In the iGaming industry, the efficiency of your payment infrastructure directly impacts revenue, conversion rates, and user experience. When choosing between building an in-house crypto payment system or integrating with a solution like NOWPayments, it’s important to consider not just control, but also the real costs, time-to-market, and scalability.
In-house Crypto Processing: High Costs & Operational Complexity
Building and maintaining your own crypto processing system is a resource-intensive and technically demanding route. It involves:
- Significant development investment: Hiring a small team of blockchain developers (3–5 engineers) can cost between $300,000–$600,000 annually, depending on location and expertise. Initial development alone may require 6–12 months, with a minimum cost of $150,000–$250,000 for the MVP (minimum viable product).
- Ongoing maintenance expenses: Continuous improvements, bug fixing, and 24/7 monitoring typically require at least $100,000–$200,000 annually for salaries and infrastructure.
- Infrastructure overhead: Servers, secure hosting, backups, compliance tools, and third-party services can add another $5,000–$10,000 per month (or $60,000–$120,000 per year).
- Manual handling of blockchain transactions: Wallet management, transaction confirmations, address generation, and exchange rate logic demand not only technical resources but also manual oversight — increasing the risk of human error and compliance breaches.
This not only delays your launch but also increases operational risks and distracts from your core business.
NOWPayments Integration: Speed, Reliability, and Scalability
NOWPayments offers a ready-to-integrate crypto payment solution tailored for platforms like online casinos. Key advantages include:
- Fast integration: API, plugins, and clear documentation allow you to go live within 1–2 weeks, depending on your tech stack.
- Zero development or support costs: Everything is already built and maintained by NOWPayments, saving you hundreds of thousands of dollars in upfront and ongoing expenses.
- Support for 300+ cryptocurrencies with auto-conversion: Provides flexibility for users and reduces volatility risks for operators.
- Transparent fees, no hidden charges: Typically a 0.5% transaction fee, which is easy to forecast and scales with your volume — unlike fixed in-house maintenance costs.
- Industry-grade security: Non-custodial and custodial setup, best practices, and full compliance with industry standards.
- Custom branding and white-label options: Tailor the solution to your casino’s look and feel without building everything from scratch.
Conclusion
Building your own payment system may only make sense if you have significant internal resources and a strategic need for full control. Expect to spend upwards of $300,000–$500,000 in the first year alone, with ongoing costs of at least $150,000 annually.
For most casino partners, integrating with NOWPayments is the smarter and more efficient move — low overhead, faster launch, and all the flexibility you need to grow.