Every "how to start a crypto exchange" article hand-waves the operating costs. After helping
100+ teams deploy self-hosted exchanges since 2017, here are the real numbers — and where
teams consistently over- and under-budget.
The license is the cheap part
SaaS exchange platforms charge $2,000–$10,000/month plus, commonly, a revenue share.
A source-code license is a
one-time purchase ($1,899–$12,500 depending on tier). Over five years the difference is
not subtle: $1,899 once versus $120,000+ in subscription fees before revenue share.
But the license was never the real cost of running an exchange. Here's what is.
Infrastructure: $200–$800/month
A mid-size deployment (10k registered users, ~500 concurrent) runs comfortably on:
- App + matching: 8 vCPU / 32GB — $150–300/mo
- Database (MySQL primary + replica): $80–150/mo
- Redis + queue: $40–80/mo
- Blockchain access: free public RPCs work at low volume; budget $50–200/mo for managed nodes (Alchemy/QuickNode tier) once deposit scanning gets serious
Teams over-budget here. You do not need Kubernetes on day one. You need boring,
monitored VMs and a tested restore procedure.
Where teams under-budget
1. Compliance operations — $500–5,000/month. KYC verifications cost $0.50–2.00 each
at providers like Sumsub or Shufti. AML screening on withdrawals adds more. The software
integrates the providers; the per-check invoices are yours. At 1,000 signups/month you're
paying four figures.
2. Liquidity. An empty order book kills an exchange faster than any technical failure.
Options, cheapest first: aggregate external venues through a
liquidity engine (near-free, spreads
slightly wider), market-maker agreements ($2k–10k/mo), or internal inventory
(capital-intensive). Most launches should start with aggregation and graduate.
3. The security budget nobody plans. One competent pentest before launch: $5k–15k.
Bug bounty pool: $1k/mo minimum. Cold-wallet ceremony hardware: $500 once. This is the
cheapest insurance in an industry where the alternative is a headline.
4. Banking/fiat rails. Highly jurisdiction-dependent; a fiat gateway integration is
a software problem (solved), but the banking relationship behind it is a
months-of-meetings problem (not solved by any vendor, ours included).
A realistic year-one budget
| Item | Self-hosted | SaaS equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | $1,899–12,500 once | $24k–120k/yr + rev share |
| Infra | $3k–10k | included |
| KYC/AML ops | $6k–60k | same (always pass-through) |
| Security | $10k–20k | partially included |
| Liquidity | $0–50k | often bundled, less control |
| Total | ~$25k–150k | ~$40k–250k+ |
The self-hosted column buys an asset (code + data + infrastructure you own); the SaaS
column buys a dependency. Which is right depends on your team — if you have zero DevOps
capability, SaaS's premium is buying real value. If you have even one competent
infrastructure engineer, ownership economics win by year two.
Full platform details, public pricing included, at codono.com —
or dig into the complete module list.
Questions about any line item, ask in the comments; I've watched teams get every one
of these wrong.
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