Which NOWPayments alternative should you switch to?

The right replacement for NOWPayments depends on why you are leaving and what your customers pay with. If most of them pay in USDT on Tron, CryptumPay accepts it for 1% per payment, while CoinGate and BitPay do not take USDT on Tron at all. If you would rather pay no service fee and can run a server, BTCPay Server is free software that sends payments straight to your own wallet.

Start with the reason you are leaving

A payment gateway is the service that shows your customer a payment page, watches the blockchain and tells your shop the money has arrived. Swapping one gateway for another fixes some problems and leaves others exactly where they were. So name your reason first, because it decides which alternative deserves a look:

• A payment or your account was put on hold for a check. Ask the new gateway what it verifies about you and when: before your first payment, or after money is already waiting.
• The fee adds up. Compare what you would pay on your own typical order, not the headline rate. A fixed charge per payment hurts small orders most.
• Your customers pay in a coin the next gateway must support. Check the exact coin and network, for example USDT on Tron, not just "USDT".
• You need euros or dollars in a bank account. Then you need a gateway that pays out to a bank, and the list gets shorter.
• You don't want any company to hold your money. That points to self-hosted software: payments land in your own wallet, and you run the system yourself.

If two reasons apply, sort the options below by the one that has cost you money so far.

Four alternatives and who each one fits

These four cover the reasons above. Prices are list prices as of October 2026. Network fees, the charge the blockchain itself takes for moving coins, come on top with every service.

CryptumPay

CryptumPay is a hosted gateway: the customer pays on its checkout, and the money lands on your CryptumPay balance. It charges 1% per successful payment, down to 0.5% at higher volumes, and you can pass the fee on to your customer.

It supports USDT on Tron. You can take payments in three ways:

• Payment links. You create an invoice in the console and send the link anywhere: email, chat, a social network.
• A checkout widget. A button on your site opens the payment window right over the page.
• The API. Your developer connects the shop to CryptumPay directly.

CryptumPay withdrawals work at any time, with no minimum amount, to any address you choose. It fits sellers whose customers pay in USDT on Tron and who want to move money out in small amounts as often as they like.

CoinGate

CoinGate charges 1% per transaction on its standard plan, with custom rates for large businesses. Withdrawals to a crypto wallet or by SEPA bank transfer are free, with a minimum of 50 EUR. A SWIFT transfer costs 0.5%, but never less than 50 EUR in fees.

In 2025 CoinGate stopped working with USDT, pointing to MiCA, the EU law on crypto-assets, and now uses USDC as its stablecoin. It fits businesses whose customers pay in USDC, Bitcoin or other major coins and who want euros in a bank account.

BitPay

BitPay charges 2% plus 25¢ per transaction while your volume stays below $500,000 a month, and less above that. High-risk industries pay more. BitPay can settle to a bank account in fiat money, in crypto, or a mix of both.

It takes USDT on Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism and Solana, but it does not support the Tron network. It fits established businesses with steady volume that want fiat money in the bank.

BTCPay Server

BTCPay Server is free, open-source software you install on your own server or run on a shared one. It takes no fee, and no company stands between you and the payment: coins go directly to your wallet.

The price is the work. Bitcoin is the project's only focus. Other coins, Tether included, come through plugins that their own communities maintain, not the BTCPay team. It fits Bitcoin-first sellers who have someone technical to keep the server running.

What each one costs on a normal month

Take a shop that receives 200 payments of $50 in a month, $10,000 in total. Here is the service fee alone, before network fees:

• CryptumPay: $100. That is 1% of $10,000, and the shop can pass it on to the customer.
• CoinGate: $100. The same 1%; withdrawals are free once the balance reaches 50 EUR.
• BitPay: $250. That is 2% ($200) plus 25¢ on each of the 200 payments ($50).
• BTCPay Server: $0 in fees. You pay for the server and for the time someone spends looking after it.

The fixed part of a fee matters more as orders get smaller. On a $20 payment, BitPay's 25¢ alone adds 1.25% on top of the percentage. A shop selling $5 digital goods should run this sum before anything else.

The headline rate is also not the whole bill. Conversion fees, payout fees and withdrawal minimums change the total, and they differ from service to service. If you want to see a wider field than these four, here are ten crypto payment processors compared by total cost.

What changes at high volume

A business turning over hundreds of thousands a month cares less about the starting rate and more about where the rate goes as volume grows. Here is how the four behave:

• CryptumPay lowers its fee from 1% down to 0.5% at higher volumes.
• BitPay drops to 1.5% from $500,000 a month and to 1% from $1 million, but the 25¢ per transaction stays at every level.
• CoinGate offers an Enterprise plan with custom, volume-based rates.
• BTCPay Server stays at 0% at any volume; your costs grow with your infrastructure, not with turnover.

