Provider at a glance
- Category
- Onramps
- Entity
- Not verified
- Official website
- kotanipay.com
Independent rankingchecked How it works
Details
Scored 41 out of 100 under methodology 2026.10.18, from the evidence read in September 2026.
Kotani Pay
African mobile-money ramp API
Onramps
#16 Overall
Ranked #16 of 16 onramps in the published ranking
41
ChainChoice Score
The ChainChoice Score, shown against 100: published scores run from 41 to 99.- High evidence confidence
Is Kotani Pay right for you?
Look elsewhere if these come first
- Purchase cost1/10 here; Koywe scores 3
- Quote honesty2/10 here; Koywe scores 5
- Named licence4/10 here; Koywe scores 6
- KYC and speed2/10 here; Onmeta scores 6
Not yet tested for your country. Markets it lists: Africa.
to test where you can use it.
The rank above is the published one, the same for every reader. Find my best crypto onramp shows where it lands for you.
What will Kotani Pay cost you?
Not priced on this basis
- How do you buy?
- One-time
- Amount
- $1k
How safe is Kotani Pay?
- Evidence: verified4 of 4 criteria rest on quoted, sourced receipts. Read September 2026.
- LicenceMiCA (EU): no register record on file here.
Alternatives to Kotani Pay
Compare all 4- 13KoyweLevel on score · stronger on quote honesty (5 against 2)41
- 14OnmetaLevel on score · stronger on KYC and speed (6 against 2)41
- 15FonbnkLevel on score · stronger on purchase cost (3 against 1)41$25
For your setup
Find out if Kotani Pay fits you
The rank above is the published one — the same for every visitor. Answer the category's questions and this section shows where Kotani Pay lands for you, which criteria your answers weight up, and which stated needs the record does or does not meet. The published rank stays beside it.
- A few questions
- No account required
- Ranking-blind: no commercial input
- Personalised in under 60 seconds
Find my best crypto onrampNothing is inferred from clicks, popularity or commercial value.
Why this rank
Why Kotani Pay ranks #16
Each strength is read from evidence on a 0–10 ladder and weighted as the published methodology states. The 32 objective points these produce (6.7 here) sit inside the score; availability, friction, trust record and measured data add the rest.
4 published criteria · Σ weight 100
CriterionWeightStrength · 0–10ScoreContrib.MedianBestRankEvidence
341+1.095.08#13/16Loading evidence…
262+1.664.56#12/16Loading evidence…
224+2.826.09#12/16Loading evidence…
182+1.155.07#16/16Loading evidence…
Hairline = best in this ranking · tick = its median · a missing bar is "not scored", never zero
MarginLevelbehind Fonbnk, #15
RobustnessHoldsacross a one-point change to each of its 4 criterion scores, the re-run scores 41 and stays #16
Evidence4 of 4 scored4 quoted, 4 with a source link
What would move the rank
Each line is the ranking run again with one of Kotani Pay’s criterion scores changed and every other value held: the smallest whole-point change on that criterion that moves its rank, and where the re-run puts it. Up to 4 climbs and 3 falls are listed, smallest change first. Nothing here is a forecast.
What does a €200 purchase actually cost me — by card and by bank, all-in? 1 → 4 on its ladder · passes Fonbnk+341#16 → #15
Is the number on the widget the number that settles? 2 → 5 on its ladder · passes Fonbnk+341#16 → #15
Whose money-transmission licence is my money riding — and is that entity my counterparty? 4 → 8 on its ladder · passes Fonbnk+441#16 → #15
How much identity do I surrender before the coins land in my wallet, and how long does that take? 2 → 7 on its ladder · passes Fonbnk+541#16 → #15
Smallest climb: “What does a €200 purchase actually cost me — by card and by bank, all-in?” 1 → 4 passes Fonbnk, #15.
Strengths
0 from the score dataWhere it leads
No scored criterion is at or within one point of the category best, so no strength can be stated from the data.
Tradeoffs
4 from the score dataWhere it trails
Not for readers who put first
- What does a €200 purchase actually cost me — by card and by bank, all-in? — 1/10 against a category best of 8/10
- Is the number on the widget the number that settles? — 2/10 against a category best of 6/10
- Whose money-transmission licence is my money riding — and is that entity my counterparty? — 4/10 against a category best of 9/10
- How much identity do I surrender before the coins land in my wallet, and how long does that take? — 2/10 against a category best of 7/10
Record watch-outs
- You cannot learn the price, the terms, or the delivery promise before committing: no fee number exists on any public page, the Terms and Conditions URL returns 404, and access itself requires booking a sales call — the licence is real, but everything a buyer would check before trusting money to the rail is unpublished.
