TLDR: Best for beginners
Binance offers beginner traders access to some of the most popular coins on the market and a mobile app, Binance Lite, to buy, store and sell them. Coinbase offers less, but its supported coins are more than enough for beginners to grasp how crypto works.
Coinbase has a more beginner-friendly and easy-to-use platform that can be accessed on the desktop and the Coinbase mobile app, and it would be our pick between the two if we were just starting out.
TLDR: Best for experienced users
Experienced traders will enjoy using Coinbase and Binance. Coinbase has a lot more of a clean and less cluttered advanced trading platform. Still, it, unfortunately, lacks a few trading features that Binance does so well, like margin and leverage trading, and its staking features have nothing on Binance.
Binance is our pick for the better trading platform between the two. It’s highly advanced, much cheaper than Coinbase, and has some of the best advanced trading features on the market.
Introduction
Choosing a crypto exchange to handle your investments can be difficult. It’s not a simple spin-the-wheel kind of choice as every exchange is built differently, has different features, fees, and crypto offerings, and some are easier to use than others. There are regulations to consider, too, as many exchanges are prohibited in certain jurisdictions.
Are you a day trader looking to make multiple trades a day/week? Do you just simply want to buy and hold crypto? Maybe you’re looking to dip your toes into the crypto world before taking the plunge, or you’re that crypto purist looking for advanced features to maximise your cryptos potential? As you can probably tell already, there’s no one size fits all when it comes to crypto exchanges, and personal preference and your investment strategy will most likely be the deciding factors when choosing an exchange.
Binance and Coinbase are two of the most well-known crypto exchanges out there, for good reason too. Binance is synonymous with the crypto elite. Like its reputation, its exchange is excellent, secure, and full of advanced features. That being said, it does have a beginner-friendly exchange too. Coinbase is more geared towards beginners but has a more advanced platform too. It’s not as advanced as Binance, but traders might find other things appealing.
Summary: Coinbase vs Binance
| Coinbase | Binance | |
| Fees | 0.00%/0.50% Maker/taker. 0.5% Crypto purchase | 0.1%/0.1% Maker/taker. 0.5% crypto purchase |
| # of Assets | More than 150 cryptos and 360 trading pairs | More than 405 and 1400 trading pairs |
| Supported Fiat Currency | USD, GBP, EUR | 46 fiat currencies, including USD, EUR, AUD, GBP, HKD, and INR |
| Funding methods | Cryptocurrency and fiat (ACH, SEPA, Ideal, debit/credit card, wire transfer, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay) | Cryptocurrency and fiat (SEPA, credit/debit card, wire transfer) |
| Ease of Use | MadCrypto rating: 9/10
Convenient, basic and easy-to-use platform |
MadCrypto rating: 7/10
Advanced platforms, primarily for experienced traders. A beginner-friendly mobile app called Binance Lite |
| Trading Features | Spot trading, stop loss, limit sell | Limit order, market order, stop-limit order, stop market order, trailing stop order, post-only order, limit TP/SL order, spot trading, margin and leverage trading, futures, and options. |
| Customer Support | Phone support, help centre, chatbot assistance | Help centre, 24/7 live chat support, |
| Staking | Locked staking for 4 coins with up to 5.75% APR | Flexible and locked staking for 182 coins, with more than 100% APY on selected coins. Binance Savings, De-Fi staking, Launchpool & Liquid Swap are also available. |
Fees Comparison
| Tier | Coinbase | Binance | ||
| Maker | Taker | Maker | Taker | |
| $0 – 10K | 0.50% | 0.50% | 0.10% | 0.10% |
| $10K – 50K | 0.35% | 0.35% | 0.10% | 0.10% |
| $50K – 100K | 0.15% | 0.25% | 0.10% | 0.10% |
| $100K – 1M | 0.10% | 0.20% | 0.10% | 0.10% |
| $1M – 5M | 0.08% | 0.18% | 0.09%(BNB Balance ≥25) | 0.10%(BNB Balance ≥25) |
| $5M – 20M | 0.08% | 0.18% | 0.08%(BNB Balance ≥25) | 0.10%(BNB Balance ≥25) |
Explanation + Additional fees
Regarding fees, there are no two exchanges with the same fee structure. Some might have similar maker/taker fees, but chances are the additional fees will be completely different. Additional fees can include crypto buy and sell fees, deposit fees, and fiat purchase fees, among others. Your trading strategy will dictate which fees are important to you. For example, if all you want to do is buy and sell crypto, focusing on those fees will help you decide which exchange is suitable for you. But if trading is important to you, maker/taker fees will be the deciding factor.
