Crypto exchange development with full admin control.
We build the exchange you operate: a matching engine, an order book per pair, deposit detection on every chain you list, a withdrawal policy you control, and one admin console over all of it. Spot, OTC and brokerage models, built to your spec.
- Matching engine and order book Limit, market and stop orders, partial fills, per pair depth
- Custody, deposits and payouts Hot and cold split, confirmations enforced, multisig release
- The operator console Pairs, fee tiers, approvals, limits and reserve reporting
- From past work
- From $499
- From scratch
- From $999
- Platform control
- Full admin, day one
You run the exchange, not a position. Your users trade. You set the rules and take the fee.
This is development work for the operator of an exchange. If you are looking for somewhere to trade, this is not that.
Two ways in, one fixed price
Start from work we have already done, which you can watch in the Loom demos on our Telegram channel, or start from an empty page. Either way the price is agreed before the work begins.
| What is included | From past work $499 built on what we have done | From scratch $999 built to your spec | Full exchange Quoted priced per project |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $499 | $999 | Quoted per project |
| Starting point | Groundwork from a platform we have built before | An empty page and your spec | Your spec, your rules, your jurisdiction |
| Custom features | Added on top, each one quoted | Part of the build | Whatever the exchange needs |
| Branding | Your name, colours and domain | Yours from the first screen | Designed with you |
| Matching engine | As it works in the demo you saw | Spot, limit and market | Plus stop, post only, margin or derivatives |
| Trading pairs at launch | As in the demo | 1 to start, more on request | To your list |
| Chains integrated | As in the demo | 1 | To your list |
| Operator console | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Custody model | As built, hardening quoted | Hot wallet, single signer | Hot and cold, multisig release |
| KYC and AML hooks | On request | Manual review only | Your providers, your rules |
| Source code | Yours, unencrypted | Yours, unencrypted | Yours, unencrypted |
| Deployment | Included | Included | Included |
| Support window | 30 days | 60 days | Per project |
| Get in touch | Watch the demos | Start from scratch | Discuss a full build |
One fixed price per build, no revenue share and no per trade cut. A build that starts from work we have already done begins at $499, and each feature added on top of it is quoted before it is written, so the total is known in advance rather than at the end. The price covers development, deployment and handover. Infrastructure, market data and KYC providers are billed by them to you, and we set every account up in your name. Whatever licence your jurisdiction expects is a conversation for your lawyer rather than for us. Our half of the arrangement is the software.
What gets built
Seven builds people come asking for. Each one moves money differently and carries a different risk, and the admin console comes with all of them. Want something that is not here? It still gets quoted.
All of the above, together with the infrastructure work sitting behind it, is priced from a single requirements document. Send yours over on Telegram.
How a custom build gets quoted from $999
Scoping costs nothing, and the figure you are given is the figure that holds. Describe the build; back comes a fixed price together with a written list of what sits outside it.
- Describe the platform to us on Telegram
- We quote exactly, with the scope written down
- You approve the scope and the price
- Built in milestones you sign off as they land
Describe your platform on Telegram
Building exchanges for other people instead of running your own? White label arrangements and terms covering several deployments can be worked out; mention it in your first message.
What it runs on
One Ubuntu VPS for the basic build. Everything else we install. Anything heavier is written into the proposal before we start.
| Server type | A single VPS |
| Linux | Ubuntu, 22.04 LTS and upward |
| Database | PostgreSQL, version 15 and upward |
| Cache and queue | Redis 7 |
| Node runtime | Version 20 LTS and upward |
| In front | Nginx, reverse proxy plus WebSocket |
| Memory | 2 GB min, 4 GB comfortable |
| Storage | 20 GB SSD, grows with the trade log |
| Chain nodes | Your own, or a hosted RPC provider |
| Certificates | Let’s Encrypt, issued during deployment |
| VPS cost | $10 to $20 per month |
| Domain | About $20 per year |
| Deployment | Included in every engagement |
We deploy it for you, and hand over every key
Deployment is included and handled by us: nginx, TLS, process supervision, backups, monitoring and alerting. Beyond that you pay for the server and the domain, both registered in your name and invoiced to you by whoever provides them. Nothing is invoiced by us.
At go live, every credential created during the build is handed across, the servers and the signing policy among them, and every one of them can be rotated on day one.
Hosting for the heavier builds is quoted in the proposal
The table above is the basic install. An exchange carrying real volume, many chains, its own nodes or a custody layer kept on its own machine needs more than one VPS, and what it needs depends on what you are building.
So we size it in writing before the work starts: the written proposal names the machines, the split and the monthly figure, so the running cost is agreed on day zero rather than discovered at launch.
Custody & security
You pay once. We take no share of revenue and nothing per trade, and the build never calls a server of ours for permission to keep running, so losing touch with us entirely costs you nothing. It sits on infrastructure you rent, behind a domain you registered, and the ledger inside it belongs to you. Each update ships with a changelog carrying its date, and taking it is your decision, not ours.