Competitive position
Where Kotani Pay leads and where it trails
Rank on every objective dimension among the rows scored on it. A criterion in the top third of its pool is listed as a lead, the bottom third as a trail; the middle is neither. Popularity, size and commercial terms are not dimensions.
Availability#14 / 166.0 of 20 · best 14.0
Published criteria#16 / 165.0 of 30 · best 16.9
Friction#1 / 162.7 of 10 · constant here
Trust record#1 / 163.2 of 8 · constant here
Measured data#3 / 168.3 of 18 · best 13.8
Where Kotani Pay leadsNo criterion in the top third of its pool.
Where it trails
- What does a €200 purchase actually cost me — by card and by bank, all-in?#13 / 16
- Is the number on the widget the number that settles?#12 / 16
- Whose money-transmission licence is my money riding — and is that entity my counterparty?#12 / 16
- How much identity do I surrender before the coins land in my wallet, and how long does that take?#16 / 16
Closest alternatives
The 3 nearest rows by score
Nearest by published score in either direction. Each card states the criteria on which the two rows differ and the cost difference under the same scenario inputs; the compare arithmetic below shows why the higher one ranks higher.
Fonbnk#15 of 16 · score 41 · same score
Kotani Pay leads on
- Whose money-transmission licence is my money riding — and is that entity my counterparty?4 vs 1
Fonbnk leads on
- What does a €200 purchase actually cost me — by card and by bank, all-in?3 vs 1
- How much identity do I surrender before the coins land in my wallet, and how long does that take?5 vs 2
Largest single reason Fonbnk is ahead: availability (+15.6 display points).Scenario cost: Kotani Pay has no verified pricing for this scenario.
Onmeta#14 of 16 · score 41 · same score
Kotani Pay leads onNo scored criterion
Onmeta leads on
- Is the number on the widget the number that settles?4 vs 2
- How much identity do I surrender before the coins land in my wallet, and how long does that take?6 vs 2
Largest single reason Onmeta is ahead: published criteria (+7.8 display points).Scenario cost: Onmeta has no verified pricing for this scenario.
Koywe#13 of 16 · score 41 · same score
Kotani Pay leads onNo scored criterion
Koywe leads on
- What does a €200 purchase actually cost me — by card and by bank, all-in?3 vs 1
- Is the number on the widget the number that settles?5 vs 2
- Whose money-transmission licence is my money riding — and is that entity my counterparty?6 vs 4
Largest single reason Koywe is ahead: published criteria (+13.0 display points).Scenario cost: Koywe has no verified pricing for this scenario.
Against the leader
81 vs 41 · gap 40.0Why Transak ranks above Kotani Pay
The compare workspace's arithmetic applied to these two rows. Each dimension's share of the gap is its weight × the difference, on the displayed scale; a floor bound on one of the rows keeps the reproduced gap (57.5) from matching the displayed one exactly, which is stated rather than hidden.
DimensionThisTransakGap share
Availability · 23% weight6.012.0−15.6, worse
Published criteria · 35% weight5.015.6−27.6, worse
Friction · 12% weight · constant here2.72.7same
Trust record · 9% weight · constant here3.23.2same
Measured data · 21% weight8.313.8−14.3, worse
Published criterionThisTransakPoints
What does a €200 purchase actually cost me — by card and by bank, all-in? · w3417−6.53, worse
Is the number on the widget the number that settles? · w2626−3.33, worse
Whose money-transmission licence is my money riding — and is that entity my counterparty? · w2246−1.41, worse
How much identity do I surrender before the coins land in my wallet, and how long does that take? · w1827−2.88, worse
Net4181−40.0≈
Your scenario
Kotani Pay is not priced for this scenario
Purchase spread on what you buy: on one purchase, or for a year of purchases or of trading. Fixed purchase fees and deposit fees are not published as fields yet, so they are excluded, as are network gas and any withdrawal fee. Change an input and every figure recomputes from the published rate; the published rank does not move.
cost on your amount · default scenario — set your own
How do you buy?
How do you buy? · your inputOne-time
Amount · your input$1k
Rate read from the provider’s published pricing ↗ on 28 September 2026.
cost on your amountCost is stated as cost on your amount in USD; it is never a yield, never annualised, and it does not enter the score.
Not priced on this basis
Under the default inputs · USDCategory median$154 of 16 rows priced
Cheapest priced$9.90 · TransakDifference not stated · availability not applied — set your country to filterCompare with Transak
12 of 16 rows in this ranking have no verified rate for this scenario and are absent from the median, not counted as free.
Evidence
Evidence read 28 September 2026
One row per published criterion: the page each strength was read from, its source type by domain, the reading date and whether the file and the published table agree. Open a row for the quote and the receipt.
