About NOWPayments
NOWPayments is a noncustodial cryptocurrency payment gateway that empowers businesses and individuals to easily accept cryptocurrency payments. As a noncustodial service, NOWPayments does not hold or store your funds, ensuring that you have full control over your assets.
Founded in 2019 by the team behind the cryptocurrency exchange service ChangeNOW, NOWPayments is committed to making it easy for anyone to accept cryptocurrency payments. With support for a wide range of cryptocurrencies and a competitive fee structure, NOWPayments is a versatile and accessible payment gateway for businesses of all sizes.
To learn more about NOWPayments’ features, fees, integrations, and more, check out our comprehensive NOWPayments review below.
Overall judgement
NOWPayments Review scores
Transaction fees
Functionalities
Accepted cryptocurrencies
Ease of setup
Customer support
Positives
- Free and easy integration
- ~1% transaction fee (starts at 0.4%)
- Over 160 cryptocurrencies are accepted
- Large amount of smart functionalities
Negatives
- Minimum payment amounts
- User interfaces could be improved
Transaction fees
Transaction fees are an important consideration for businesses looking to choose a payment gateway. NOWpayments charges a fee of 0.5% for each transaction (0.4% for high volume merchants), plus an additional 0.5% conversion fee if the merchant’s withdrawal currency is different from the currency used by the client. As most payments are made in a variety of cryptocurrencies, the total fee is typically 1%. This fee is competitive with other payment gateways.
Functionalities
NOWPayments offers a range of useful functionalities to enhance the experience of accepting cryptocurrencies. These features include:
Online payment gateway: This allows you to accept cryptocurrencies directly on your website.
Offline payment gateway: You can generate a link that can be opened on your mobile phone’s web browser. The client can then scan a QR code and transfer the required amount of crypto.
Payment links: You can generate payment links for a specific amount and send them to your clients, for instance, via email.
Crypto subscriptions: You can set up recurring payments to be invoiced by email every 1, 7, 14, or 30 days. However, these payments are unfortunately not automated but have to be paid manually by the customer.
Donation widget: This includes a donation button that can be added to your website as shown below.
In addition to these functionalities, NOWPayments offers two smart additions that can further enhance the way you receive crypto:
Anti-volatility: NOWPayments will automatically convert any incoming crypto to another crypto of your choosing before sending it to your wallet. This is done to protect against market volatility, and it is recommended that you transfer all funds to a stablecoin like USDT, USDC, or BUSD.
Mass payout: This allows you to receive all payments in a single transaction, thus mitigating a lot of the network fees associated with sending crypto. Normally, NOWPayments sends you the crypto after each individual purchase, which can result in extra fees due to the network fee associated with each transaction.
It’s important to note that NOWPayments has a minimum payment amount for all cryptocurrencies, which is set to cover the networking fees. This can range from a few cents to over a hundred dollars and can be seen on their status page. However, this minimum payment requirement has resulted in some error messages when creating crypto invoices, which may make it less attractive for smaller payments.
Accepted cryptocurrencies
When it comes to the number of accepted cryptocurrencies, NOWPayments is a clear winner among the best crypto payment gateways, as they accept over 160 different cryptocurrencies. With such a wide selection of cryptocurrencies, all the major ones are naturally included in their gateway as shown below. Merchants are given the freedom to choose which currencies they want to accept and which ones they do not. However, we strongly recommend accepting the “popular coins” and “stablecoins” listed on the NOWPayments dashboard. The other currencies include medium to large-sized cryptocurrencies like Litecoin, Dogecoin, and Stellar, as well as a plethora of smaller and lesser-known cryptocurrencies that may not result in any or many orders
- Bitcoin (BTC)
- Ethereum (ETH)
- Tether (USDT)
- BNB
- USD Coin (USDC)
- Binance USD (BUSD)
- Ripple (XRP)
- Dogecoin (DOGE)
- Cardano (ADA)
- Solana (SOL)
Ease of setup
NOWPayments is easy to integrate into your website since they have a pre-built integration for almost every common CMS. This includes:
- WooCommerce
- Magento 2
- Shopify
- Prestashop
- OpenCart
- Zen Cart
- Shopware
- WHMCS
- Ecwid
Alternatively, merchants have the option to integrate NOWPayments into their e-commerce store by using the API connection. The integration process is made easy and straightforward with the help of detailed documentation provided by NOWPayments.
Safety
NOWPayments offers two payment methods for customers. The first and standard method is a manual transfer, where the customer manually sends the requested amount to NOWPayments. This method is very safe and has no risks for either the merchant or the customer. The second method is the Wallet Connect Checkout, which allows customers to connect their crypto wallet to NOWPayments and pay more easily, but with less security. For more information about the safety of these methods, please refer to our safety blog.
Frequently asked questions
NOWPayments is a noncustodial cryptocurrency payment gateway that empowers businesses and individuals to easily accept cryptocurrency payments. As a noncustodial service, NOWPayments does not hold or store your funds, ensuring that you have full control over your assets. It was founded in 2019 by the team behind ChangeNOW, a reputable cryptocurrency exchange service. NOWPayments supports over 160 cryptocurrencies, which is the highest number among payment gateways, and offers competitive fees.
Yes, NOWPayments is widely recognized as a safe and legitimate cryptocurrency payment gateway. One of the key factors contributing to its safety is the fact that NOWPayments operates as a noncustodial service. This means that it does not hold or store user funds. As a result, you maintain full control over your assets, mitigating the risks associated with custodial services where funds are entrusted to a third party.
Furthermore, NOWPayments was founded by the team behind ChangeNOW, a reputable and well-established cryptocurrency exchange service. The team’s experience and expertise in the crypto industry adds credibility to NOWPayments and instills trust among users.
Using NOWPayments is a straightforward process. To get started, you need to sign up for an account on their website. The registration process is quick and easy. Once you have registered, you can integrate NOWPayments into your website. The platform provides pre-built integrations for popular content management systems (CMS) such as WooCommerce, Magento, Shopify, and others. These integrations simplify the setup process. Alternatively, you can use the API connection, which allows for more customized integration. Detailed documentation and guides are available to assist you in integrating NOWPayments into your website or online store.
NOWPayments works by providing businesses with a range of payment gateway functionalities. It allows you to accept cryptocurrencies directly on your website through an online payment gateway. You can also generate payment links or utilize the offline payment gateway by generating a link that can be opened on a mobile phone’s web browser. NOWPayments also offers smart features like anti-volatility and mass payout to enhance the payment experience.
NOWPayments may require KYC (Know Your Customer) verification for certain operations involving fiat currencies. This includes activities like charging customers in fiat and cashing out to fiat. The purpose of the KYC process in these cases is to comply with regulatory requirements, enhance security measures, and mitigate risks associated with fiat transactions.
On the other hand, for cryptocurrency transactions, the need for KYC is relatively rare and typically occurs only in specific instances of suspicious activity. NOWPayments prioritizes privacy and anonymity in the cryptocurrency market and aims to strike a balance between security and user confidentiality.
NOWPayments is headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
