Bitpanda Free tier

What Bitpanda actually does

Bitpanda is a Vienna-based trading app that puts crypto, stocks, ETFs and precious metals behind one login, aimed at people who'd rather not run separate brokerage and exchange accounts for different asset classes.

The core product

Founded in 2014 by Eric Demuth, Paul Klanschek and Christian Trummer, Bitpanda now reports serving roughly 7 million users across the EEA. The app lets users buy and sell over 650 cryptocurrencies alongside fractional shares, ETFs, physical precious metals and Bitpanda's own crypto index products, plus recurring savings plans and staking rewards on supported crypto assets. It operates under multiple Austrian licenses from the Financial Market Authority (FMA), including an e-money institution license, an investment-firm authorisation, and MiCA registration for its crypto activities — a broader regulatory footprint than a purely unregulated crypto exchange. Standard trading works on a spread-based model rather than a flat commission: per its own published fee guide, crypto trades carry a roughly 1.49% premium built into the displayed price, stocks and ETFs trade at around a 0.7% spread during market hours (rising to about 0.8% outside regular trading hours), metals carry a 0.5%–2.5% premium plus ongoing storage costs, and crypto index products carry a roughly 1.99% premium with additional monthly rebalancing fees.

What's new or notable

Active traders get a materially cheaper alternative in Bitpanda Fusion, a separate trading venue on the same account that uses volume-based fees scaling down to as little as 0.02% at high trading volumes, according to Bitpanda's own support documentation — a big gap versus the standard app's built-in spread. Bitpanda's ownership structure is also worth understanding: Valar Ventures, a fund co-founded by Peter Thiel, led a 2021 funding round, but this was a minority investment — the three Austrian founders together retained roughly half the company afterward, and Bitpanda remains headquartered and licensed in Austria. On the less flattering side, Austria's FMA fined Bitpanda €70,000 in August 2026 over procedural MiCA compliance failures — specifically a late crypto-asset whitepaper filing and marketing materials published without required regulatory disclaimers — which the regulator characterized as compliance lapses rather than serious misconduct, but it's still a relevant data point on the company's regulatory track record. Separately, Bitpanda Pro, an earlier lower-fee trading interface, was discontinued in 2023, removing what had been a cheaper option for some active users outside of Fusion.

Who should use Bitpanda

Great fit if…

• You want one app for multiple asset classes — crypto, fractional stocks, ETFs and metals sit in the same account instead of needing separate apps.
• You like automated investing — recurring savings plans and staking let you build a position gradually rather than timing individual trades.
• You trade often enough to justify Fusion — active traders can move to Bitpanda Fusion for volume-based fees well below the standard app's spread.

Skip it if…

• You want a clearly itemized fee on every trade — the standard app's spread-based pricing bundles the fee into the price rather than showing it as a separate line item.
• You need bank-level deposit protection on cash balances — Bitpanda is an e-money institution, not a bank, so fiat balances are safeguarded differently, not covered by a deposit guarantee scheme.
• A clean regulatory record matters a lot to you — the 2026 FMA fine, even for procedural issues, is worth weighing if that's a priority.

Pricing in detail

There's no monthly subscription; costs come from the spread built into each trade on the standard app, or from explicit volume-based fees on Bitpanda Fusion.

Where it falls short

• Spread-based standard fees — costs are built into the buy/sell price rather than shown as a clear per-trade commission, making it harder to compare against flat-fee brokers unless you switch to Fusion.
• Fiat funds aren't deposit-insured — as an e-money institution rather than a bank, Bitpanda safeguards customer cash under e-money rules, which is a different and generally less familiar protection than a bank deposit guarantee scheme.
• Recent regulatory fine — the €70,000 FMA penalty in August 2026 for MiCA whitepaper and marketing compliance failures is a mark against an otherwise multi-licensed operation.

Privacy & data

As a company licensed and supervised in Austria, Bitpanda is subject to GDPR and the identity-verification (KYC) requirements that come with holding e-money and investment-firm licenses, meaning new users go through document and identity checks before trading. Bitpanda's public fee and terms pages don't spell out specifics like biometric login options or exactly how trading data is shared with third parties beyond regulatory reporting obligations, so beyond standard EU financial-data protection law we can't independently confirm more detail than that — check Bitpanda's own privacy policy directly if that level of specificity matters to you.

How we checked this

This review is based on Bitpanda's official fee-explanation article on its support site, checked on 2026-09-05, cross-referenced against its public terms and licensing disclosures and independent fee-comparison write-ups for the specific spread percentages by asset class. We did not open an account or place a real trade, so always confirm the live spread or Fusion fee tier shown in-app before trading, since these can change over time.

What you get, what you give up