4 of 4 cells scored
Score evidenceVerified4 of 4 criteria reconstruct from receipts
4 of 4 criteria reconstruct from a quoted, sourced receipt equal to the published strength.Public receiptsReading…4 quoted with a source URL
The receipt file has not been read yet.Evidence confidenceHighcoverage and corroboration, never freshness
4/4 criteria scored, with 4 dated sources quoted.RobustnessHoldsrank #16 across every one-point re-run
Whether the position holds when one criterion score is changed by one point and the ranking is run again. It is always a re-run of the ranking, never an estimate.The newest evidence read on the platform is 3 November 2026; this category's reading is older. The scores stand as read on 28 September 2026.
Reading the evidence ledger…
CriterionSourceTypeReadFreshnessStatusReceipt
What does a €200 purchase actually cost me — by card and by bank, all-in?strength 1 · weight 34Report an error—28 September 2026*
Unknown
No reading date is recorded for this cell or its category.No receipt
A strength is published but no quote or source page is on file for it.Is the number on the widget the number that settles?strength 2 · weight 26Report an error—28 September 2026*
Unknown
No reading date is recorded for this cell or its category.No receipt
A strength is published but no quote or source page is on file for it.Whose money-transmission licence is my money riding — and is that entity my counterparty?strength 4 · weight 22Report an error—28 September 2026*
Unknown
No reading date is recorded for this cell or its category.No receipt
A strength is published but no quote or source page is on file for it.How much identity do I surrender before the coins land in my wallet, and how long does that take?strength 2 · weight 18Report an error—28 September 2026*
Unknown
No reading date is recorded for this cell or its category.No receipt
A strength is published but no quote or source page is on file for it.How you can lose money here, and what the ranking scores
- Regulatory failure (Kotani Pay 4/10): no licence where you are, or a forced market exit.Scored by Whose money-transmission licence is my money riding — and is that entity my counterparty? · 22%
- Execution failure (Kotani Pay 2/10): you get a worse price, later, or nothing.Scored by Is the number on the widget the number that settles? · 26%
- Information failure (Kotani Pay 2/10): the number is wrong or bought, or your data leaks.Scored by How much identity do I surrender before the coins land in my wallet, and how long does that take? · 18%
Not assessed by this ranking: Control failure, Liveness failure, Custody failure, Insolvency failure, Exit failure. A high place says nothing about these; the Methodology tab says what each means. Also scored, as cost, quality or a summary of several families: What does a €200 purchase actually cost me — by card and by bank, all-in? (34%).
Facts
facts, not scoresWhat the record publishes
- Pricing
- No fee number is published. The entire fee disclosure is one FAQ answer on the Kotani Pay homepage (https://
kotanipay .com /, fetched 29 September 2026, HTTP 200; the answer text ships in the page's script bundle): "Are there any fees associated with using Kotani Pay?" answered "Yes, we charge an on-ramp/off ramp free based on the product." [sic, "free" for "fee"]. The /on-off-ramp product page carries no numbers, and the docs On-Ramp guide that should carry them (https:// docs .kotanipay .com /docs /kotani-pay-on-ramp, and its .md copy on kotani-pay.readme.io) still returns HTTP 404 on 29 September 2026 while the docs index still links it. No purchase can be priced from a published page.Kotani Pay — official pricing page ↗ · 28 September 2026 - Prices published in
- USDKotani Pay — official pricing page ↗ · 28 September 2026
- Licences held
- Not published
- Compliance level
- partial
- Regulatory note
- Nothing published binds the quote. The Terms and Conditions link on the docs root ("🤝 Terms and Conditions" -> https://
docs .kotanipay .com /docs /terms-and-conditions) returned HTTP 404 "Page Not Found" on 18 August 2026, so no terms state a lock window, a benchmark, or a delivered-amount policy; the kotanipay.com footer offers no ToS link at all (only "Cyber Security Policy Privacy Policy …") - Supported chains
- ethereum, celo, avalanche, polygon, arbitrum, optimism, stellar, tron, fuse, lightning, solana, provenance, cardano, hedera, base, lisk, viction, scroll
- Markets served
- africa
- Primary markets
- Not published
- Restricted markets
- Not published
- Operating limits
- Not published
- Availability note
- MARKET RESTRICTION, not OFAC boilerplate: homepage FAQ says "We are currenly operating in Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania and South Africa." [sic] and "You can access our Stablecoin settlement service anywhere in the world" (settlement, not the on-ramp). The API currency enum is wider than the stated footprint: KES GHS NGN ZAR USD XOF ZMW XAF SLE CDF TZS UGX EGP MWK RWF ETB (16 values, Create Onramp reference). FAQ currencies list: "KES, GHS, XAF, Zambia Kwacha, Rand, XOF, UGX, USD, NGN, ETB, AED." No OFAC/sanctions representation was found anywhere — because no Terms of Service is reachable at all; sanctions screening is described only on /compliance (UN, OFAC, HMT, DEA lists).
