What crypto exchange software costs in 2026: open source, white-label, in-house, licensed
Published price ranges for the four ways to get an exchange, with the hidden lines that move the total: liquidity capital, operations, custody, app-store review.
BitPolaris Engineering
Sticker prices
| Route | Upfront | Recurring | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open-source kit | €0 software · €300k+ engineering to productionise | Team of 4–6 | 6–12 months |
| White-label vendor | €50–150k setup | €3–10k / mo + 10–30% revenue share | 3–6 months |
| In-house | €1–2M | Team of 8–12 | 12–24 months |
| BitPolaris (licensed) | €24.5k self-hosted · €58.1k source · €7.7k setup on cloud | €1,600 / mo cloud or 20% / yr support | 5 weeks |
The lines that are not on the sticker
- Liquidity capital. Own-book market making on ~100 markets: roughly $930k of inventory. A mirroring engine that hedges each fill: close to zero.
- Operations. Most vendors sell the trading core; the KYC queue, treasury approvals and support console are extra or absent. Budget two to three people and the screens they need.
- Custody. Vendor-held keys are cheap until a licence requires you to hold them. Self-hosted custody is a one-time cost; migrating later is a project.
- App stores. Review for crypto apps takes weeks and is often rejected. A package that has already passed review saves a quarter.
- Revenue share. A 20% share on a modest €2M annual fee income is €400k a year; compare it with a flat support fee.
A worked example
A licensed broker taking Exchange, Wallet and Custody self-hosted from BitPolaris: about €54,300 one-time (licences, fiat rails, one language, HSM, key ceremony, training) and €10,100 a year for updates and support, plus third-party costs you pay directly: hosting around €900–1,500 a month, KYC about €1–2 per verification, chain RPC and gas a few hundred a month. Year one lands near €82,000 all-in. The same scope from a revenue-share vendor usually exceeds that in the first year of real volume, and the in-house route is an order of magnitude more.
Build your own estimate with every module and third-party line visible.