How Much Does It Cost to Start a Crypto Exchange?

By the Guardian team Updated November 2026 6 min read

Quick answer. No public all-in figure exists; build it line by line. Anchors: a $5,000 BitLicense application, VARA's AED 100,000 application fee, €150,000 MiCA capital, B2Broker's white-label estimate from $8,000, and one Zcash grant's $750 a day for a pentester.

Watch: How Much Does It Cost to Start a Crypto Exchange? 1:48

Video transcript

A white-label vendor will quote you a platform price. That is one line of a year-one budget.

No public all-in figure exists. Price each line: a license, custody, liquidity, compliance tools, security and people.

New York's BitLicense application costs five thousand dollars. Dubai's VARA charges one hundred thousand dirhams to apply. MiCA requires one hundred fifty thousand euros of capital.

White-label sellers estimate eight thousand to over two hundred fifty thousand dollars, versus over a million to build. Fees or a revenue share follow.

Running costs grow with volume: custody, liquidity, fiat rails that take a cut per transaction, and identity checks priced per user.

Vendors fold security into one line. Break it out. A Zcash grant pays seven hundred fifty dollars a day per pentester, and each surface adds tester-days.

SOC 2 and CCSS have no published price. On monitoring, the Zcash grant budgets fourteen thousand eight hundred dollars a month, covering pentesting, darknet reports and attack surface monitoring. Kraken's bounty rewards averaged three thousand, nine hundred sixty-two dollars.

For staff, U.S. information security analysts earn a median of one hundred twenty-nine thousand, one hundred eighty dollars, before benefits and taxes.

Guardian scopes each offchain pentest from the system itself. Managed Security adds round-the-clock monitoring, direct response and a managed bug bounty.

Read the full article for every source, then talk to Guardian before you launch.

Ask a white-label vendor what an exchange costs, and you get a platform price. That is one line of a year-one budget.

An exchange also pays for a license, custody, liquidity, banking, compliance tools, security and people. Few of them publish prices.

So we used figures anyone can check: regulators' fee schedules, pricing pages and public budgets. Where none exists, we say what drives the cost.

Year-One Budget at a Glance

Line	Published figure, and whose	What drives it
License fees	NYDFS: $5,000 to apply. VARA: AED 100,000, then AED 200,000 a year	Jurisdictions and activities
Capital	MiCA: €150,000 minimum for a trading platform	Activities and overheads
Platform	B2Broker estimate: $8,000 to $250,000+, by tier	White label or build; features
Hosting	B2Broker estimate: $2,000 to $6,000 a month	Cloud or on-premise
Custody	Fireblocks: $999 a month; custom from $36,000 a year	Outbound volume, wallets, chains
Liquidity	B2Broker estimate: $5,000 to $15,000 a month, one provider	Pairs, depth, providers
Fiat rails	BTSE estimate: 0.5% to 2% per transaction	Currencies and volume
KYC and AML	Sumsub: $1.35 to $1.85 per verification	Users onboarded; screening depth
Pentests	Zcash grant: $750 a day per engineer	Surfaces, roles, retests
SOC 2 or CCSS	No published price	Systems and criteria in scope
Monitoring	Zcash grant: $14,800 a month, with pentesting	Surfaces watched; response hours
Bug bounty	Kraken: 26 rewards in the last year, averaging $3,962	Reward tiers; platform fee
Insurance	No published premiums	Hot wallet share; limits
Staff	BLS, May 2025: $129,180 median, security analysts	Headcount; 24/7 coverage

Each figure is its source's own number, and none is a quote for your exchange.

They mix one-off, monthly, yearly and per-use prices, so they do not add up to a total.

Licensing and Legal

The license sets where you can operate, and much of what you must build.

New York: a $5,000 BitLicense application fee, not refunded if denied or withdrawn.
Dubai: VARA charges AED 100,000 to apply for Exchange Services, then AED 200,000 a year in supervision.
EU: MiCA requires at least €150,000 of capital to operate a trading platform.

New York sets capital case by case, from each licensee's risks, volume and liquidity. Licensees also keep a surety bond or trust account for customers.

VARA adds an extension fee for each extra activity, such as custody, at half the lower application fee. Each activity carries its own annual supervision fee.

Under MiCA, the floor is the higher of €150,000 and a quarter of last year's fixed overheads, held as own funds, insurance or both. Our MiCA license cost guide covers national fees.

Vendor estimates for licensing vary widely. B2Broker puts annual licensing at $25,000 to $150,000; BTSE says "tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars".

Platform, Custody and Liquidity

Platform

Three vendors publish ranges or terms:

B2Broker (April 2026): tiers run from $8,000 to $14,000 (basic) up to $100,000 to $250,000+ (enterprise).
BTSE (June 2026): $2,000 to $15,000 a month in platform licensing or revenue share.
HollaEx: a 15% revenue share on its Enterprise Cloud plan, with no setup price listed.

