices are most often quoted in dollars, and you can switch to euros or pounds. You can view the past 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days or year; while the page is open, the chart checks for a newer price every 30 seconds.

What you would actually pay on each platform is in the comparison, which always calculates in euros. A price history says nothing about future prices.

Ranking and commissions

The order depends on one number: how much crypto you receive. The part of our code that ranks the platforms is given no information about commissions, so a commission cannot move a platform up or down. On PlatformCrypto.eu there are no affiliate links at the moment. If that changes, the links will be labelled and the order will still not change. Read our affiliate disclosure for details.

Limits of the comparison

• Results are estimates. Prices move constantly, and the platform may show a slightly different price or fee when you buy. What you see on the platform's confirmation screen is what counts.
• Buying only. Fees for depositing euros, withdrawing crypto to your own wallet, selling or holding are not included.
• Large amounts. We load part of each order book. If that is not enough for your amount, we say so rather than show a result that looks better than it is.
• Notes per platform. Kraken rounds the volumes in its public order book, so for large amounts its result can look slightly too favourable. For Crypto.com we use the order book of its exchange, because the app has no public price. Bitpanda publishes one price per coin and no separate markup on top of its fee, so we add none. Notes like these appear next to the result.
• No advice. We compare costs. We do not tell you which crypto to buy, or when. Crypto-assets are high-risk: prices can fall sharply and you can lose some or all of the money you put in. See our disclaimer.