What Crypto Tax Software Really Costs

The Decision You Are Making

You need to file crypto taxes. You want to know what the software actually costs. The advertised tiers are easy to find. The real question is harder: how does each vendor count transactions, where do the tier boundaries sit, and at what volume does one vendor become cheaper than another?

This analysis is built from published pricing pages, help center documentation, and vendor-published support articles as of September 1, 2026. The tools were not tested hands-on. Every capability claim is cited to a specific documentation page. Every price is dated because vendors change tiers frequently.

The income mechanism here is simple. Tier boundaries are where the cost is. An active DeFi year can push you from a $49 tier to a $199 tier, and the cheapest option changes with volume. Understanding how each vendor counts transactions determines which tier you land in and whether you are paying $99 or $279 for the same tax year.

How Koinly Counts Transactions

Koinly’s counting method creates pricing surprises. The critical rule: Koinly counts transactions cumulatively across your entire history, not per year. If you imported data in 2021 and add 2026 transactions now, both years count toward your limit.

A transaction is any deposit, withdrawal, or trade imported into your account. Koinly consolidates grouped exchange fills. If an exchange splits one large order into 200 smaller fills, Koinly groups them into a single transaction. Deleted transactions do not count. The majority of small dust rewards and spam tokens are excluded automatically.

Your billable transaction count in Koinly is often much lower than the raw number shown on exchanges. This consolidation reduces costs for high-frequency traders, but cumulative counting increases costs for long-term holders who import multiple years of history simultaneously.

A single liquidity provider entry can expand into multiple taxable events. Depositing into a Uniswap pool registers as two transactions (one for each token). Withdrawing registers as two more. The subsequent swap of LP tokens back to stables adds another. One round-trip LP position consumes five transactions in Koinly’s count.

This matters because tier boundaries are strict. The difference between 999 transactions and 1,001 is $100 in subscription cost.

Koinly’s Tier Structure And What Each Includes

Koinly offers a free tier and four paid tiers. Prices were checked September 1, 2026, and apply per tax year, not as an annual subscription.

Free Tier: Imports up to 10,000 transactions. You can see your gains, losses, income, and tax liability on screen. You cannot download any reports. The single restriction: no exportable tax documents.

Newbie: $49, up to 100 transactions. Unlocks full tax report downloads including IRS Form 8949, Schedule D, international tax reports for over 100 countries, TurboTax and TaxACT export files, and a comprehensive audit trail report.

Hodler: $99, up to 1,000 transactions. Same report suite as Newbie. This tier covers the largest proportion of active crypto investors. For most people who hold assets across two or three exchanges, make regular trades, and use one or two DeFi protocols, 1,000 transactions provides sufficient headroom.

Trader: $199, up to 3,000 transactions. Alternative sources cite this tier at $179, indicating recent pricing variance. The jump from 1,000 to 3,000 transactions represents the next meaningful capacity increase.

Pro: Covers up to 10,000 transactions. Sources cite this tier at $279 in some documentation and $199 in others, indicating pricing inconsistency across regions or documentation updates.

Koinly does not offer an unlimited plan. Users with portfolios exceeding 500,000 transactions can access custom enterprise pricing. Additional 1,000-transaction packages are available above the Pro tier for users who fall between Pro and enterprise volumes.

Per-Year Billing And The Multi-Year Cost Trap

Koinly charges per tax year, not per calendar year or as an ongoing subscription. When you purchase a plan, you pay for the ability to generate tax reports for one specific tax year.

If you need reports for 2024, 2025, and 2026, you purchase three separate plans. Each prior tax year requires a separate purchase. Users can upgrade their plans at any time by paying the difference if their transaction count exceeds their current tier’s limit.

This structure differs from CoinTracker’s subscription model, which covers all tax years in one plan and provides year-round portfolio tracking without repurchasing. If you need reports for multiple years or want ongoing portfolio tracking, total cost is often lower with CoinTracker despite higher per-year pricing.

The per-year billing model favors users who need a single tax year report and do not require ongoing portfolio tracking. It penalizes users who import historical data or maintain continuous tracking across multiple tax years.

What Volumes Look Like In Practice

Transaction counts are abstract until you map them to realistic activity levels. Here are three scenarios showing how different usage patterns map to Koinly’s tiers.

Scenario 1: Exchange-only holder, 50 trades per year, three years of history. Total transactions: 150. This user lands in the Newbie tier at $49 per tax year because cumulative counting includes all three years.

Scenario 2: Active DeFi user, two LP positions, monthly rebalancing, staking rewards on three networks, 400 transactions in 2026 alone. If this user imports only 2026, they land in the Newbie tier at $49. If they import two prior years at similar activity levels, cumulative count reaches approximately 1,200 transactions, pushing them into the Trader tier at $199.

