Crypto Payment Gateway Fees Compared (2026)

The pitch every crypto gateway makes is the same: cheaper than Stripe, no chargebacks, instant settlement. The pricing pages tell a different story — flat rates, percentage cuts, network fees, off-ramp spreads, minimum monthlies, and setup charges layered on top of each other. Before you sign anything, you need a clean mental model of what a crypto gateway actually charges for and where the real cost sits.

Fee structures

Most crypto gateways in 2026 fall into one of three pricing shapes.

• Percentage-of-transaction — typically 0.5% to 1.5% of the payment amount. Simple to understand, aligns incentives, but can eat margin on high-ticket B2B invoices.
• Flat per-transaction — a fixed cents-per-payment charge, useful for micropayments but painful when you process $10 coffees at scale.
• Monthly subscription plus tiny per-tx — you pay a base fee and a small marginal cost per payment. Common for larger merchants doing predictable volume.

None of these is inherently better; the right one depends on your average order value and monthly count.

Network fees vs gateway fees

The gateway's percentage or flat cut is the fee they earn. The network fee is what the blockchain itself charges to record the transaction. On Ethereum mainnet this can be several dollars during congestion. On Solana it is a tiny fraction of a cent — typically 0.000005 SOL per signature, which is why Solana-native gateways can be so cheap end-to-end.

Ask any provider you evaluate: who pays the network fee? Some absorb it into their percentage. Some pass it through. Some quietly deduct it from the amount the customer sends, so the shipping total doesn't match the amount you receive. That last case is the one that causes reconciliation headaches.

The hidden fees

These are the ones that don't appear on marketing pages. Watch for:

1. Custody / wallet fees — some gateways charge to hold your funds. A non-custodial gateway sidesteps this entirely.
2. Off-ramp spreads — converting crypto to fiat happens through an OTC desk or exchange partner, and their spread is not always disclosed.
3. Withdrawal fees — some providers cap how often you can move your money out without extra charges.
4. KYC / setup fees — one-time onboarding fees can range from zero to several thousand for enterprise plans.
5. Chargeback-equivalent fees — some gateways add "dispute handling" charges even though crypto payments don't chargeback.
6. Idle wallet penalties — a few providers charge inactivity fees if you don't process for a month.

Read the terms of service, not just the pricing page.

A realistic total-cost comparison

Imagine a merchant processing 1,000 payments per month averaging $50 — $50,000 in monthly volume. Under each model, roughly:

• Stripe (cards): 2.9% + $0.30 = $1,750
• PayPal: similar range, plus cross-border surcharges if applicable
• Typical crypto gateway at 1%: $500 plus network costs
• Solana-native gateway at 0.5%: roughly $250 including near-zero network fees

Even at the higher end, most Solana crypto gateways come in at less than a third of card processing costs. The gap widens for cross-border sales, where card processors add currency conversion fees on top. If you sell internationally, the comparison shifts further — we broke that out in detail for Stripe vs crypto for international sales.

Solpaygate pricing

Solpaygate uses a straightforward percentage on transaction volume with no monthly minimum, no setup fee, and no custody charges — funds sweep directly to your master wallet within seconds of confirmation and never sit in a gateway-owned account. Network fees on Solana are effectively rounding error. There are no dispute-handling fees because there are no disputes.

Pricing is public on the signup flow, and the free tier covers small merchants running under a certain monthly volume so you can test the integration end-to-end before committing to anything.