CryptoPay Server vs. Others

Most new merchants will likely only consider the price of the service. Since CryptoPay Server is free, that may have led you here and if so, welcome.

CryptoPay Server is code, not a company. There is no third-party between a merchant and a customer. The merchant is always in full control of their funds. There are no processing or subscription fees. CryptoPay Server is free to use and completely open-source, so developers or security auditors can always inspect the quality of the code.

We want users to understand not only CryptoPay Server, but also how payments can be processed on behalf of a merchant. In order to help users understand trade-offs when using various cryptocurrency payment processing methods. We don't know which payment processors provide which services. That will need to be part of your own research. The following list is good place to start:

• CryptoPay Server vs. Others

  • Features

  • Cost

  • Security

  • Privacy

  • Censorship-Resistance

  • Decentralized

  • Fiat

  • Can't find this information for other payment processors?

Features

Every payment processor has features, here are some CryptoPay Server features:

• Free & Peer to Peer - Direct, peer-to-peer payments. No merchant processing fees. No transaction fees (other than the network fee).

• Self-hosted - Your node, your coins. No middleman. No KYC/AML. Non-custodial (complete control over the private key). Hardware wallet integration support.

• Cryptocurrency - Accept Crypto natively. Opt-in coin integrations.

• CMS integrations - WordPress & WooCommerce, Shopify, etc. and custom integrations.

• Apps - Point-Of-Sale interface for physical stores. Crowdfunding interface for donation goals and fundraisers.

• Payment Buttons - Easy-embeddable HTML donation and pay buttons.

• Unlimited Stores - Merchants can process payments for their own stores, or for others.

• Transactions - Customers can pay in 20+ different languages.

• Payment Requests - Create & send a long-lived invoice requesting payment for goods or services.

• Privacy & Security focused - Payjoin support. Tor support.

• BitPay compatible - Fully compatible with CryptoPay API. Easy migration to CryptoPay Server.

Cost

It's important to note that payments made using the Crypto Network always require a transaction (miner) fee for it to be included in the blockchain. The Crypto Network determines if the transaction is authorized and when it is confirmed.

CryptoPay Server creates direct payment invoices for merchants to provide to their customers. It also monitors the blockchain and stores the confirmation status of each payment or donation. To do this CryptoPay Server requires being hosted on a server which merchants can deploy on their own hardware, purchase a VPS (less than $10/mo), or use someone else's CryptoPay Server instance to host your account (free or paid options).

If you deploy CryptoPay Server using a VPS, the following types of fees are never charged:

• Merchant fees

• Subscription fees

• Transfer fees

• Software fees

Security

First rule of Crypto is always keep your private keys private. Using a secure wallet is recommended for new merchants as the only provider (creator) of private keys. If there is a chance the someone else (such as a website) knows, stores, or provides your private keys to you, it's generally accepted that they are not actually private.

Privacy

CryptoPay Server will never ask a merchant for any personal identification.

Typically, when converting to or from fiat on behalf of a merchant, payment processors are required to collect personal information for Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-money laundering (AML) banking requirements. This may include personal information such as passport ID, phone number, address, bank account, etc.

Fortunately, the Crypto Network does not use or collect these types of personal information, and therefore neither does CryptoPay Server. How CryptoPay Server ensures privacy:

• No middleman involved

• Information is shared between customer and seller only

• Self-hosted users run a full node

• Tor support

• Payjoin support

Censorship-Resistance

CryptoPay Server is Censorship-Resistance. Nobody controls it expect for the user running it. No central of failure. CryptoPay Server can be run on a users' own hardware.

Decentralized

Many payment processors claim to have no middleman. They claim that funds go directly to your wallet or that they offer instant settlement. However, if a processor makes any of the following claims, they are most likely operating as a middleman:

• Waiting time for a merchant to receive payment is longer than sufficient blockchain confirmation.

• The payment processor combines customer payments before sending to the merchant's wallet.

• If there are kind of limits on transaction volume for the merchant.

• If the payment processor can decline, reject or alter a payment after being sent from a customer's wallet.

• If the payment processor has terms and conditions stating they can hold or freeze your account.

• Fees for using the payment processor are automatically taken out from the customer's payment to the merchant.

Payment processors are able to act as middlemen by using custodial wallets. A payment processor can use an internal custodial wallet for altering customer payments before routing them to merchants. This is how they can collect fees, hold payments for verification and processing, etc. This type of wallet is an intermediary between the merchant wallet and the customer wallet. It's the middleman wallet.

The payment processor may also provide a custodial wallet for the merchant to use. As mentioned above, this is advised against because your private keys may be compromised. If they claim to not save your private keys after giving them to you, it's likely you will not know the truth until it's too late. Centralized services may seem like an easier solution for the merchant. Unfortunately the trade-off is a sacrifice in privacy, security and self-sovereignty which are normally obtained using the Crypto Network.

That's why CryptoPay Server was created. To help merchants remove third party dependencies and simply use the Crypto Network freely and security. Merchants have their own copy of the CryptoPay Server software which runs on their own server or VPS of their choice and validates their own payments using their own node. It's self-hosted Peer-to-Peer payment processor. The trade-off in this case is some technical understanding is required for initial setup.

As the CryptoPay Server community continues to grow, more deployment methods, use cases and tutorials are continually being added to make it easier for non-technical users. CryptoPay Server is completely open source. Anyone can join the community to suggest or create improvements, features, guides, etc. Feedback is always welcome.

Can't find this information for other payment processors?

• It's probably a feature not a bug!

• All of this information should be available to merchants.

• Checkout the Awesome Payment Processor List

• If you have more questions about CryptoPay Server, read our Official Documentation.