Beginner On-Ramps
Apps and brokers built for a first purchase. The cost is rarely in the headline fee, so these reviews dig into spreads, payment-method surcharges and whether you can move coins off the platform at all.
Current pick: Bitpanda7.5/10
01European buyers who want a licensed local providerBitpanda
7.5/10Bitpanda is what a European retail crypto broker should look like: regulated, boring, and priced at about 1.49% for the convenience. The cheaper product is on the same site, and almost nobody finds it.
~1.49% spread on the broker, far lower on Pro
02US investors holding crypto alongside equitiesRobinhood Crypto
7.2/10Robinhood charges no commission on crypto. That is true, and it is not the same as free — the revenue arrives through order routing, and it shows up in the price you get rather than on your statement.
No commission; cost is in the spread
03Mobile-first traders of new and high-volatility tokensFomo
7.0/10Fomo is a social-first crypto trading app that now runs on the web as well as mobile. We look at the web release, the gasless multichain trading, Apple Pay funding and the risks of a leaderboard-driven feed.
Free to use; $0 fee on first buy via Apple Pay
04Social trading across crypto and equitieseToro
6.7/10eToro's fee is simple and simply expensive: 1% to buy, 1% to sell. Everything else about the platform — the regulation, the polish, the social layer — is downstream of whether you accept that number.
1% buy and 1% sell on crypto, plus spread
05One-off card purchases inside a wallet appMoonPay
6.3/10MoonPay is not an exchange and should not be compared with one. It is a payment rail that converts a card into a token at the point of need, and it charges payment-rail prices for it.
~4.5% by card, ~1% by bank transfer