The best self-hosted crypto payment gateways in 2026

A self-hosted crypto payment gateway is software you run on your own server to take crypto payments. No processor holds your money, approves your account or can switch you off. Five projects come up most often: BTCPay Server, SHKeeper, Bitcart, PayRam and Coldtill.

We make Coldtill, so read this with that in mind. We've tried to make it useful anyway: every fact about another project comes from its own website, docs or GitHub (linked on each comparison page), checked on 15 October 2026, and we say where the others do better than we do. If something is wrong or out of date, email support@coldtill.com and we'll fix it.

At a glance

Five questions that decide it

1. Which coins will your customers pay with?

If your customers are Bitcoiners, almost any gateway will do and BTCPay Server is the natural choice. If they hold USDT on Tron, USDC on Base or Solana, or a long tail of altcoins, coverage starts to matter.

2. Do you want to hold crypto, or dollars?

Every gateway except one leaves you holding whatever the customer paid with. That's fine if you want Bitcoin. If you don't, the price moves between the sale and the day you convert, and each coin becomes a gain or loss to track.

Coldtill's auto-convert delivers USDC or USDT to your own wallet, so each sale stays at its dollar value and your books stay in dollars, which usually makes accounting and tax returns simpler (check with your accountant for your country). BTCPay Server's exchange plugins convert altcoins into Bitcoin rather than dollars. PayRam bridges a few chains to USDC on Base. SHKeeper and Bitcart don't convert.

3. What happens if your server is broken into?

The server that runs your checkout is the machine attackers reach first, so it matters whether it holds the keys to customers' payments.

• BTCPay Server and Bitcart (for Bitcoin-style coins) watch your own wallet's public key, so the server never holds those keys. Lightning in BTCPay needs hot keys.
• SHKeeper stores encrypted keys for received funds on the server and forwards them to cold storage on a schedule.
• Bitcart's paid ETH plugin keeps per-invoice address keys in your database.
• PayRam uses contracts on Ethereum-style chains and Tron that sweep to your cold wallet. Bitcoin is swept with its mobile app.
• Coldtill covers every chain it supports: deposit contracts that can only pay your cold wallet on Ethereum, Base, Polygon, BNB Chain and Tron, program accounts that do the same on Solana, and Bitcoin addresses derived from your own wallet's public key, like BTCPay Server and Bitcart. Its web-facing API holds no keys at all.

4. How much work is running it?

BTCPay Server validates payments against your own Bitcoin node, which is the most independent setup but needs a first sync of one to five days. SHKeeper's supported install is Kubernetes. Bitcart, PayRam and Coldtill install with one command on a small server; Coldtill needs 2 GB of RAM and RPC nodes you choose, which means trusting those providers to report deposits (the docs recommend two per network).

5. What does it cost, and can you read the code?

BTCPay Server, SHKeeper and Bitcart are open source and free, which is a real advantage: anyone can audit them. Coldtill is closed source, with a free edition that takes 2% of each sweep and one-time licences that cut it to 1% or nothing. Bitcoin and auto-converted payments carry no fee in any edition. PayRam is closed source and takes a cut of every payment with no way to pay it off: its blog advertises "0% core processing fees" while its docs list 1%–5% of funds settled to your cold wallet.

Each gateway in brief

BTCPay Server. The best-known self-hosted gateway: free, MIT licensed, with Lightning, a point of sale, crowdfunding and many store plugins. Strongest for a Bitcoin business. Weaker on stablecoins and other chains, which rely on community plugins. Coldtill vs BTCPay Server.

SHKeeper. Free and GPL-3.0, with Monero, Lightning, TON and modules for WooCommerce, WHMCS, OpenCart and PrestaShop. Strongest for broad coin coverage at no cost. Weaker on server risk (a hot wallet holds received funds) and ease of running (Kubernetes). Coldtill vs SHKeeper.

Bitcart. Free, MIT licensed and light enough for a 1 GB server, with a built-in store. Strongest for developers and Bitcoin-style coins. Weaker on Ethereum and Tron: the free version uses one address per wallet and matches by the sender's address, so exchange payments don't match, and per-invoice addresses need a paid plugin. Coldtill vs Bitcart.

PayRam. The hardest of the five to recommend. It's the only one that combines the downsides of both worlds: closed source like a commercial product, and a percentage of every payment, for as long as you use it, like a hosted processor. Its blog advertises "0% core processing fees" and "You receive 100% of the value of every single transaction", while its docs charge "a flat 1%-5% fee on settlement, when funds are withdrawn to the cold wallet". It takes five chains directly, needs a connection to a PayRam server to work, and its own release notes list fixes this year for QR codes that could send funds to a token's contract address, Tron deposits left stuck and a payout path that could pay twice. Its one extra, card payments, runs through third-party on-ramps where your customers complete KYC, and PayRam still takes its cut. We couldn't find a case where it's the best choice. Coldtill vs PayRam.

Coldtill. Closed source, with deposit contracts that can only pay your cold wallet on six chains plus Bitcoin by public key, and 200+ coins settled in stablecoins. Strongest for stablecoin businesses and anyone who wants to take many coins but hold dollars. Weaker on openness (source not published), Lightning and Monero (not yet supported), and it relies on RPC providers rather than its own full node.

Which should you pick?

• Bitcoin only, with Lightning: BTCPay Server.
• Monero: SHKeeper or Bitcart.
• Open source is a must: BTCPay Server, SHKeeper or Bitcart.
• Stablecoins, many chains, and you'd rather hold dollars than coins: Coldtill.
• No percentage fee at all: BTCPay Server, SHKeeper, Bitcart or Coldtill Pro.
• PayRam: in every case above, one of the others does the job with lower fees, more coins or open code. It's the only one that always takes a cut.

What about hosted processors?

Hosted processors such as Stripe, NOWPayments, Cryptomus, BitPay and Coinbase are quicker to start with, but you open an account with them. That means business verification (KYB), a list of businesses they won't serve, and terms that let them hold your funds or close your account. With any self-hosted gateway above, there's no account to freeze. We compare them one by one:

• Coldtill vs Stripe: USDC only, US businesses, 1.5%, settled to your Stripe balance.
• Coldtill vs NOWPayments: custodial by default, terms allow closing accounts "for any or no reason".
• Coldtill vs Cryptomus: sanctioned by the UK in October 2026, after a record C$177M penalty from Canada's FINTRAC (under appeal). Merchant balances sit with the processor.
• Coldtill vs BitPay: merchant KYB, ID checks for customers, 1%–2% plus 25¢.
• Coldtill vs Coinbase Commerce: shut down in March 2026; Coinbase Business is custodial and US or Singapore only.

One limit applies to every option, hosted or self-hosted: Tether and Circle can freeze USDT and USDC at the token level.

You can try Coldtill free with one command and no account: see Download, or click through the live demo dashboard.

More comparisons

• Coldtill vs BTCPay Server
• Coldtill vs SHKeeper
• Coldtill vs Bitcart
• Coldtill vs Stripe
• Coldtill vs NOWPayments
• Coldtill vs BitPay
• Coldtill vs Cryptomus
• Coldtill vs Coinbase Commerce
• Coldtill vs PayRam