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Comparison

vs OpenNode —
who holds the money?

OpenNode is a polished processor with genuine strengths we don't have — Lightning payments and automatic fiat payouts chief among them. The difference is custody: OpenNode receives your payments and you withdraw; chainkit derives an address from your xpub and the money never touches us. Here's the whole picture so you can pick the trade-off that fits.

chainkit-cloud
OpenNode

chainkit figures are live from our pricing API. OpenNode figures are from their published pricing as of July 2026 — check their site for the current numbers.

Custody model

  • Funds go directly to the merchant wallet

    OpenNode is custodial until you withdraw or schedule a payout. chainkit never holds funds — every invoice derives a fresh address from your xpub.

  • Merchant retains the private key on every flow
  • xpub rotation per invoice (no address reuse)

Pricing

  • Free tier

    chainkit Free renews every calendar month; OpenNode has no free allowance.

    Free · up to 25 invoices / mo
    none — 1 % from the first payment
  • Paid tier — entry
    €29 / mo + 0.75% settled — pay the greater
    1 % per payment
  • Paid tier — growth
    €99 / mo + 0.45% settled — pay the greater
    1 % per payment
  • On €10,000/mo settled volume

    chainkit is cheaper above €2,900/mo settled — before counting OpenNode's payout fee, and the gap widens with volume.

    €75 (Launch)
    €100 (flat 1 %)
  • Fee to move funds into your own custody

    OpenNode payments land in your OpenNode balance; getting them out is a second, fee-bearing step. chainkit settles each invoice straight to an address derived from your xpub.

    none — funds never pass through us
    1 % payout (LN withdrawals free)

Payment rails

  • On-chain Bitcoin
  • Lightning Network payments

    OpenNode's headline strength — instant, tiny payments over LN. chainkit is on-chain only today; if sub-€1 micro-payments are your business, OpenNode fits better.

  • Automatic fiat conversion + bank payouts

    Deliberate: conversion requires custody. chainkit settles BTC to your wallet; what you convert, and where, stays your call.

Developer surface

  • Public Go SDK (intent + watcher + signature verify)

    chainkit ships sdk/payment as part of chainkit-go-sdk; OpenNode is a REST + webhook story you wire up yourself.

  • Webhooks (HMAC-signed)
  • Cloud-side watcher (server you don't run)
  • SDK-side watcher (so your app sees confirmations first)

Receipts + tax

  • PDF invoice + receipt with VAT id + tax breakdown

    chainkit's receipt embeds the merchant's VAT id + tax math from an immutable snapshot at issuance; OpenNode's billing product covers invoicing but not snapshot-immutable VAT receipts.

    partial
  • Bulk receipts ZIP for quarter-end
  • CSV / JSON invoice exports

Privacy + compliance

  • Start issuing invoices without business KYC

    OpenNode onboards through business verification (it holds funds, so it must). chainkit holds nothing, so signup is instant.

  • Customer PII redaction endpoint (GDPR "forget")
  • EU-based hosting + processor

Ready to plug it in?

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This page summarises OpenNode's published pricing and product surface as of our last review. Their docs are the canonical source — verify before you make a switching decision. See all comparisons, or jump to vs Blockonomics and vs Coinbase Commerce.