100 euros of crypto at Scalable Capital costs 1.98 euros: the spread mark-up does most of it

A purchase of 100 euros in a crypto ETP costs 1.98 euros at Scalable Capital on the free FREE tariff. That is 0.99 euros of order fee and a 0.99 percent spread mark-up on the price. On the PRIME+ subscription the mark-up falls to 0.69 percent, but the order fee only disappears from an order volume of 250 euros. At 100 euros you pay 1.68 euros there plus a monthly charge of 4.99 euros.

cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on October 7, 2026. The basis is three price and product pages from Scalable Capital, the cost overview for the two tariffs FREE and PRIME+, the product page for crypto ETPs and the page on the PRIME+ subscription, plus the three ETPs the provider itself highlights on its product page. The calculation covers three order sizes and both tariffs, so six cases.

The figure that surprises most in this is not the order fee. It is the spread mark-up. It appears in the price table under a line of its own named crypto fees and is charged as a percentage, not as a flat amount. That is precisely why it grows with every euro you invest, while the order fee stays at 0.99 euros.

Scalable Capital and crypto: you buy ETPs, not coins

The most important sentence first, because it determines everything else: at Scalable Capital you trade crypto exclusively through ETPs. The provider's product page itself calls the offering crypto ETPs and describes the route in a way that needs no additional wallet. According to the provider, 32 cryptocurrencies are available as ETPs, with a minimum of one euro, and some papers come with staking rewards.

ETP stands for exchange traded product. It is an exchange-traded security that tracks the price of another asset, here the price of a cryptocurrency. So you acquire a paper in your securities account, not a coin on a blockchain. Anyone who buys Bitcoin via such a paper has afterwards no private key, no address and no way to send the holding to a wallet of their own.

That is neither good nor bad; it is a different product with different properties. The differences between coin, ETN and certificate we have taken apart in a separate article. Anyone who first wants to see which exchange-traded crypto products are available in Germany at all will find the situation in the overview of crypto ETFs and ETPs in Germany.

What ends up in the securities account and what does not

What ends up there is a security with an ISIN, tradable like a share. What does not end up there is a balance you could withdraw, send or secure in a hardware device. Custody, according to the provider, sits with the ETP issuer, which stores the underlying cryptocurrencies with specialised custodians.

The 0.99 percent spread mark-up is the actual crypto fee

Scalable Capital's price table has one line that applies to crypto alone. That line is named crypto fees and states a spread mark-up of 0.99 percent on the FREE tariff and 0.69 percent on PRIME+. A footnote in the provider's cost overview makes clear that this line applies to all financial instruments that track the value of cryptocurrencies, ETPs, ETCs and ETNs included.

A spread is the gap between the buying and selling price of a paper. A spread mark-up means that something is added on top of that gap, which exists anyway. On your settlement statement this mark-up does not appear as a fee item of its own. It sits in the price at which you are filled. Anyone who looks only at the line with the order fee thereby misses the larger part of the cost as soon as the order volume is above around one hundred euros.

For the calculation below, the obvious assumption applies that the percentage mark-up relates to the order volume. On a purchase of 1,000 euros, 0.99 percent is therefore 9.90 euros, with the order fee beside it at 0.99 euros. The ratio flips completely with order size: at 100 euros both items carry the same weight, at 1,000 euros the mark-up carries ten times the order fee.

The calculation: what is left of 100, 250 and 1,000 euros in the ETP

Here are the six calculated cases. The percentages relate to the respective order volume; the monthly charge for PRIME+ is not yet included in this table, because it is incurred independently of individual purchases.

Of 100 euros, then, 98.02 euros arrives in the paper on the FREE tariff. At 250 euros it is 246.53 euros, at 1,000 euros 989.11 euros. The share falls with order size, because the fixed order fee spreads across more euros, but it falls only as far as the floor set by the spread mark-up. A FREE purchase never gets below 0.99 percent, however large it is.

On PRIME+ that floor sits at 0.69 percent, and from 250 euros it is also the entire price, because the order fee drops to zero there. That is why the PRIME+ column shows an identical 0.69 percent at both 250 and 1,000 euros.

