Loop Crypto vs. Coinbase Commerce
Introduction
Coinbase Commerce is a digital payment service offered by Coinbase, allowing merchants to accept payments in various cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ether, and Litecoin. If you are looking to implement crypto payments and are assessing Coinbase Commerce vs. Loop Crypto, this article is for you.
Read on to see why merchants that need a solution that helps them grow sales and scales with them select Loop Crypto over Coinbase Commerce.
Why companies choose Loop
When evaluating crypto payment solutions, companies primarily choose Loop for these reasons:
Integrations - Loop is integrated directly into payment platforms like Stripe, Chargebee, Xero, QuickBooks, and OpenPay, meaning merchants have one system of record for all their payments and access to these powerful billing systems and their rich features and integrations
All payment types: Loop supports all payment types: invoices, one-time purchases, subscriptions, and metered billing. It also offers a broad range of network and token support, allowing crypto to work for any business model
Flexibility: Loop is flexible enough to build custom in-app billing experiences for merchants that want more control over their payment experience.
Track record: Loop has helped top companies process millions in payments across EVMs and Solana.
(1) Integrations
Loop offers an unmatched suite of integrations that allows merchants to plug crypto and stablecoin payments into their existing billing systems. This includes integrations with platforms like Stripe, OpenPay, Chargebee, Xero, and QuickBooks. This is extremely valuable as it allows merchants to gain access to all of the functionality their existing billing systems offer, such as free trials, coupon codes, billing per unit, and many more features. There are no constraints on what functionality is available for those who pay in crypto vs. those paying in fiat.
In addition, Loop’s integration suite means merchants do not have to manage two separate billing systems. Setup is extremely straightforward, and there is no hassle of maintaining two systems, each with its own approach to product and pricing logic. Finally, using Loop’s integrations allows merchants to unlock visibility into all their transactions from one place. All payment data flows into one system, so merchants can track all open and closed invoices from one location.
(2) All payment types
Businesses bill for many different types of payments, and their payment methods ought to support all of them. Loop enables crypto invoicing, crypto subscription payments, and one-time crypto payments without requiring locking up funds. Loop makes accepting crypto recurring payments effortless with native autopay, a feature that Coinbase Commerce lacks. Autopay is critical for reducing churn, ensuring merchants retain their customers. When an autopay solution is not in place, churn can be up to 2x higher!
Other solutions claim to enable recurring payments, but in reality, they require locking up funds in a smart contract, managing complicated streams of tokens, or sending repeated emails with payment links. Loop is designed to make crypto subscriptions and one-time payments as straightforward as charging a credit card or bank account. These complicated lock-ups and streams add significant friction to the checkout process and increase the risk of losing a sale. With Loop, the checkout experience simply collects a wallet authorization, and then Loop is able to charge (or “pull”) the funds at the specified time.
(3) Flexibility
For merchants that want to own the entire payment experience end-to-end, Loop offers a flexible crypto payment API and configurable checkout components. Companies can be up and running with custom payment experiences within weeks, or even days, not months (check out our Helius case study to see how). The flexibility of Loop’s APIs means that Loop can accommodate any type of pricing model and checkout configuration. In addition, our pay component makes it simple to collect payment authorization from any wallet. This allows end customers to store payment methods, so companies can bill for recurring crypto payments or provide one-click checkouts.
(4) Track record
Loop Crypto has a track record of working with top companies to enable their crypto and stablecoin payments. This includes working with large RPC providers like Helius and leading data analytics firms like Kaito processing millions on chain and saving teams thousands of hours. Check out our blog to see more relevant case studies about how teams in web3 and beyond have implemented Loop.
Where Loop excels against Coinbase Commerce
If you are evaluating Loop specifically compared to Coinbase Commerce, here are the reasons we see merchants ultimately choose Loop over Coinbase Commerce.
1. Broader range of functionality with Loop
With Loop, merchants get all the functionality they need to accept all payment types, along with support for features like coupon codes, free trials, and metered billing. Coinbase Commerce is limited as a billing system and does not offer these features that are critical for merchants to close sales and scale. As we touch on more below, Loop’s integrations unlock a full suite of billing functionality and means there is no tradeoff in the billing feature set when crypto is added as a payment method.
In addition, Loop offers crypto autopay, a feature that Coinbase Commerce lacks. Unlike Coinbase Commerce, Loop unlocks the ability to have automated crypto subscription payments. Customers sign up once, authorize a wallet to be debited on an ongoing basis, and then that’s it. Next month, the payment is automatically pulled from the wallet. There is no manual follow-up work. This saves days of work and puts more revenue back into merchants’ pockets by lowering churn rates.