Before you move a large flow, ask each gateway for the rate at your actual monthly turnover and get it in writing. A rate you only discuss on a call is hard to hold anyone to later.

If your customers pay in USDT on Tron

USDT, the dollar stablecoin from Tether, is issued on several blockchains at once. A coin on one network cannot be paid into an address on another. A customer whose USDT sits on Tron would have to move it to a different network first, and pay a network fee to do so, before a gateway without Tron could accept it.

So if your NOWPayments checkout mostly receives USDT on Tron, the network is your first filter. Here is where the four alternatives stand:

• CryptumPay supports USDT on Tron.
• CoinGate stopped working with USDT in 2025 and uses USDC instead.
• BitPay takes USDT on five networks, and Tron is not one of them.
• BTCPay Server handles Tether only through a community plugin, so you would need to check that it covers the network your customers use.

If Tron is where your customers' money lives, here is how to enable USDT and TRX payments on your website.

Is there a free alternative?

A hosted gateway is a company. It runs the servers, the checkout and the support, and it earns from each payment you take. A route with no service fee exists, but you take over that company's work yourself. There are two such routes:

• BTCPay Server. The software costs nothing, but you pay for a server and spend time on updates and backups. Bitcoin is its home ground; other coins depend on community plugins.
• Your own wallet address. The customer sends coins straight to you. Nobody matches the payment to the order: you check each amount, network and order by hand.

Neither route removes network fees: the blockchain charges them whoever processes the payment. "Free" here means you pay with time instead of a percentage. For a seller with a few orders a week that can be a fair trade. For a shop with hundreds of orders, put the hours spent matching payments by hand next to what 1% of turnover would cost.

Running your own system also means you answer for it when it breaks at night. Before you choose, weigh whether to self-host a crypto payment gateway or plug in a hosted one.

What the new gateway will ask you to prove

Switching gateways does not let you skip verification. A hosted gateway holds your money for a while, so it checks who you are. That means KYC, an identity check of a person, and sometimes KYB, a check of the business behind them. Here is what each of the four asks:

• CryptumPay. An identity check is mandatory for every merchant, and without it you cannot withdraw. At CryptumPay an identity check may be enough, without a pack of company documents. Alongside it there is a project review, usually within one business day.
• CoinGate. You register a business account and pass KYC and KYB. That usually means business registration documents and ID for the people who represent the company.
• BitPay. You give your business details, ID for every owner with 25% or more of the business, and a document confirming the business address.
• BTCPay Server. No company holds your coins, so nobody verifies you. Nobody else answers for the setup either.

Plan this step before you leave NOWPayments, not after. If you are hoping to avoid the identity check altogether, first read whether any gateway lets you accept crypto without KYC.

How to move without losing a payment

The safe order is to have the new gateway working before you switch the old one off. These steps keep money from slipping through the gap:

1. Open the new account while the old one still runs. Start verification early. At CryptumPay you can issue an invoice and accept a payment before the review is finished; the payment is credited to your balance once the project review is done.
2. List every place where the old gateway lives. That means the plugin or button on your site, payment links in invoices you have already sent, API keys, and webhooks, the automatic messages a gateway sends your site when a payment arrives.
3. Make one small real payment. Pay yourself through the new checkout from a wallet holding the coin and network your customers use. Check that it shows up in the gateway's dashboard and in your order system.
4. Replace the old checkout, but keep the old account open. A customer with an old invoice or link may still pay through it, and you may need to refund an earlier order. Close the account only after the last old invoice has expired and refunds are settled.
5. Withdraw and export. Move the remaining NOWPayments balance to your wallet and download your payment history for your accountant.

The short version

If your customers pay in USDT on Tron, the options shrink fast: CryptumPay supports it, while CoinGate and BitPay don't take it. If you want fiat money in the bank, CoinGate and BitPay are built for that. If you'd rather pay no fee and hold your own coins, BTCPay Server does it at the cost of running the server yourself.

Whichever you pick, test it with one real payment, and keep NOWPayments open until the last old invoice has passed.

FAQ

Can I keep accepting direct crypto payments after switching from NOWPayments?

Yes. A wallet address works without any gateway: you give it to the customer, and they send the coins. What you lose is the automation. You match each payment to its order yourself and catch wrong amounts and wrong networks on your own.

Is Reddit a good place to check a NOWPayments alternative?

It helps you spot patterns, such as many people describing the same hold or the same slow support. Check the date of every thread: fees and supported coins change, as CoinGate's move from USDT to USDC in 2025 showed. Then confirm anything important on the service's own pricing page and terms.

Which crypto payment gateway is best for a business overall?

There is no single best one, only the best fit for your situation. Start from your customers: the right gateway takes the coin and network they already hold. Then make sure you can pass its verification and that its total cost on your typical order is one you accept.

This article is not legal or financial advice.