B2Broker and BTSE both sell white-label exchanges, so read these as sellers' estimates. BTSE says a build from scratch "easily exceeds $1 million in development costs".

Custody

Fireblocks lists two plans. Essentials costs $999 a month for up to six months, with $1 million of outbound volume a quarter and a 0.20% overage rate.

That allowance is small for an exchange. Custom plans start at $36,000 a year.

Custody also carries liability. Under MiCA Article 75(8), a custodian is liable for client crypto-assets lost through incidents attributable to it. See crypto insurance for institutions.

Liquidity and banking

B2Broker estimates $5,000 to $15,000 a month for one liquidity provider. BTSE says terms are "negotiated case-by-case".

We found no published price for an exchange's bank account. BTSE puts fiat on and off-ramp partners at 0.5% to 2% per transaction.

What drives both: the pairs and currencies you list, the depth you promise, and your volume.

Compliance Tooling

Identity checks are priced per user. Sumsub publishes its rates:

Basic: $1.35 per verification, $149 monthly minimum. ID, liveness and Travel Rule.
Compliance: $1.85 per verification, $299 minimum. Covers AML screening and ongoing AML monitoring.
Custom: transaction monitoring and business verification, priced on request.

Notabene prices its full Travel Rule platform on request. Its free tier caps outgoing transfers at $10,000 a month.

What drives this line: users onboarded, how often you rescreen, and analytics on deposits and withdrawals.

Security Program Costs

Vendor pages fold security into one line. BTSE says to budget $10,000 to $40,000 for "a thorough penetration test and audit".

B2Broker's "advanced security" line, $20,000 to $40,000, bundles multisig wallets, DDoS protection and pentesting. Break it out.

Pentests

An approved 2026 Zcash grant pays $750 a day for a security engineer. Pitching Lido DAO in 2023, auditor Halborn put an average infrastructure audit at about $50,000.

An exchange has many surfaces: web app, API, mobile, cloud, admin consoles and the withdrawal path. Each adds tester-days. See our Web3 pentest cost guide.

SOC 2 or CCSS

Neither standard body publishes a price. The AICPA's SOC 2 guide spans security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality and privacy; which you put in scope shapes the work.

CCSS certifies systems, not companies, at Level 1, 2 or 3. Cost follows the systems in scope and the level.

Monitoring

The Zcash grant budgets $14,800 a month for six months, covering pentesting, darknet reports and attack surface monitoring.

We found no published price for 24/7 exchange monitoring and response.

What drives it: surfaces watched, coverage hours and who responds.

Bug bounty

Kraken pays Criticals $100,000 to $1.5 million. In the last year it rewarded 26 of 434 reports, at an average of $3,962: about $103,000 in all, by our math.

Platforms add fees. Immunefi's annual subscription removes its 10% platform fee on payouts. See exchange bug bounty programs.

Insurance

No insurer we read publishes crypto premium rates. Coinbase carries crime, specie and cyber cover and surety bonds, all subject to carriers' underwriting criteria.

For why exchanges still get hacked, see crypto exchange security.

Staffing

BLS median annual US wages, May 2025 (Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics):

Software developers: $135,980.
Information security analysts: $129,180.
Compliance officers: $80,730.

These are national wage medians, not crypto offers. Budget benefits, taxes and equity on top.

What drives the line: round-the-clock coverage, which functions you outsource, and the roles your regulator expects you to fill.

How Guardian Helps

Guardian does not publish pentest prices. We scope each engagement from the system itself.

For fintech platforms that accept user assets, Guardian pentests the flows that authenticate users, authorize actions and approve withdrawals.

Coverage spans web app, API, infrastructure, SDK and browser extension.

Managed Security adds 24/7 monitoring and direct response, a managed bug bounty, and Shield's continuous coverage of what faces the internet.

For institutions, the Digital Asset Assurance Pilot is a low-commitment first engagement, scoped to the modules you choose.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does it cost to start a crypto exchange?

There is no public all-in figure. Published lines include a $5,000 BitLicense application, VARA's AED 100,000 fee plus AED 200,000 a year, and €150,000 MiCA capital for a trading platform. B2Broker estimates a white-label platform at $8,000 to $250,000+.

Is a white-label exchange cheaper than building one?

Upfront, by vendors' own figures. B2Broker estimates a white-label platform at $8,000 to $250,000+; BTSE says building from scratch "easily exceeds $1 million in development costs". White labels add monthly fees or a revenue share, such as HollaEx's 15%.

How much should an exchange budget for security?

There is no standard figure. A Zcash grant pays $750 a day for a security engineer; Halborn puts an average infrastructure audit near $50,000. Add monitoring, a bounty, SOC 2 or CCSS, and insurance.

What license fees does a crypto exchange pay?

It depends on the jurisdiction. New York charges $5,000 to apply for a BitLicense. VARA charges AED 100,000 to apply for Exchange Services and AED 200,000 a year in supervision. MiCA sets €150,000 minimum capital for a trading platform.

Sources

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