Binance is notorious for having some of the lowest trading fees on the market, with maker/taker fees capped at 0.10%/010%. This is a stark comparison to Coinbase, which charges 0.50%/0.50% for the same fees. Coinbase has a complex way of charging for crypto purchases, but they’re roughly 0.50% per purchase, pretty much on par with Binance’s purchase fees. With that considered, you would naturally want to steer towards Binance as it’s the cheaper between the two for trading, but with Coinbase, you’re paying for convenience, and it might be a lot easier for some to use Coinbase over a more complex Binance.
Assets And Pairs Comparison
With its sheer trading volume, it’s no surprise that Binance offers more cryptocurrencies to buy and trade. It offers more than 405 cryptocurrencies compared to Coinbase’s 150+. Binance provides the top 10 coins by market cap, whereas Coinbase only offers 7, excluding BNB, BUSD, and XRP. Naturally, Binance has more trading pairs with more than 1400 compared to Coinbase’s 360+. So if you were looking at assets alone, Binance would be the most obvious choice, especially if you’re looking for the top 10 and more lesser-known coins that could unlock high returns.
Funding Methods Comparison
Both exchanges offer fiat and cryptocurrency funding. Binance does support more fiat currencies, with a total of 46 compared to Coinbase’s 3, but Coinbase offers more fiat funding methods like PayPal, Google and Apple Pay. With Coinbase offering PayPal payments, however, means that any currencies supported by PayPal should be able to be used to fund your account. We also advise looking at third-party fees because each service will have different fees.
Both exchanges make crypto funding very simple too, but Coinbase does have the edge here, as we’ve covered in the Wallet section of this review, as you can assign a username to your wallet instead of using long wallet addresses to transfer crypto.
Platform & Ease of Use Comparison
This is more of a personal preference and depends on what trading tools are important to you. Both exchanges offer professional-grade advanced platforms with advanced charting features. They both have beginner and advanced platforms available on desktop interfaces, but Binance Lite is only available on the mobile app.
Binance has two views for its trading platform: classic and advanced. Its classic view is still quite advanced, though. We think Coinbase’s trading screen is much less cluttered, and its chart is more prominent and easier to manage. The interface seems much more focused, but that could be down to Coinbase having less advanced features than Binance.
When it comes to the beginner platforms, Coinbase is a clear winner for us due to its ease of use and availability on both desktop and mobile platforms. You can easily view your available assets and trade them from the home screen and central dashboard without going through too many hurdles. Binance Lite is easy to use but isn’t as intuitive, and buying crypto is slightly more complex than Coinbase.
Trading Features Comparison
Binance is the biggest crypto exchange, so it’s no surprise it probably has the most trading features you would ever need. It has 7 order types, basic spot trading, margined futures contracts, leveraged tokens, and options. Its advanced charting features are hard to beat, with more than 100 indicators and 80 other tools that help you get the most out of your crypto analysis. Through Binance Lite, beginners can also participate in basic spot trading and not be exposed to all the confusing advanced features.
Coinbase does have some advanced features through its Coinbase Pro exchange, but it lacks margin and leverage trading and features like short selling. Its advanced charting features will suffice for most advanced traders’ needs, but the lack of those popular features makes Binance the better choice if trading features are important to you.