Loop Crypto also excels when it comes to supporting companies managing platforms where there are sub-merchant accounts. Loop’s architecture is designed to enable platform models, whereas Coinbase is limited.
2. Transparent data and reliable notifications
Merchants who use Loop love the transparency of the platform. Historical data is easily available via the dashboards, and there is visibility into upcoming payments so that merchants can proactively address payment issues before they happen. With automated dunning flows and retries, there is no manual effort wasted chasing down missed payments. With Coinbase Commerce on the other hand, there is no dashboard with historical data. Merchants are forced to generate one-off reports that are emailed to them to see their transaction data. Since Commerce does not support recurring payments, any type of subscription model requires significant manual effort to chase down customers month after month for payment.
Loop also offers a reliable set of webhooks that immediately notify merchants of activity related to a current, upcoming, or past due payment. In our experience with merchants, this is an area where Loop really excels compared to Coinbase Commerce where it can often be difficult to locate historical data and webhooks are sometimes unreliable.
3. Integrations and quick implementation
As noted earlier, Loop Crypto offers out-of-the-box integrations with existing billing systems. This makes implementation simple and means merchants are not stuck managing separate billing systems for each payment method. Crypto is simply another payment method that can be turned on. With Coinbase Commerce, there are no integrations with other billing management platforms where fiat payment options would be available. All pricing logic would need to be recreated in Coinbase Commerce, and all transaction data would live there as well.
Comparative analysis
In the chart below, you can see how Coinbase Commerce compares to Loop Crypto. For merchants and payment platforms, Loop offers the most flexible crypto and stablecoin payment platform. We support a range of payment use cases including crypto subscription payments, crypto invoicing, and one-time crypto payments.
Relevant case studies
As you evaluate crypto payment providers, be sure to check out our case studies. We have worked with leading brands like Helius, Privy, Kaito, and Pinata powering their checkout experiences. Our case study with chainEDGE is a particularly good example of a merchant who switched from Coinbase Commerce to Loop Crypto because they were looking for a reliable payment solution that offered autopay and would help them reduce churn. You can read more about how chainEDGE uses Loop for crypto subscription payments.
Our case study with Helius highlights the flexibility of Loop’s crypto payment APIs. In November 2024, Helius went live with Loop Crypto to facilitate crypto subscription payments for its customers on Solana. Helius was able to fully customize its sign-up experience and launched its own billing page with crypto payments natively embedded.
FAQ
How do I accept crypto payments for my business?
A crypto payment processor facilitates digital transactions between merchants and their customers enabling merchants to accept various forms of crypto payment. Merchants that accept crypto payments, especially recurring crypto payments, need to work through various complexities related to accepting payment on multiple networks, in multiple tokens, and from various types of wallets.
A payment processor, like Loop Crypto, handles this complexity and provides a crypto payments API and tooling that are easy to use. This allows for the secure and quick transfer of funds from the customer’s wallet to the merchant’s wallet. You can check out this article about payment processing in web3.
What is a crypto payment processor?
A crypto payment processor facilitates digital transactions between merchants and their customers enabling merchants to accept various forms of crypto payment. With Loop, we make it easy to accept stablecoins, ERC-20 tokens (tokens deployed within the Ethereum ecosystem and popular layer 2 networks), or SPL tokens (tokens deployed within the Solana ecosystem).
Merchants that accept crypto payments need to work through various complexities related to accepting payment on multiple networks, in multiple tokens, and from various types of wallets. Loop handles this complexity and provides APIs and tooling that are easy to use. This allows for the secure and quick transfer of funds from the customer’s wallet to the merchant’s wallet.
Can I accept crypto payments for subscriptions?
Yes! Loop works with recurring subscription payments. We work similar to credit cards - a customer authorizes their wallet to be charged, and each billing period the wallet is charged without the end customer having to take action.
How does Coinbase Commerce work?
Coinbase Commerce is a product offered via Coinbase that enables merchants to accept payment in cryptocurrency. The product offers a user interface and APIs that merchants can implement to be able to handle crypto payments on multiple chains and currencies. Payments are settled on-chain, with the customer's cryptocurrency automatically converted to USDC, a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar, for the merchant. Coinbase Commerce is particularly suited for one-time payments and point-of-sale transactions in physical stores.
