BitPay and Fianto compared: who holds the money, what it costs, and which one fits you.

Which is better for you, BitPay or Fianto?

BitPay is the better fit when you want fiat in a bank account and customers who pay in Bitcoin or other coins; Fianto is the better fit when you want USDC in your own wallet and subscriptions that collect themselves. Fianto publishes this post, so read it as a vendor comparing itself with a competitor. Every BitPay fact below links to a BitPay page, read on 15 October 2026, and every Fianto fact describes the product as it runs today, including what it does not do.

One note on sources. BitPay's main site and support centre refused our fetcher on 15 October 2026, so we could not read the pricing page itself. BitPay's developer documentation opened fine, and that is where most of the BitPay column comes from. The volume tiers come only from a bitpay.com search-result snippet, and we say so where they appear.

Where does the money go after a customer pays?

With BitPay, the customer pays BitPay, and BitPay pays you later. BitPay's settlement guide puts it this way: "BitPay collects and deposits all payments processed from the previous business day directly to your bank or cryptocurrency wallet, according to your settlement preferences." Until that settlement runs, the money sits in your BitPay ledger. You choose fiat, crypto or a mix; the same guide lists USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, AUD, NZD, CHF and MXN for bank settlement, and BTC, ETH, USDC and other coins for crypto settlement. It describes a token settlement as "a token on the Ethereum network (like USDC)" and does not mention Solana, although BitPay accepts USDC on Solana as a payment, so ask BitPay which network a USDC settlement to you would use.

With Fianto, nothing sits anywhere. The customer signs one Solana transaction on Fianto's hosted checkout, and that transaction moves the price from their wallet to yours. Fianto has no merchant balance and no payout step; the checkout page tells the customer "Nobody holds it in between." The trade-off is that what lands is USDC, not dollars in a bank. Fianto has no off-ramp, so turning USDC into local currency is a separate step with a service you choose, covered in turning USDC revenue into local currency.

The difference between the two models, a processor that holds funds and a checkout that never does, is the subject of custodial vs non-custodial crypto payments. For Fianto the full path of one payment is on the docs page How money moves.

How much does BitPay charge, and how much does Fianto?

BitPay charges the merchant a percentage plus a flat fee on each payment. Its developer guide on passing fees to customers uses 2% plus a $0.25 flat fee for its examples, then says: "Your fees may differ." bitpay.com's pricing page, as it appears in search results on 15 October 2026, lists three tiers by monthly volume: 2% + 25 cents under $500,000, 1.5% + 25 cents from $500,000 to $999,999, and 1% + 25 cents from $1,000,000, with higher fees for high-risk industries. The customer also pays the network fee for the coin they choose, which BitPay adds to the invoice.

Fianto charges the merchant nothing, and the merchant never pays a network fee. There is no Fianto fee during the beta. After the beta, the customer will pay a Fianto fee of about 0.1% to 0.5% on top of your price; you still receive the full price. A one-off payment carries no USDC network fee at all, and the customer pays the Solana transaction fee, under $0.01.

If you pass BitPay's fee to the customer, adding 2% + 25 cents to the price is not enough, because the fee grows with the total. BitPay's guide gives the formula invoiceTotal = (settlement + flat fee) / (1 - rate) and its own example: to keep $1,000 you charge $1,020.66. Card fees and the same arithmetic for USDC are in USDC vs card fees, worked through.

How long until a payment counts, and until you can spend it?

A BitPay invoice gives the customer 15 minutes to send the payment, then moves through states that you can tune with the transactionSpeed setting. BitPay's invoice guide says an order is credited to your BitPay account for settlement only once the invoice reaches the status complete, whatever that setting; for Bitcoin, complete means two confirmations, which BitPay puts at about 20 minutes. The money then waits for the next daily settlement. For USD by ACH, BitPay says funds appear in your bank two business days after a settlement is issued, with a 20 USD minimum; EUR by SEPA takes one business day with a 500 EUR minimum; USDC settlement is forwarded daily, with a 200 USDC minimum.