Scenario 3: High-frequency trader, 2,000 transactions per year on centralized exchanges, but heavy consolidation due to grouped fills. Raw transaction count is 2,000. After Koinly’s consolidation, billable count may drop to 800-1,000, landing the user in the Hodler tier at $99 instead of Trader at $199.

The third scenario demonstrates why Koinly’s consolidation benefits exchange traders more than DeFi users. Exchange activity consolidates well. DeFi activity expands because each protocol interaction generates multiple discrete on-chain events that cannot be consolidated.

Platform Coverage And The 1099-DA Question

Koinly supports over 850 integrations, including direct blockchain syncing for 14 major networks such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. It handles all countries that use Average Cost, FIFO, LIFO, and HIFO for calculating gains. Specialized tax reports are available for the United States, Canada, Australia, UK, Germany, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden.

As of 2026, U.S. users can upload Form 1099-DA information. Koinly uses the uploaded data when preparing Form 8949 and highlights differences that may require the user to review imported transactions or transfers. This reconciliation feature is critical because brokers now report gross proceeds to the IRS, and mismatches between broker-reported figures and your calculated cost basis trigger audit risk.

The 1099-DA reconciliation feature is newly important in 2026. Most tax software added this capability in response to IRS final regulations requiring broker reporting on digital asset sales. Koinly’s implementation flags discrepancies but does not automatically reconcile them. You must manually review flagged transactions and adjust cost basis or transaction categorization.

Where Koinly Becomes The Cheapest Option

Comparing Koinly to CoinLedger, CoinTracker, and TokenTax across realistic volumes shows where each becomes the cheapest option.

At 0-100 transactions, all vendors price similarly. Koinly, CoinLedger, and TokenTax all offer entry tiers at $49. CoinTracker starts higher. Cheapest option: Koinly, CoinLedger, or TokenTax.

At 100-1,000 transactions, Koinly’s Hodler tier at $99 is competitive. CoinLedger and TokenTax charge similar amounts for this volume. CoinTracker remains more expensive but includes multi-year coverage. Cheapest option for single-year reporting: Koinly at $99.

At 1,000-3,000 transactions, Koinly’s Trader tier at $199 (or $179 depending on region and timing) competes with CoinLedger’s equivalent tier. TokenTax charges more. CoinTracker’s subscription model starts to make sense if you need more than one tax year because the annual subscription covers all years. Cheapest option for single-year reporting: Koinly. Cheapest option for multi-year reporting: CoinTracker.

At 3,000-10,000 transactions, Koinly’s Pro tier pricing is inconsistent across sources ($199 to $279). CoinLedger and TokenTax charge similar amounts. CoinTracker’s subscription remains higher per year but covers unlimited years and ongoing portfolio tracking. Cheapest option depends on whether you need multi-year coverage.

Above 10,000 transactions, Koinly requires add-on packages or enterprise pricing. CoinTracker offers unlimited transaction tiers. For very high volumes, CoinTracker becomes cheaper on a per-transaction basis if you need continuous tracking.

The DeFi Transaction Expansion Problem

DeFi activity expands transaction counts faster than centralized exchange activity. A single liquidity provision on Uniswap registers as multiple transactions. Autocompounding yield strategies create transaction events with every harvest. Cross-chain bridges generate transactions on both source and destination chains.

A user who provides liquidity on Curve, stakes on Lido, and uses a bridge twice per month can easily generate 500-800 transactions per year from activity that feels like a dozen discrete actions. If that user imports three years of history, cumulative count reaches 1,500-2,400 transactions, pushing them from the Hodler tier into the Trader tier.

The cost difference is $100-150 per tax year depending on tier. Over three tax years, the difference is $300-450. This is where understanding how DeFi activity maps to taxable events determines total cost, not just tax liability.

What You Should Check Before You Buy

First, import your transactions into Koinly’s free tier. The platform will calculate your billable transaction count after consolidation and exclusions. This number determines which tier you need. Do not estimate based on raw exchange transaction counts because consolidation can reduce your billable count by 30-50%.

Second, check whether you need single-year or multi-year reporting. If you need more than one tax year, calculate total cost across all years and compare to CoinTracker’s annual subscription.

Third, verify whether your exchanges and wallets are supported. Koinly supports over 850 integrations, but some smaller exchanges and DeFi protocols require manual CSV uploads. Manual uploads take longer and increase error risk.

Fourth, confirm the tier price on Koinly’s pricing page immediately before purchase. Pricing varies by region and changes frequently. Sources from January 2026 show different prices than September 2026 for the same tiers.

