What is the cheapest way to buy crypto?
Almost always a local bank transfer plus a normal order. The convenient routes cost several times more.
Where a country has working instant bank transfers, moving money to a platform and placing an ordinary order is the cheapest route by a wide margin — a fraction of a percent, sometimes less.
The expensive routes are the convenient ones. A card typically costs a few percent, spread across a platform fee, an exchange rate margin and sometimes a cash-advance charge from your own bank. A crypto ATM is usually the most expensive of all.
Two costs hide from comparison. The spread — the gap between the price you pay and the price the same coin would sell for — is invisible unless you look at the order book. And a one-click "buy" button almost always charges several times what the same purchase costs as a normal order on the same platform.
What each route costs where you live is in the country tables, and the mechanics are in buying with a bank transfer.
Last checked 19 Oct 2026.