What three gateways charged on November 12, 2026
How much does a merchant pay to take crypto? Each gateway publishes its own rate, and they differ more than the headline numbers suggest. These were the standard prices on three providers’ pages on November 12, 2026.
| Gateway | Fee on a payment | Fee on a $1,000 sale | What the page says it covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| BitPay | 2% + 25 cents below $500,000 of monthly volume, 1.5% + 25 cents up to $999,999, 1% + 25 cents from $1 million | $20.25 | Tiers adjust automatically with cumulative monthly volume; higher fees apply to high-risk industries |
| CoinGate | 1% processing fee, no monthly fee | $10.00 | A separate 1% exchange fee applies to manual conversions on the platform, not to automatic checkout conversions |
| Stripe | 1.5% of the amount in US dollars, stablecoins only | $15.00 | Conversion to fiat, wallet and AML screening, fraud prevention and gas sponsorship |
The $1,000 column is our arithmetic from each page’s rate for a merchant in its first fee tier, and it leaves out any separate payout or settlement charges.
In the US, a money transmitter
In the US, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network addressed these services in its May 9, 2019 guidance on virtual currency. It describes crypto payment processors as intermediaries that may collect crypto from the customer and send currency to the merchant, or the other way round. They “fall within the definition of a money transmitter”, FinCEN says, which makes them a money services business.
FinCEN explains why the usual payment processor exemption does not fit. To use it, a processor must run through clearance and settlement systems that admit only regulated financial institutions, and a crypto processor generally cannot meet that condition.
In the EU, a MiCA license
In the EU, BitPay and CoinGate, two of the gateways in the table, hold MiCA licenses as crypto-asset service providers. ESMA’s register, read on November 12, 2026, lists CoinGate’s operator UAB “Decentralized”, authorized by the Bank of Lithuania on December 16, 2025, and BitPay B.V., authorized by the Dutch markets regulator AFM on July 16, 2026. Both entries include exchanging crypto for funds and transferring crypto on clients’ behalf.
Where you see it
To the customer, a gateway is a checkout screen that shows an amount in crypto and an address or a wallet connection. To the merchant, it is mostly a settlement choice. BitPay’s page offers settlement “in your local currency, cryptocurrency or any combination of the two.”
The coin list matters as much as the fee. Stripe’s stablecoin docs accept USDC on Tempo, Ethereum, Solana, Polygon and Base, plus USDP and USDG in the US only, settle in the merchant’s local currency and cap a customer at $10,000 per transaction. A shopper holding USDT cannot pay through that checkout, which is why the coin list comes first when you accept stablecoin payments.
The refund surprise
Merchants used to cards expect disputes and chargebacks to work the same way. They do not. Stripe’s documentation says stablecoin payments have no dispute support, so “you won’t have disputes that turn into chargebacks.” A refund is a new payment instead, and Stripe sends it back as stablecoins to the customer’s original wallet.
Before choosing a gateway, compare what it does with a refund, a payment sent on the wrong network and an underpaid invoice, as well as its percentage.