Review contents
CoinJar is a great option for those looking to conveniently buy and hold their crypto. The mobile app is great (alongside the website), and very user-friendly. The fees are competitive and clear, and the customer support is responsive. There’s also an advanced exchange with more features for frequent traders.
CoinJar started in 2013 (that’s old for crypto), and it’s very popular, with over 600,000 customers worldwide.
It offers a user-friendly platform (website and mobile app), ideal for buying and protecting crypto – for both individuals and businesses. You can also trade on the platform too (buy and sell regularly). And the fees are reasonable.
They have a strong focus on protection, both in terms of the account itself, but also how they store your crypto. (We’ll cover that in detail later.)
There’s a good range of popular coins to buy – and to make things even more convenient, they offer ‘bundles’ of crypto (groups of coins), so you can conveniently buy a ‘bundle’ instead of making lots of different transactions (saving time and money).
CoinJar works on both their website, and as an app on your phone, on both Apple and Android devices – with a good rating on Apple (4.5 out of 5), although only 2.7 out of 5 on Android.
Overall, we think CoinJar is a top option, especially if you’re new to crypto. If you’re keen to learn more or get started, head over to the CoinJar website¹.
Otherwise, let’s dive into the details and see if it’s right for you.
Note: we’ll use the words crypto, coins and tokens, but they’re all the same word for cryptocurrencies.
Yep! CoinJar is excellent for beginners.
CoinJar is set up to make it as convenient as possible to buy crypto (and hold it too). You can deposit your money (called fiat or local currency), and within a few seconds you can have crypto in your account.
You don’t have to worry about an advanced interface like most crypto platforms (with all the scary charts and numbers everywhere) – you conveniently click ‘buy’.
CoinJar is also a place to learn more about crypto, with a resource centre on their website, but also a regular newsletter with lots of information to learn about crypto, and to keep you up-to-date on crypto news – you can sign up on the CoinJar website¹.
The actual CoinJar platform (the website and app) is super user-friendly – you’ll pick it up in no time. On the platform. you can buy crypto with either a bank transfer, or a debit card (Visa and Mastercard), and they'll convert your cash for crypto. As quick as that.
Note: you’ll need to verify your identity before you can use CoinJar, which is convenient to do, and only takes a few minutes. UK residents are required to complete an assessment and to wait 24-hours (by law).
You can then hold your crypto in your CoinJar account until you’re ready to sell. Or, send it to wherever you like, such as another crypto exchange, or your own crypto wallet (to further protect your crypto).
There’s also a more advanced exchange (called CoinJar exchange), suited for more regular trading (buying and selling), typically more suited for advanced traders, or those looking to learn and develop trading skills.
It’s pretty resourceful, and has all the features you’d expect, such as limit orders (setting the price you want to buy or sell at), a good interface (how it looks and feels), with real-time prices, and price history, along with charts to map and plan future trades.
There’s also an API for professional traders to integrate their own trading systems and software into, while benefiting from the speed of CoinJar trade execution, custody and protection, features and competitive fees. Don't worry if this sounds complicated, it's for advanced users only.
CoinJar is easy to use, secure, and has low fees. A great option to buy and hold crypto.
The range of coins is okay. It’s not a huge amount, but there’s over 60 of the most popular – which include coins like bitcoin, ethereum and dogecoin.
CoinJar focuses on ease of use and protection, rather than being an exchange with 1,000s of coins, with no background checks on the coin itself (many of which don’t tend to be successful) – so the coins you find on CoinJar are the more established coins, where traders have more confidence in the project (although there’s no guarantees the price won’t fall in future).
New coins are added if they become popular and have long term potential for traders and ‘hodlers’ (those who just buy and hold).
This is a pretty cool feature that you don’t typically find on many other exchanges – with CoinJar, you can buy ‘bundles’ of coins (groups of coins). They’re pre-packaged groups of coins that CoinJar has put together.
You can conveniently buy a bundle instead of buying all the different coins individually.
For instance, you could buy a ‘duo’ of bitcoin and ethereum, rather than buying both bitcoin and ethereum separately. This would save you money in transaction fees, as it’s just one transaction, rather than two.
The bundles get more advanced too, and there’s a good range. For instance, you could buy a bundle of ‘DeFi’ coins (decentralised finance, which are crypto projects related to finance on a blockchain (crypto network)).
There’s also things like popular coins that run on the ethereum blockchain, or popular alt coins (among many others).
Bundles can either be split evenly (e.g. 50% in one coin and 50% in another), or they can be weighted based on the size of a coin.
For instance, as bitcoin is the largest in terms of its market cap (the value of all the coins added together), a bundle could have 25% in bitcoin, and the rest distributed out across different coins, also in size order, such as 15% in the next largest, 10% in the next, and the rest spread evenly over smaller coins.
Bundles are managed by CoinJar themselves, and they’ll change the investments within the bundle based on certain criteria. This normally happens quarterly (once every 3 months), and if you want the new version of the bundle, you can conveniently change to the version.
