Three costs, not one
People compare crypto gift card platforms the way they compare shops: by looking at the price. That works when there is one cost. Here there are three, they are charged by different parties, and only one of them is visible on the page you are looking at.
The spread. The platform buys codes at a discount and sells them at or above face value. That margin is inside the price. Nobody is hiding it exactly: the number is right there, but it is expressed in an amount of cryptocurrency, which makes it invisible to anybody not doing mental arithmetic in two currencies at once. Expect 2–8% depending on the brand.
The network fee. Sending the payment costs money, and the amount depends entirely on which blockchain you use. This is charged by the network, not the platform, which is precisely why the platform does not mention it. On a $25 order it can exceed the spread.
The conversion. If you sold something to fund the purchase, that trade had its own spread and fee. Buying from crypto you already hold avoids this entirely, and it is frequently the real argument for doing any of this.
“No fees” is technically true
There is no separate fee line. The margin is in the price, which is an ordinary and legal way to run a retail business. The problem is not deception. It is that pricing in cryptocurrency makes the number hard to read, and most buyers never convert it back.
The four-minute check
This is the whole method. It works on every platform, it does not go stale, and it will beat any comparison table including the ones on this site.
Take the crypto amount from the final screen
Not the product page — the last confirmation step, where everything the platform intends to charge is already included.
Divide by the coin’s spot price
Use a price from an exchange, not the platform’s own displayed rate, which may already carry a spread. This gives you what you are paying in dollars, euros or pounds.
Compare to face value
The gap is the markup. A $100 card costing $104.20 of crypto is a 4.2% markup, regardless of what the marketing says.
Add what your wallet charges to send
Check the fee estimate in your wallet before confirming. This is the cost that most often turns a reasonable deal into a poor one.
Subtract the rewards
If the platform credits cashback on this brand, deduct it. This is the step everyone skips, and it often reverses which platform is cheaper.
Our working threshold is 5%. Below that, on a brand you actually want, the transaction is reasonable. Above it, check another platform before committing: the spread between the cheapest and most expensive platform on the same card is routinely three or four percentage points.
Which coin to pay with
This is the highest-leverage decision in the entire process and it takes one dropdown. The card price does not change. Only the cost of moving the money does.
| Network | Speed | Cost at small size | Use it when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin — Lightning | Seconds | Negligible | Always, where the platform supports it |
| Litecoin | 2–10 min | Very low | The reliable default without Lightning |
| Stablecoin, low-fee chain | Seconds to minutes | Low | You want the quote to equal the payment |
| Ethereum mainnet | 1–5 min | Moderate to high | ETH is what you hold |
| Bitcoin — on-chain | 10–60 min | High, volatile | Large orders only |
There is one legitimate reason to ignore all of this. If you hold Bitcoin as a long-term position and hold stablecoins as spending money, then spending the stablecoin is correct even when the network fee is slightly higher, because the alternative is selling something you did not want to sell. That is a portfolio decision, not a checkout decision, and it outranks a few dollars of gas.
Rewards change the answer
Only one major platform runs a rewards programme worth including in the arithmetic. Bitrefill credits a minimum of 1% back in Bitcoin on every purchase, rising to around 6% on selected brands and regions, applied automatically to future purchases.
That is enough to reverse a comparison. A 4% markup with 3% back nets to 1%. A 2.5% markup with nothing nets to 2.5%. The platform with the higher sticker price is the cheaper one, and no table that ignores rewards will tell you that.
The limitation is that rewards are proportional and markups are not. On a brand carrying an 8% spread, a 2% reward still leaves you 6% down. Rewards reduce losses on thin-margin purchases; they do not turn expensive brands into good deals.
The quote window
Platforms lock a crypto price for a short period, typically a few minutes, because the exchange rate moves continuously and they are carrying that risk while you pay.
Pay inside the window and you get the quoted amount. Miss it and the order is repriced or cancelled and refunded, minus whatever the network already consumed. This is not a penalty; it is the platform declining to absorb a price move on your behalf.
The practical consequence is another point for fast networks. A slow chain during congestion can miss its own quote window, which converts a cheap transaction into a cancelled one with a network fee already spent.
Markup by brand
Spreads follow competition. Where every platform stocks a brand and buyers instinctively know the face value, margins compress. Where a brand is niche, regional, or bought by people with limited payment options, they widen.
| Category | Typical markup | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon | 1–4% | Universal stock, transparent face value |
| Retail and grocery | 2–6% | Cash-equivalent, competitive |
| Apple, Google Play | 3–7% | Constant demand, little price pressure |
| Streaming | 3–7% | Moderate competition |
| Gaming | 4–9% | High demand, payment-constrained buyers |
| Prepaid Visa | 4–8% plus issuer fees | Open-loop flexibility commands a premium |
The number that changed how we buy
We ran the four-minute check across a dozen brands on three platforms. The markup spread on the same card was routinely three to four percentage points, and the cheapest platform was different for different brands. There was no consistent winner.
More striking: on orders under $50, the choice of settlement network moved the total cost more than the choice of platform did. Most buyers agonise over the first and never consider the second.