Methodology

Our methodology

How we source, verify, rank, and maintain the merchants, cards, and processors in this directory.

Editorial principles

Pay in Crypto is an editorially independent directory. Our listings are not paid placements, and merchants cannot buy a higher rank, a "verified" badge, or any other prominence in our results. The only commercial relationship we have with any merchant is the standard referral disclosure published in our terms — and even then, we never let it influence whether a merchant is included or how it is described.

Our research is grounded in two questions: does this business actually accept cryptocurrency today, and if so, what is the customer experience? Everything else in the directory is a consequence of answering those two questions well.

We publish this methodology so that anyone — merchant, customer, journalist, competitor — can audit our work, point out an error, or suggest a correction. Our submission form and the contact details in our about page are open to everyone.

How we find merchants

Listings enter the directory through four channels, in rough order of volume:

Payment processor public directories. BitPay, Coinbase Commerce, BTCPay Server, NOWPayments, CoinGate, and other major processors maintain public lists of merchants using their integrations. We treat these as a starting point, not a final answer.
Direct outreach. Our research team identifies businesses in high-intent categories (travel, electronics, VPNs, hosting, gift cards) and asks whether they accept crypto. If yes, we add them pending verification.
Community submissions. Anyone can suggest a merchant via our submission form. We triage every submission, and a meaningful percentage of new entries each month come from users.
Coin and chain partnerships. Specific coin foundations and ecosystem grants (e.g. Bitcoin, Monero, Lightning Network) sometimes highlight merchants in their networks. We cross-reference these with our other sources.

How we verify a listing

Every merchant we list goes through the same five-step verification process. A listing is only published when all five steps succeed.

1. Confirm the merchant exists and operates

We check that the business has a working website, a clear product or service offering, and an active presence. We exclude shell sites, parked domains, and storefronts that have been abandoned.

2. Confirm crypto is accepted, on the live site

We open the checkout flow, look for explicit crypto payment options, and capture a screenshot of the payment methods listing. We never rely on a homepage banner or a press release alone — we need the option visible at checkout.

3. Identify supported coins and networks

We document which coins the merchant accepts and on which networks (e.g. BTC on Lightning vs. on-chain, USDC on Base vs. Ethereum). This matters because the right network often determines whether a payment is economical.

4. Identify the payment processor (if any)

We note which processor the merchant uses. This is useful for users who want to know what to expect (fees, refund policy, customer support) and for our processors directory cross-linking.

5. Tag the categories

We assign one or more categories from our categories directory so the listing is discoverable from the right hub pages.

How listings are ranked

Ranking within a category or coin page is driven by a combination of three factors, weighted as follows:

Listing weight (40%) — an editorially assigned number reflecting overall relevance, popularity, and trust. We do not publish the exact algorithm, but high-weight listings tend to be well-known brands, large catalogs, and businesses with strong customer service reputations.
Verification recency (30%) — how recently we re-verified that the listing is still accurate. Listings verified within the last 90 days are favored over those last verified a year ago.
Coin and category breadth (30%) — how many of the coins and categories a user is browsing the listing supports. A merchant that accepts five of the user's six coins ranks above one that accepts one.

We do not sort by Alphabetical order on category and coin pages by default, except where a user explicitly requests it. Paid promotion is not a ranking signal under any circumstances.

Update cadence and freshness

Crypto payment support is volatile. A merchant that accepted Bitcoin in 2023 may have switched processors, dropped certain coins, or shut down entirely. We treat this as a continuous problem, not a one-time setup task.

Top 100 listings (by traffic and brand recognition) are re-verified at least every 30 days. We attempt a checkout-flow confirmation, re-check the supported coins list, and update the listing's lastVerifiedAt timestamp.

Long-tail listings (everything else) are re-verified at least every 180 days, and more often if we receive a user report suggesting something has changed.

Listings that have failed verification twice are marked as unverified rather than deleted, with a note explaining when and why verification failed. They are removed from default sort order on category and coin pages until they can be re-verified.

Every listing displays its last verification date in plain sight. We believe that surfacing this information is more useful to users than hiding it, and it gives merchants an incentive to keep their crypto checkout integration working.

Crypto cards directory: separate criteria

Our crypto cards directory follows a similar verification process, with some additional considerations specific to financial products:

Card status — we explicitly mark cards as active, waitlist, or paused, based on whether new applications are currently being accepted. Cards paused for more than six months are reviewed for removal.
Issuing bank and network — every card lists the issuing bank and the card network (Visa, Mastercard, Amex). This is information the issuer is required to disclose, and we treat it as required metadata.
Geographic availability — we list every country or region the card is available in, drawn from the issuer's own disclosures. Cards available only in a single country are tagged accordingly so they don't appear in inappropriate comparison contexts.
Reward rates and tiers — we document exact reward rates, monthly caps, and the asset in which rewards are paid. Where a card has changed its rewards structure within the last 90 days, we flag the change on the listing.

Comparison pages (e.g. Crypto.com vs Coinbase, Gemini vs Coinbase One) pull the structured card data directly from our collection, so any update to a card's frontmatter or markdown body is reflected on the comparison page on the next build.

What we don't do

For the avoidance of doubt, here's what Pay in Crypto is not:

We are not a payment processor, custodian, or exchange. We do not hold customer funds, process transactions, or offer financial advice.
We do not sell listings, badges, or ranking. We do not run "featured merchant" sponsorships. The directory is free to list on.
We do not publish unverified rumors, press-release announcements, or roadmap promises. If a merchant says they "will accept" crypto, we wait until they actually do before listing them.
We do not run a "trust score" or aggregate rating. These are easily gamed and rarely reflect the buyer experience we care about.

Corrections and disputes

We make mistakes. The crypto payment space changes quickly, merchant integrations break, and processor relationships end without notice. When something is wrong, we want to hear about it.

If you are a merchant and we've listed you incorrectly — wrong URL, wrong coins, wrong status, wrong category — please reach out and we'll fix it on the next build cycle. We aim to acknowledge every merchant correction request within two business days.

If you are a user and a listing is out of date, the fastest path is the submission form. Mark the existing entry as needing verification and include the merchant name and what you observed. We treat user reports as a high-priority signal for re-verification.

Methodology last reviewed: June 12, 2026. This page is updated whenever our verification process changes materially.