Editorial standards
How We Review Exchanges
Every rating on this site follows the same written methodology. This page explains exactly what we measure, how often we re-check it, and how we make money — so you can judge our work for yourself.
Rating Criteria
Security & track record
30%Regulatory standing, proof-of-reserves, cold-storage practices, insurance funds, and history of incidents. An exchange that has lost user funds without making them whole is disqualified from recommendation.
Fees & total cost
25%Spot maker/taker fees, card purchase markups, P2P spreads, and withdrawal costs — measured as the real all-in cost of buying Bitcoin, not just the headline rate.
Beginner experience
20%KYC speed, interface clarity, local payment methods, and quality of customer support. We test sign-up flows ourselves.
Liquidity & reliability
15%Order book depth on BTC pairs, uptime during volatile periods, and withdrawal processing speed.
Regional availability
10%Which countries are served, local-currency support, and P2P market depth in the markets our readers come from — especially Asia.
How Often We Re-Check
Fees, country availability, and legal status change. We re-verify exchange fee schedules and availability quarterly, and country legal/tax summaries on the same cycle. Live data on this site — prices, the halving countdown, network fees — comes directly from public APIs and updates automatically. If you spot something outdated, tell us and we'll fix it.
How We Make Money
HowToBuyBTC.com is funded by affiliate commissions: if you open an account through one of our links, the exchange may pay us a referral fee at no cost to you. Two hard rules keep this honest. First, ratings are set before commercial terms are considered — an exchange cannot pay for a better score, and we list the cons of every platform we recommend. Second, we recommend the same exchange we would tell a friend to use, whether or not an affiliate program exists. Full details are on our affiliate disclosure page.
What We Don't Do
We don't give price predictions, we don't provide financial or legal advice, and we don't accept payment for reviews or rankings. Country pages describe rules for educational purposes only — always verify the current law where you live.