A word about security, because it decides more of these projects than any feature does. The custody layer is where exchanges lose money, and almost never through the matching engine. It is a withdrawal that cleared without a second signer, a deposit credited twice after a reorg, or a hot wallet holding a balance that belonged in cold storage. That is why we build it separately, review it separately, and give you a release policy you can tighten without a deploy.
Buying a cheap white label from a vendor nobody can vouch for is the other common ending, since code nobody asked for can sit quietly in software that holds other people's funds, unnoticed right up until the balances start moving. Every build we ship is written and deployed by us, with the source unencrypted and readable. Running something already, built by someone else, and want it audited or migrated? That is work we take on as well.
Build & handover
Milestones you sign off, not a black box that lands at the end.
- You send the markets, the chains and the rules you want to run
- You get a written proposal: fixed scope, the hosting it needs and what that costs per month
- We set the infrastructure up in your name, then build engine and console first, on a test copy of the site you can trade on
- Custody and the trader front end, then go live with every key handed over
Nobody expects you to sign up with providers, weigh instance types against each other or open a terminal, unless that happens to be how you prefer to work. The infrastructure is arranged for you, registered in your name, and passed on at cost.
At handover you receive the servers, the repository, the database, the domain account and the signing policy. Anything still in our hands afterwards is something you can revoke in a minute, and the support window counts from your launch day, not from the day our work ends.
| From past work | Days, once the changes are agreed |
| From scratch | 1 week |
| Full exchange | Scoped with you |
| Test copy available | Midway through the week |
| Deployment and handover | Included in every engagement |
After you go live
From past work 30 days, From scratch 60 days, a full exchange per project. Extensions any time.
Telegram carries the day to day questions, usually answered inside the same day, with a shared incident channel kept for anything touching live trading. It covers the exchange behaving as delivered, bugs, help applying updates, and the questions that surface the first time a chain forks or a provider rewrites an API.
Questions we get asked first
The ones that come up in almost every first conversation.
What does crypto exchange development actually include?
Four layers. The matching engine that pairs orders, the custody layer that detects deposits and releases withdrawals, the trader front end they log in to, and the operator console you run it from. A quote that covers only the first and the third is the usual reason a build runs late.
How is this different from a white label exchange?
A white label is somebody else's exchange with your logo on it, usually with a revenue share and a vendor who holds the keys. This is a build you own: your infrastructure, your source code, your custody policy, one price. It takes longer to launch and it is yours afterwards.
Is the source code mine?
Yes. Readable, unencrypted, in a repository you own, from the first milestone onward. No obfuscation anywhere in it, and no licence check calling home that could ever switch the exchange off.
Can I add a chain or a trading pair after launch?
Pairs, tick sizes, minimum orders and fee tiers are console settings, so you add those yourself without a deploy. A new chain needs a watcher and an address scheme for it, which is development work, quoted per chain and usually small once the first few are in.
How do you handle deposits and reorgs?
A watcher per chain follows its own head and credits nothing until your confirmation threshold is met. Crediting is idempotent against the transaction id, so a replay cannot double credit, and a reorg that drops a transaction reverses the credit rather than leaving a phantom balance. Amount mismatches go to manual review.
Can you provide liquidity or market making?
We build the plumbing: routing to an outside exchange, a quote engine, and a market maker API with its own rate limits and fee rebate tier. We do not provide the liquidity itself and we do not introduce market makers. That is a commercial relationship you own.
What about licensing and KYC?
We wire in the KYC and AML providers you choose, with the review queue and the record keeping in the console. Whether your jurisdiction expects a licence of you, and which kind, is something to put to a lawyer who practises there. We write software and build to whatever rules you hand us.
Can I try it before committing?
Yes. Ask on Telegram and you get a staging console loaded with test liquidity: place an order, watch the engine match it, approve a payout, open the reserve report. No form to fill in, no sales call, no deposit.
Something breaks after launch. Then what?
Anything that touches live trading opens an incident in the shared channel and stays open until it is resolved. The window bundled with your engagement covers the exchange behaving as delivered. Where the cause sits in your infrastructure instead of our code, you still get told exactly what it is, and finding that out is usually the harder half of the job.
Do I need a team to run it?
Not a development team. Day to day work is console work: approving payouts, listing pairs, adjusting limits and reading the reserve report. You do want one person who can read a server alert and one who can sign a withdrawal, and those can be the same person at the start.
How much does a crypto exchange cost to run?
The basic build runs on one VPS, $10 to $20 a month, and your domain is about $20 a year. On top of that sit your chain nodes or RPC provider, market data if you want a reference price, and KYC checks priced per verification. A busier exchange needs more than one machine, so we size the hosting in the written proposal before the build starts and the monthly figure is agreed there. There is no monthly fee to us and no cut of your trading fees. Baseline in the technical requirements.
And when the support window runs out?
Trading carries on exactly as before. Nothing expires, because there is no licence server for it to expire against. What stops is access to new updates and to replies from us, until you choose to extend, which can be done whenever you like.
Everything in the build, by layer
The list we scope against. If you are weighing one kind of exchange against another, working out which layer you already have, or picturing what an ordinary trading day actually involves, this is the shape of the work.