Fifth, check whether your activity includes edge cases that most tax software handles poorly. Card rewards, rebasing tokens, LP rebalancing, and cross-chain bridges all create transaction categorization problems. Koinly handles these better than some competitors but not perfectly.

Who Koinly Is Right For

Koinly is the cheapest option for users who need single-year reporting, have fewer than 3,000 transactions after consolidation, and primarily trade on centralized exchanges. The transaction consolidation feature and spam exclusion reduce costs for high-frequency exchange traders more than any other vendor.

Koinly is not the cheapest option for users who need multi-year reporting or ongoing portfolio tracking. The per-year billing model makes total cost higher than CoinTracker’s subscription if you need more than two tax years.

Koinly works well for users in non-U.S. jurisdictions where specialized tax reports are required. The platform supports over 100 countries and provides country-specific tax forms that competitors do not offer.

Koinly does not work well for users with very high transaction volumes (above 10,000) who need unlimited tiers. CoinTracker becomes cheaper per transaction at that volume.

My Recommendation

Use Koinly if you need single-year reporting for fewer than 3,000 transactions and trade primarily on centralized exchanges. The $99 Hodler tier covers most active investors, and transaction consolidation keeps you in a lower tier than raw transaction counts suggest.

Do not use Koinly if you need multi-year reporting or continuous portfolio tracking. The per-year billing model makes it more expensive than CoinTracker over time. Do not use Koinly if you have heavy DeFi activity above 1,000 transactions per year because transaction expansion will push you into higher tiers where competitors offer better value.

Import your data into the free tier first. Let Koinly calculate your billable transaction count. Then compare that count to CoinLedger and CoinTracker at the same volume. The cheapest option changes at specific volume boundaries, and the only way to know where you land is to check your actual consolidated count.

If your volume exceeds 3,000 transactions, read the pricing page immediately before purchase. Tier pricing for Trader and Pro has varied by $50-80 across different sources and dates. Regional pricing differences exist. Confirm the exact price in your jurisdiction before committing.

The Takeaway

Koinly’s tier structure appears straightforward until cumulative transaction counting and DeFi activity expansion interact. A user who estimates 800 transactions based on current-year exchange activity may land in a 2,000-transaction tier after importing historical data and DeFi positions. The free tier shows your exact billable count before you pay. Use it. The difference between the Hodler tier at $99 and the Trader tier at $199 is transaction consolidation and whether you import one year or three. The cheapest option at 500 transactions is not the cheapest option at 2,500 transactions. Check your actual count, verify current pricing on the vendor’s page, and calculate total cost across the number of tax years you need before choosing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Koinly count transactions per year or cumulatively?

Koinly counts transactions cumulatively across your entire history, not per year. If you import three years of data, all transactions from all three years count toward your tier limit. This is the most common pricing surprise. A user with 800 transactions per year who imports three years of history lands in a tier for 2,400 transactions, not 800. Always check your billable count in the free tier before purchasing a paid plan.

How does Koinly consolidate exchange transactions?

Koinly groups exchange fills from a single order into one transaction. If an exchange splits your large order into 200 smaller fills, Koinly consolidates them into a single transaction. Deleted transactions do not count. Most small dust rewards and spam tokens are excluded automatically. This consolidation reduces your billable transaction count, often by 30-50% compared to raw exchange transaction counts. DeFi activity does not consolidate as well because each protocol interaction generates discrete on-chain events.

Do I need to buy Koinly separately for each tax year?

Yes. Koinly charges per tax year, not as an annual subscription. If you need reports for 2024, 2025, and 2026, you purchase three separate plans. This differs from CoinTracker, which covers all tax years in one subscription. If you need multi-year reporting or ongoing portfolio tracking, calculate total cost across all years and compare to CoinTracker’s subscription model. Koinly is cheaper for single-year reporting but more expensive for multi-year use.

What tier do I need for active DeFi use?

Active DeFi use expands transaction counts rapidly. A single LP position generates multiple transactions for deposit, withdrawal, and swaps. Autocompounding strategies create events with every harvest. Cross-chain bridges generate transactions on both chains. A user with two LP positions, monthly rebalancing, and staking on three networks can generate 500-800 transactions per year. If you import three years of history, expect 1,500-2,400 transactions, which requires the Trader tier at $199 or higher depending on exact count.

Can I see my exact transaction count before paying?

Yes. Koinly’s free tier imports up to 10,000 transactions and shows your exact billable count after consolidation and exclusions. You can see all gains, losses, and tax liability on screen. The only restriction is you cannot download reports. Import your data into the free tier, check your billable transaction count, then purchase the appropriate paid tier. This is the only way to know your actual cost because consolidation and exclusions vary significantly by user.