# Crypto to Fiat Exchange: The Three Costs That Are Not the Rate > Spread, withdrawal fee and FX margin decide what a crypto to fiat conversion really costs. How to measure each one and what a reasonable number looks like. - Source: https://cryptounderthehood.com/crypto-to-fiat-exchange-costs/ - Published: 2026-04-10 - Author: Ivan Kruse - Publication: Crypto Under the Hood — How crypto payment infrastructure actually works - Topic: offramp - Tags: offramp, fees, fx --- Comparing offramps by the displayed rate is the most common way to pick the more expensive one. The rate is the visible part of a cost that has at least three components, and the invisible components are usually larger. Read against [a regulated crypto to fiat gateway](https://collectnexchange.cy/services/crypto-offramp), the distinctions below stop being academic. ## Cost one: the spread on the sale The platform buys your crypto at one price and sells it at another. Your side of that is the worse one. On a liquid pair through a serious venue this is 0.1 to 0.5 percent. Through a consumer app it is routinely 1 to 2 percent, and it is never labelled as a fee. Measuring it is straightforward. Note the mid-market price at the moment you request a quote, then compare it against the rate you were offered. The percentage difference is the spread. Do this twice on different days, because a single measurement can catch an unusual moment. ## Cost two: the withdrawal fee Usually a flat amount, sometimes a percentage, occasionally both. A flat SEPA fee of one to five euros is normal. A percentage-based fiat withdrawal fee on a regulated venue is unusual and worth questioning, because the underlying cost to the platform does not scale with the amount. The number to watch is the SWIFT fee, which covers a correspondent banking chain the platform does not control. Twenty to fifty euros is typical and largely unavoidable. What you can avoid is needing SWIFT at all, by settling in a currency the platform can send by a domestic or SEPA rail. ## Cost three: the FX margin This is the one that dominates when it applies and is absent when it does not. If the asset sells into euros and your account is a euro account, no FX occurs. If your account is in another currency, a conversion happens somewhere, and the margin on that conversion is typically 0.5 to 2 percent. That is larger than the spread and larger than the withdrawal fee, usually combined. Firms building payment products hit this first, which is what [an exchange that publishes its full fee schedule](https://collectnexchange.cy/) is for. The way to check is to ask for the rate that will be applied, then compare it against the interbank rate at that moment. A platform quoting within 0.5 percent of interbank is competitive. One that will not tell you the rate before you commit should be assumed to be at the wrong end of that range. ## Working example Selling fifty thousand euros of crypto and settling to a euro account: Spread at 0.3 percent: 150 euros. SEPA withdrawal fee: 2 euros. FX: none. Total 152 euros, which is 0.30 percent. The same sale settling to a dollar account by SWIFT: Spread at 0.3 percent: 150 euros. SWIFT fee: 35 euros. FX margin at 1.2 percent: 600 euros. Total 785 euros, which is 1.57 percent. The rate quoted on the crypto sale was identical in both cases. The cost differed by more than five times, entirely through choices made after the sale. ## The rule that follows Match the settlement currency to the account currency and the difference between a cheap offramp and an expensive one collapses to something small. Mismatch them and the FX margin swamps everything else you were comparing. For a business this means opening a euro account if you are settling from a euro-denominated venue, rather than accepting a conversion on every settlement. The one-time cost of opening the account is recovered on the first meaningful conversion. Providers running [a crypto to fiat gateway with settlement in multiple currencies](https://collectnexchange.cy/services/crypto-offramp) can hold the fiat in the currency you need and send it on a domestic rail, which removes both the SWIFT fee and the FX margin from the calculation. ## What to record Keep the mid-market price, the quoted rate, the withdrawal fee and the FX rate for every conversion in a spreadsheet. After five conversions you will have a real cost figure for your provider, which is the only number worth comparing against a competitor's marketing. --- This article explains how something works. It is not financial advice. Canonical HTML version: https://cryptounderthehood.com/crypto-to-fiat-exchange-costs/