# Crypto Acquiring for Businesses: How It Works End to End > What happens between a customer paying in crypto and fiat arriving in your bank account, who carries the price risk, and what the whole thing costs. - Source: https://cryptounderthehood.com/crypto-acquiring-for-businesses/ - Published: 2026-06-14 - Author: Ivan Kruse - Publication: Crypto Under the Hood — How crypto payment infrastructure actually works - Topic: acquiring - Tags: acquiring, payments, settlement --- Crypto acquiring is the mirror image of card acquiring: a provider accepts a payment on your behalf, takes the risk of the payment method, and settles you in the currency you actually want. The mechanics differ from cards in ways that matter. Most of what follows is checkable against [a crypto payment gateway with fiat settlement](https://collectnexchange.cy/business-solutions/crypto-acquiring) rather than taken on trust. ## The flow, step by step **The quote.** Your checkout asks the provider for a payment request. The provider returns an address, an amount in crypto, and an expiry, usually ten to twenty minutes. The amount is calculated from your fiat price at the current rate. **The customer pays.** They send from a wallet or an exchange to the address shown. Nothing has settled yet. **Confirmation.** The provider waits for the required number of confirmations, which varies by chain and by amount. This is the step where the customer is waiting and your order status is pending. **Conversion.** The provider converts the received crypto to fiat, usually at the moment of confirmation, sometimes at the moment the payment request was created if it is hedging. **Settlement.** Fiat arrives in your bank account on the provider's settlement schedule, typically next business day or on a weekly cycle. ## Who carries the price risk, and when This is the question that separates providers and it is not always answered clearly. If the provider guarantees the fiat amount from the moment the payment request is created, it is carrying the risk between quote and confirmation. You receive exactly the invoiced amount. The cost of that guarantee is inside the fee. If the provider converts at confirmation and passes you the result, you carry the risk of the movement during that window. Usually minutes, occasionally longer on a congested chain. Cheaper headline fee, occasional shortfalls against the invoice. For a merchant selling goods at a fixed price, the guaranteed model is almost always correct. A two percent adverse move on a payment wipes out the margin on many products. The same requirement shows up one layer along, where [ecommerce payment solutions with crypto settlement](https://collectnexchange.cy/industries/high-risk-ecommerce) handles it as a product. ## Underpayment and overpayment More common than in card payments, because the customer is constructing the transaction themselves and network fees can be deducted at source. A customer sends slightly less than requested. Policies vary: some providers credit the shortfall against the order and flag it, some reject and refund, some have a tolerance band. A tolerance band of one percent or a small fixed amount handles the majority of real cases. Ask what the policy is and whether you can configure it. A provider that rejects a payment short by forty cents is generating support tickets for you. ## What it costs Typically 0.5 to 1.5 percent all-in for the guaranteed model, declining with volume. That compares with roughly 1.4 to 3 percent for card acquiring in most European markets. The headline saving is real but it is not the main reason companies do this. The main reasons are: no chargebacks, access to customers who cannot or will not pay by card, and settlement that does not depend on card scheme rules. ## Chargebacks, or the absence of them A crypto payment is final. Once confirmed it cannot be reversed by the payer. For merchants in categories with high chargeback rates this is the entire value proposition. Card acquiring in a high-risk category can cost four to eight percent once chargeback fees and reserves are included. Crypto acquiring at one percent with no reversals is a different business. It also shifts the fraud problem rather than removing it. You cannot lose the payment, but you can still ship goods to a fraudulent order. Standard fraud screening still applies. ## What to check before signing Settlement currency and frequency, and whether it settles to an account in your company name. The price risk model. The underpayment tolerance and refund process. Which chains and assets are supported, because supporting an asset on the wrong chain is a common gap. Integration effort: hosted page, API, or plugin. And what the refund process looks like, since refunding a crypto payment is not automatic. A provider offering [crypto acquiring for businesses with fiat settlement](https://collectnexchange.cy/business-solutions/crypto-acquiring) should be able to state all of these before you start an integration. ## The refund question Worth its own paragraph because it is consistently underestimated. Refunding a crypto payment means sending crypto back, which means holding crypto or buying it, and the amount at today's rate is not the amount at the original rate. Decide your refund policy before launch: refund the original crypto amount, the original fiat amount in crypto at today's rate, or in fiat by bank transfer. All three are defensible. Not having decided produces a dispute with the first customer who asks. --- This article explains how something works. It is not financial advice. Canonical HTML version: https://cryptounderthehood.com/crypto-acquiring-for-businesses/