PRIME+ at 4.99 euros a month: from what order volume the subscription pays off

PRIME+ costs 4.99 euros a month, FREE costs nothing. For crypto the subscription brings two advantages: the spread mark-up falls by 0.30 percentage points, and the order fee of 0.99 euros disappears from an order volume of 250 euros. Both have to earn the monthly charge back first.

Assuming a single crypto purchase a month, the tariffs break even at an order volume of around 1,334 euros. Below that FREE is cheaper, above it PRIME+. An example in the other direction: anyone who puts 1,000 euros into a crypto ETP once a month pays 10.89 euros on FREE and 11.89 euros on PRIME+ including the subscription. In that case the subscription is one euro more expensive, even though it has the lower fee line.

This calculation looks at crypto alone. Anyone holding the subscription for shares, ETFs or derivatives anyway gets the lower crypto mark-up thrown in for free. Anyone considering PRIME+ only for crypto should first set the threshold of around 1,334 euros of monthly order volume beside their own purchase amounts. How other providers set that threshold is shown by the overview of the best crypto brokers.

Savings plan from 1 euro with no order fee: the mark-up stays all the same

Savings plan executions are free of charge at Scalable Capital on all broker models, from a savings rate of one euro. That sounds like a zero tariff, and with shares and ETFs it is one. With crypto the spread mark-up is untouched by it, because it does not belong to the order fee but to the crypto fees line.

In practice that means: a monthly crypto savings rate of 100 euros costs 0.99 euros per execution on FREE and 0.69 euros on PRIME+. Over twelve months that adds up to 11.88 and 8.28 euros respectively. For the savings plan case the subscription threshold shifts markedly upwards, because PRIME+ can no longer save any order fee here: only from a monthly savings rate of around 1,664 euros does the lower mark-up carry the monthly charge.

Anyone saving in small instalments is therefore better off with crypto on the free tariff, and across a very wide range. That is the reverse of the reflex one is used to with brokers.

TER from 0.15 to 2.50 percent: product costs vary by more than sixteenfold

Alongside the broker's costs sits the ongoing charge of the paper itself. The technical term for it is the TER, the total expense ratio: the annual costs of an exchange-traded product as a percentage of the amount invested. This rate is never debited. It is taken from the product's assets on an ongoing basis and thereby depresses the price.

Scalable Capital highlights three papers on its crypto product page, and their TERs lie far apart:

Between the cheapest and the most expensive of these three papers lies more than sixteenfold on the ongoing cost rate. Calculated on 1,000 euros and one year, that is 1.50 euros against 25.00 euros, a difference of 23.50 euros. The broker's spread mark-up is incurred once, at purchase; the TER is incurred every year. Over a holding period of several years, product selection is therefore the bigger lever than the choice of tariff.

A side effect of the table: the most expensive of the three papers is the one with staking rewards. Whether the distributed income outweighs the higher TER depends on the staking yield of the respective network and on the issuer's terms. That yield varies from month to month; the paper's ongoing cost rate stays constant.

Where to look up the TER yourself

The TER appears in the key information document of the respective paper, which every issuer has to publish, and additionally on the product page in your securities account. Anyone comparing two ETPs on the same cryptocurrency compares that figure first, then the trading spread on the chosen exchange.

Custody with the ETP issuer: no delivery claim, no wallet of your own

Scalable Capital describes custody clearly. Responsibility sits with the ETP issuer, which stores the underlying cryptocurrencies with specialised custodians. For you that removes key management, and with it the risk of losing a seed phrase.

What you have bought instead is a different risk. An ETP is as a rule a bearer bond, that is a claim against the issuer. If that issuer becomes insolvent, the collateralisation helps you only as far as it is legally separated from its remaining assets. This issuer risk does not exist with a coin in your own wallet; there you carry the risk of your own custody instead.

Anyone who wants to hold both side by side, an ETP in the securities account and a holding in self-custody, needs a route other than Scalable Capital for the second part. An exchange that pays out real coins, and a device that keeps the keys offline, are the usual building blocks for that.