The customer support is responsive.
On the website, there’s a large support centre, which pretty much answers any question you might have.
And if you want to speak to someone, you can submit a support ticket, and they’ll get back to you shortly via email. It’s fairly swift, and having a real person handle your support is helpful – and not something you come across that often in crypto.
The support team is in the UK, and they’re available until 5:30pm Monday to Friday.
The fees are pretty transparent with CoinJar, and for most customers, there’s one main fee that you’ll pay when you want to make a transaction – covered just below. There’s no fee to have an account, or hold your crypto.
There’s no fees to deposit cash with a bank transfer (or make withdrawals). It’s also free to transfer crypto into your CoinJar account.
If you want to withdraw crypto, there’s a ‘dynamic’ withdrawal fee, and how much depends on the crypto you want to withdraw, and things like how busy the crypto network is.
It’s not a fee set by CoinJar, but a fee for sending transactions on the network itself – and happens with all crypto exchanges. It’s not typically very much.
You can also send crypto to other CoinJar members for free.
This is the main fee that you’ll pay, and it’s conveniently a fee when you buy crypto with cash.
On the typical CoinJar account (so not the more advanced exchange section), it’s 1% to convert your local currency to crypto (e.g. buy crypto), and then the same fee to convert it back (1%) when you want to sell.
Unfortunately, if you buy directly with a card (e.g. a visa or mastercard), you’ll pay a 2% fee, and the same via Apple Pay and Google Pay.
There’s also a 1% fee if you want to convert your crypto to another cryptocurrency (which is a lower cost option if you were planning to sell a coin to cash, then buy another coin).
Note: this applies to bundles (buying groups of coins in one go) as well as buying one specific coin directly.
On the advanced exchange section, for trading local currency to crypto (e.g. Pounds to bitcoin), you’ll pay:
Note: a taker fee applies when you buy straight away at the current price (the market price).
Whereas a maker fee applies when you set a price limit for the price you want to buy or sell at.
If you want to trade crypto with another crypto, or crypto to a stablecoin, you’ll pay:
Note: a stablecoin is a coin that typically represents (is the same value) a local currency, such a Pounds (GBP) or Dollars (USD), but on a crypto network, such as USDT.
These fees are very competitive, and in-line with all the preferred crypto exchanges.
Yep, CoinJar is safe to use.
CoinJar is registered for Anti Money Laundering purposes in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), who are the people that make sure financial companies are looking after you and your money.
That means they have to follow strict rules to ensure that your account with them is not exposed to financial crime. Bear in mind that the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) does not protect this investment type because it’s not a ‘specified investment’ under the UK regulatory regime and the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) cannot consider complaints related to crypto.
CoinJar nonetheless has a very strong focus on platform protection, and partners with large, well established companies to hold custody of crypto in a protected manner.
To get an idea of how well companies are looking after their customers, we like to look at TrustPilot, the popular reviews platform.
On TrustPilot, CoinJar has a good score of 4.1 out of 5. For a crypto company, that is pretty epic.
Crypto is an industry where customers aren’t normally treated that well, or customers get frustrated using the platform, and ratings are normally around 1 or 2 out of 5.
Lots of the reviews for CoinJar mention how helpful the support team are, and how user-friendly the app is.
A quick recap and the pros and cons of CoinJar:
We’re big fans of CoinJar. It’s a great option for those looking to conveniently buy crypto and hold it (for as long as they like), and for those potentially looking to trade frequently.
It’s user-friendly, on both their website and via a mobile app, and only takes a few minutes to set up and buy crypto (either via bank transfer or debit card).
We really like the bundles feature, where you can buy a pre-packaged group of coins in one go (saving time and money in fees).
There’s an advanced exchange too – ideal for traders looking to buy and sell frequently. There’s all the key features you’d want – but it’s not a platform for things like leverage trading (borrowing money from the exchange to trade more) – if you’re looking for that, check out all the popular advanced crypto exchanges.
Overall, the fees are competitive, the customer support is good, it’s very well established, and they have a strong focus on protecting your crypto.
We’re giving CoinJar 5 stars. If you’re keen to learn more and get started, head over to the CoinJar website¹.
Remember with crypto:
Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high‑risk investment and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong. Take 2 mins to learn more.
CoinJar is easy to use, secure, and has low fees. A great option to buy and hold crypto.
CoinJar is easy to use, secure, and has low fees. A great option to buy and hold crypto.
CoinJar is easy to use, secure, and has low fees. A great option to buy and hold crypto.
Edward Savage is a leading expert on money, with a background of 8 years working in financial services in London, has a business, accounting and finance degree, runs an investing community, and teaches people about money. He writes about all aspects of personal finance, including pensions, investing, mortgages and insurance.
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CoinJar is easy to use, secure, and has low fees. A great option to buy and hold crypto.
