Put the trading cost first
The figure that moves most for a regular buyer is the fee taken on each side of a trade, and the listings show how far apart those can sit. Across the exchanges on our crypto exchanges ranking, taker fees run 0% to 5.5%. That spread is why a single cheapest answer rarely holds up: the same trade can cost a fraction of the top of that range at one end of the table and several times that at the other.
ActivTrades is the clearest case. Its maker fee is 0% and its taker fee is 0%, so the difference between the two sides of the order book disappears. bunq sits at the other end of what a card-based buyer may meet, with maker fees of 0.25% to 1.99% and taker fees of 0.25% to 1.99%. The ActivTrades review sets that against the other providers.
Read the two sides together rather than quoting a headline. A provider with a lower maker fee than taker fee rewards you for adding liquidity and charges more for taking it off, which suits limit orders and works against market orders. When both figures sit together at the floor, as they do at ActivTrades, the order type you use matters far less, and derivatives become the more important question to ask.
Count the costs that are not the trade
Trading fees are only part of what leaves your account. A card that spends your crypto in shops, or converts euros into other currencies, adds charges that can outweigh a small gap in maker and taker fees, so the card section deserves the same attention as the order screen.
The Bitpanda card lists a monthly fee of €0 and an fx fee of 0%, with a cashback rate of 1%. bunq also lists a monthly fee of €0, but its fx fee runs 0.5% to 3% across 8 currencies, so what you pay when spending abroad depends on the currency you are holding. The Bitpanda review breaks down what the card does with each of them.
Card type and network decide what you get at the till. The Bitpanda card is a debit card on visa, and the bunq card a debit card on mastercard. Both draw on money you already hold rather than extending credit, which keeps the balance you can spend tied to the balance you own.
Check how much of the market you can reach
Coin count is the quickest proxy for breadth, and it varies more than any other line in the comparison. Across the providers we rank, coin counts run 1 to 9,000,000, so a deliberately small platform and a very large one can share a single table without competing for the same reader.
ActivTrades lists 9 coins, which makes it a focused choice rather than a broad shop. Bitpanda lists from from 650 and bunq from from 350, both in the band that suits holding a small set of major assets and ignoring the rest. Start your own comparison on the Crypto exchanges ranking and mark the count against how many coins you genuinely plan to hold.
Breadth is not the same as depth. A long list spreads your holdings wider, but it also means more listings to check for custody, liquidity and support. Deciding your real list first stops the biggest number on the page from making the decision for you.
Work out who holds the coins
Custody is the question most readers skip and think about later. A custodial provider keeps the keys on your behalf, which is quicker to set up and harder to recover if an account is frozen or a firm fails. All three listings here are custodial and centralised, with an exchange type of cex at ActivTrades, cex at Bitpanda and cex at bunq.
The surrounding feature set shows how custody sits next to everything else. Bitpanda lists crypto, custodial and multi currency, while bunq lists multi currency, crypto and virtual card and ActivTrades lists custodial. Note what bunq does not include: a custodial label of its own, even though the account holds crypto. The bunq review is the place to check how that arrangement is described.
ActivTrades also offers derivatives, which is a different kind of exposure: a leveraged position on price movement rather than ownership of the asset. If you want to hold over months, a non-derivative exchange keeps the exit route and the fee conversation simpler.
Check the regulator and the named legal entity
Regulatory status separates a firm you could raise a complaint with from one you could not. Bitpanda is the only listing here with regulators named, and the list runs: FMA (Austria), BaFin (Germany) and Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA).
Licence numbers let you check that claim instead of trusting a badge. Its Austrian licence reads PSD_EMI AT_FMA_54966, alongside MiCA CASP registrations for Austria, Germany and Malta at MiCA CASP 5493007WZ7IFULIL8G21, MiCA CASP 9845005X9B7N610K0093 and MiCA CASP 984500DEID7B03J77118. Copy the number into the register rather than trusting the page you read it on.
The legal entity matters because it tells you which company you are contracting with. Bitpanda trades as Bitpanda GmbH, with its home country listed as AT, while bunq trades as bunq B.V. with a home country of NL. Support tells you the same thing in practice, and bunq lists email and chat.
Weigh age and audience against the fees
An exchange that has operated through more than one full crypto cycle has seen conditions most new entrants have not. ActivTrades was founded in 2001 and bunq in 2012, and that history matters less than what each has chosen to support since.
The audience a provider designs for hints at what its costs are tuned for. bunq lists a student audience, which fits a plan with a monthly fee of €0 and a debit card rather than a derivatives desk. ActivTrades takes fiat deposits by card and bank, so the route your money takes in matters as much as the fee it pays on the way out.
Put the three side by side and the choice follows what you trade. A short coin list, no trading commission and derivatives suits a specialist who knows the few assets they want. A wide list with no monthly or fx charge on the card suits someone spending crypto day to day. A mid-sized list with a priced fx band and a student-leaning design suits a first account.
Read the detail before you commit
No single line decides an exchange, so weight the sections against your own use. Trading cost sets the floor, card and fx charges set the running total, coin count sets what you can act on, custody and licences set how much you trust the setup.
Work through that order with the full write-ups rather than the summary rows: the ActivTrades review, the Bitpanda review and the bunq review cover fees, custody and account mechanics in the depth these choices need.