Exchange trading hours: a crypto ETP stands still at the weekend

Crypto markets run around the clock, seven days a week. For ETPs that does not hold. On its product page Scalable Capital points out explicitly that ETPs are tradable only during regular exchange trading hours and that prices reflect the underlying crypto markets.

For a savings plan that is irrelevant. For someone who wants to react to a price slump on a Sunday evening, it is the decisive difference from buying directly on a crypto exchange. The price then keeps moving, only your order does not. On Monday morning the gap to the Friday close can be considerable, and you will be filled at whatever price applies then.

Tax on crypto ETPs: why the holding period depends on the delivery claim

With cryptocurrencies held directly in private assets, the one-year rule under section 23 of the German Income Tax Act applies: after more than twelve months of holding, the gain stays tax-free; inside the period your personal tax rate applies. With a security that is not automatically the case.

What matters is whether the paper embodies a delivery claim, that is the right to exchange the bond for the actual cryptocurrency. Physically backed papers with such a claim are regularly treated like a direct investment, so under section 23 with the one-year rule. A pure bearer bond without that claim falls under section 20, and then the flat withholding tax of 25 percent plus the solidarity surcharge applies, regardless of how long you have held. The revised circular of the German Federal Ministry of Finance of March 6, 2025 is the authoritative administrative basis for this.

In practice that means: the broker does not give you the answer. It is to be found in the securities prospectus and in the key information document of the individual ETP. Two papers on the same cryptocurrency can run differently for tax purposes. Anyone holding several positions should settle that before buying rather than at tax return time, and in case of doubt speak to a tax adviser. This article does not replace tax advice.

Trade Republic, comdirect and Bitpanda: where Scalable Capital sits beside them

Scalable Capital is not alone with this model. Several German providers make crypto available via securities and charge the lion's share through a percentage spread rather than a visible fee. The comparison is therefore worth making along two questions: how high is the percentage share, and do I get real coins or a paper?

At Scalable Capital the answer to the second question is unambiguously a paper. With providers that sell real coins, the question of withdrawability is added, that is whether and at what price you can send the holding to an address of your own. The two cannot be set off against each other; they are different products with different risks.

On the cost side a simple rule of thumb follows from this analysis: below 250 euros of order volume the fixed order fee decides, above it the percentage decides. A provider with one euro of order fee and a 0.5 percent spread is more expensive on small purchases and markedly cheaper on large ones than one with no order fee and a one percent spread.

Scalable Capital crypto in figures: the balance of this analysis

The visible fee at Scalable Capital is low at 0.99 euros per order, and with crypto it is the smaller part of the cost. The larger part is carried by the spread mark-up, 0.99 percent on FREE and 0.69 percent on PRIME+, and it grows with every euro invested. On 100 euros that adds up to 1.98 euros of cost, on 1,000 euros to 10.89 euros.

The PRIME+ subscription pays off for crypto alone only at amounts far above what a typical savings plan moves. And over several years it is the TER of the chosen paper that decides, not the tariff: between 0.15 and 2.50 percent a year lies more than sixteenfold. Anyone who picks the paper carefully saves more than with any change of tariff.

That leaves the point no fee table captures: an ETP is a security. You get the price, not the coin, and you get the exchange trading hours thrown in. Anyone who wants exactly that will find it comfortable. Anyone who wants their own keys is in the wrong place here, and that is not a question of cost.

Scalable Capital and crypto: Your next three steps

1. Work through your own order size before you choose the tariff. If your monthly crypto outlay is below around 1,334 euros on single purchases, or below around 1,664 euros on a savings plan, FREE is the cheaper choice. How other providers price the same case is shown by the overview of crypto savings plans on Bitcoin.
2. Decide deliberately between paper and coin. If you want to hold the position in your own custody at some point, you need real coins, and therefore a route other than an ETP account. Which devices keep the keys offline is in the hardware wallet comparison.
3. Check the TER and the delivery claim on the ETP you pick. The TER decides the ongoing cost, the delivery claim decides the tax. Both are in the key information document. Anyone who would rather buy directly will find the licensed trading venues among the best crypto exchanges.

(As of October 7, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)