A Fianto checkout stays open for 30 minutes by default, and a session created through the API can be set anywhere from 5 minutes to 24 hours. Once the customer signs, the checkout page shows success at confirmed. Fianto marks the order paid and sends order.paid only at finalized, the point where Solana will not roll the transaction back. The USDC is in your wallet from the moment the transaction lands, with no settlement batch after it. Until the Alpenglow upgrade activates on mainnet, scheduled for 21 October 2026, Solana puts finality at about 12.8 seconds; Solana's Alpenglow page says the upgrade targets roughly 150 milliseconds. Why Fianto waits for finalized is in confirmed vs finalized on Solana.

Can BitPay or Fianto charge a customer every month automatically?

BitPay bills on a schedule but does not collect on its own. Its API reference defines subscriptions as "repeat billing agreements with specific buyers. BitPay sends bill emails to buyers identified in active subscriptions according to the specified schedule." Each bill is then paid by the customer like any other invoice. In exchange, the schedule is flexible: weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, or a cron expression.

Fianto collects. The customer approves once at checkout, and the Solana Foundation's Subscriptions program lets Fianto pull each period's charge within a cap fixed on chain: the price plus the fees, to the wallets the plan names, never more. A monthly plan renews every 30 days and a yearly plan every 365 days. If the wallet is short, nothing is taken, the subscription is past due, and Fianto tries again about one hour, six hours and one day after the due time, four attempts in all; after the fourth failure the subscription ends. Each subscription charge carries a flat 0.01 USDC network fee today, paid by the customer, on plans created since 6 October 2026.

The limits run the other way here. Fianto has no weekly, quarterly or custom intervals, no free trials, and sends subscribers no renewal reminders. How the cap and the collection work is in how stablecoin subscriptions collect each period. Confirmo Subscribe, which also collects renewals under a spending approval, is compared in Confirmo Subscribe vs Fianto.

How do refunds and identity checks differ?

Refunds

A BitPay refund is paid from your BitPay balance. BitPay's refund guide says your BitPay ledger must hold more than the refund amount before you can create the refund, and the customer receives an email with a link where they enter a wallet address to accept it. BitPay also handles some mistakes for you: a partial payment is not credited and is refunded to the customer automatically, and an overpaid amount is refunded too.

Fianto has no refund API. A refund is you sending USDC back from your own wallet, because the money was never anywhere else. Fianto does flag the cases where a refund is likely owed: if a customer pays an order that is already paid, the second transfer still lands in your wallet, Fianto sends order.duplicate_payment, and the order appears under Orders with an unmatched transfer on the Needs attention page so you can send the extra back.

Identity checks

BitPay's compliance page says it requires BitPay ID, a one-time check for individuals, for "Customers making a purchase in excess of $3,000 USD", for recipients of payouts or refunds, and for VPN users, among other cases. Merchants apply with documents, including valid IDs for every owner holding 25% or more, and BitPay's account setup guide says approval typically takes about five to seven business days. Accounts start at a tier of $10,000 a day and $500,000 a year, raised through further review.

Fianto never asks payers for ID. Merchants fill in a typed business profile (a company also lists owners holding 25% or more), turn on two-factor sign-in, prove their receiving wallet with a signed message, and wait for a person at Fianto to approve them. Fianto promises no review time. Which checks your own business needs is a question for your adviser: this is not legal advice.

Who should choose BitPay, and who should choose Fianto?

Choose BitPay if

• You want fiat in a bank account every business day, with no conversion step of your own.
• Your customers pay in Bitcoin, Ether or other coins, not only USDC.
• You need ecommerce plugins, a testnet with mock payments, or several staff logins.
• You bill on weekly, quarterly or custom schedules and are fine with customers paying each emailed bill.

Choose Fianto if

• You want to keep USDC, paid straight into a wallet you control, with no settlement batch or minimum.
• Your customers already hold USDC on Solana.
• You sell monthly or yearly plans and want renewals collected without an invoice or a reminder.
• You want to sell without code, through a shop or a payment link, and pay no merchant fee.

Fianto's limits, plainly: USDC on Solana only, no fiat payout, no invoices, no test mode, no team accounts, no tax calculation, and no refund API. If any of those rules it out, BitPay or a similar processor is the honest answer. If you want both, run them side by side: BitPay for Bitcoin and bank settlement, Fianto for Solana USDC and subscriptions. Other options are compared in Coinbase Commerce alternatives, MoonPay Commerce (Helio) vs Fianto and NOWPayments vs Fianto.