No confirmed legal entity is on file for this record. Nothing is inferred from the brand name.
If something goes wrong with Kotani Pay: where to complain, and where to report a scam
Loading the routes for your country.
How this page is reviewed
Reviewed means this product in this category was read against its sources on or after that date; every ranked category is re-read at least every 45 days. Models research, extract and parse. A deterministic engine ranks. Every quote passes an adversarial refute pass.
Accountable for this review: Mathias Siemonsmeier, Founder.
How we review · Review calendar · Corrections log · How we make money
History
What the record carries
Changes to published ranks are recorded in a ledger; every step and its cause is listed on the rank-history page. The entries below begin with the current verified snapshot, then the methodology versions whose changes applied to this category, newest first.
14 methodology entries
- 28 September 2026Current verified snapshot · methodology 2026.10.18Score 41, #16 of 16. 4 of 4 criteria scored. History starts here; earlier values are not interpolated.
- 28 October 2026
2026.10.14An exchange's fee is scored at the rate the entity serving the reader's country charges- changed Exchanges and onramps: the fee term of the score reads the rate of the entity that serves the reader's country (taker fee, spread); with no country, the record's base rate. Replaces 2026.10.13's dearest rate.
- added A country whose rates differ from the base records has its own order, the questionnaire run for that country: /best with the country set, Find my best, compare and the country landing print it. 22 questionnaire countries (the EEA ones and the United States) have one for exchanges.
- added A row whose serving entity's rate was not read carries "regional rate not read" (Coinbase for EEA, UK and US readers: its retail fee table is behind sign-in; Kraken and Bybit for UK readers; OKX outside the EEA and the US, whose global page could not be loaded).
- changed OKX: the 0.20% / 0.10% spot-only rate is the EEA entity's and applies to EEA readers only; OKX has no base rate, so its published fee term is neutral.
- 28 October 2026
2026.10.13A venue that charges by entity is priced for each reader by the entity that serves them, and scored on its dearest entity's rate- changed Exchanges and onramps: the fee term of the score reads the dearest entry rate a venue publishes for any of its entities (taker fee, spread), not the rate of one entity.
- added Pricing records carry regional entries (entity, verbatim quote, source, read date); every cost a reader sees, on the list, the provider page and the country page, is computed on the entry for their country.
- changed Exchange scores this rule gave, before and after; 2026.10.14 replaced it in the same release, so they were never the published order: Bitstamp 79 to 81 (#3 to #1), Bybit 81 to 78 (#1 to #2), Upbit 76 to 78 (#4 to #3), Binance 75 to 76 (#5 to #4), OKX 80 to 73 (#2 to #5), Coinbase 69 to 71, Luno 69 to 70, Bitvavo 62 to 69, VALR 58 to 62 (#10 to #9), Kraken 60 to 62 (#9 to #10), CoinDCX 45 to 51 (#12 to #11), Gemini 48 to 49 (#11 to #12), Mercado Bitcoin 42 to 44. Bitso is unchanged at 41 (#14).
- added On every build three checks fail: a price without the currency it is billed in, a regional entry its quote does not bear out or a venue with a separate EEA entity and no EEA rate, and a provider that no longer operates still carrying a price.
- 20 October 2026
2026.10.11Two new requirements: the chain you swap on, and a MiCA authorisation in the onramp's own name- added DEXs: "Which chain do you swap on?" (Ethereum or another EVM chain, Solana, or several). Solana keeps only Orca and Raydium; EVM removes Orca, Raydium and Osmosis; it keeps a venue with two years of pools on any EVM chain, not necessarily the reader's. Each venue's chains come from data/dex-chain-deployments.json, read from DefiLlama on 2026-10-20.
- added Onramps: "Authorised under MiCA in its own name" removes Transak, Mercuryo (it rides Criptan's authorisation), Stripe (its terms do not name the crypto provider), Topper (Uphold), Alchemy Pay and five regional rails (Koywe, Onramp Money, Onmeta, Fonbnk, Kotani Pay); six providers authorised in their own name remain. Each row is matched to ESMA's register by LEI (data/esma-casps.json, read 2026-10-10).
- added On every build a test holds each of the eight flagship categories to at least one answer that changes its winner.
Methodology 2026.10.18, the same published run every visitor sees · receipt onramp:kotani-pay:2026.10.18:81e0d99e7baa
Are you Kotani Pay? Reply to this verdict, or send evidence, ask for a correction or claim the listing. Every message gets a public ticket number; none of it changes a rank unless a public page or a signed statement supports it.