If you’re a beginner trying to decide between the two, Coinbase’s model is moulded around beginners’ needs, and its features cater more to them. The basic spot exchange is very user-friendly and simplifies buying and selling crypto. We would recommend trying Coinbase before moving on to Binance.
Customer Support Comparison
Binance and Coinbase customer service both have mixed reviews. On the plus side, they both offer human customer service representative help for any issues you may have. Coinbase offers it telephonically and via online chat, whereas Binance only offers it via online chat. They have extensive support centres, too, with articles on the most common issues users face, so chances are you’ll be able to find any info you need from them.
Staking Comparison
Comparing Binance staking and Coinbase staking is like comparing Nicholas Latifi to Lewis Hamilton. Binance has multiple staking tools, most of which are developed for advanced and experienced traders. Binance supports 182 coins with flexible and locked staking terms ranging from 5 to 120 days for its basic staking. The APY reward potential is more than 100% on selected coins, and it has an extensive list of stablecoins available, including BUSD, USDT, USDC, and DAI.
Coinbase is on the opposite end of the spectrum, offering a maximum of 5% APY earning potential on your crypto, with only 4 cryptos available to stake. Coinbase also takes a 25% commission on all your earnings, so 5% is more like 3.75%. It just doesn’t seem worth it to us, and if staking is a deciding factor in your choice of an exchange to use, there’s a clear winner between the two.
Additional Features Comparison
Wallet Comparison
Both wallets from Coinbase and Binance are decentralised. This means that you hold the private keys offline, so the chance of it being hacked is near impossible unless the hacker physically obtains your key. There isn’t much difference between the two. Both support thousands of coins, but with Coinbase, you can assign a username to your wallet, so the chance of losing crypto is greatly diminished by getting a digit wrong in a long and cumbersome crypto address.
Cards
Binance and Coinbase offer Visa cards that allow you to bridge the gap between crypto and traditional fiat currency, letting you use your crypto for everyday spending. With the Binance Visa card, you can earn up to 8% cash back rewards on all crypto, but to achieve that, you need to have a minimum of 6000 BNB in your crypto wallet, no easy feat even for the most advanced trader. If you only have a card with no BNB in your wallet, you can still get 1% cashback. You can spend 12 different cryptos, including BNB, BTC, and ETH.
Coinbase offers its users up to 4% reward depending on the crypto. You don’t need a minimum balance of any crypto in your crypto wallet. You can spend 6 different cryptos, including ETH, BTC, and XLM. So with cash back rewards alone, we would choose Coinbase, but the choice of Cryptos available to spend might make you decide otherwise.
NFTs
Binance NFT marketplace lets you buy, sell and trade NFTs. It’s been around since the emergence of NFTs, so it’s pretty well established and developed. That doesn’t necessarily mean you can count Coinbase out, though. Coinbase has recently launched its new NFT marketplace. Although still in the beta phase, it’s very impressive, and we liked the selection of NFTs on display and that Coinbase lets you buy them with fiat currency and ETH, whereas Binance only allows ETH, BUSD, or BNB purchases.
Binance still has the better NFT marketplace, but we are keeping a keen eye on the continued development of the Coinbase NFT marketplace.
Conclusion: The Winner
Beginner
With its simple and clutter-free platform, we think Coinbase wins the best beginner platform over Binance. Yes, you can probably choose from more of a selection of coins with Binance, but if you just want a place to start learning about crypto, the smaller offering from Coinbase will more than suffice before moving on to the more complicated Binance platform. The fees are very similar too, so it purely comes down to ease of use for us.
Advanced
Few exchanges can offer as much as Binance can. It’s one of the cheapest exchanges for trading, with a wide variety of advanced features, and has one of the best staking packages on the market. We think the Coinbase extras are better than Binance’s extras, like its wallet and Visa card, and it also has a cleaner advanced UI. But the level of advancement is what makes Binance, Binance, and we feel that it trumps Coinbase on so many levels. If you’re looking for that pure crypto trading experience, you can’t go wrong with Binance.