How the figures on these pages are made
The compare pages set Cambio’s own quotes beside figures for other exchanges. Those figures are made in two ways, checked on the exchange’s own website or estimated from the prices it quoted Cambio, and each is labelled: a figure keeps its time while it is under a day old and is marked Est. after that. This page explains both, what is left out and why, and how long the evidence is kept.
Website checks currently cover ChangeNOW, SimpleSwap and ChangeHero. Cambio’s own quotes are counted from 12 Sep 2026, 18:30 UTC.
A website check is the exchange’s own site, read as a stranger would read it
A small Cambio server, separate from the one that runs the site, opens each exchange’s own public website in an ordinary browser and asks it for a price, the way a visitor filling in the form would. It has no account there, no promo code, no cashback and no loyalty tier, so what it records is the price an anonymous visitor is offered. It asks at about $200, $1,000 and $5,000 on a fixed list of routes, one site at a time with a pause between requests, roughly once an hour.
The pages you are reading rest on 21,260 checks. A check keeps its time on a page while it is under a day old; after that it is marked Est. A site that refuses the request or answers with a challenge page is skipped for that round and never retried in a loop. Only the exchanges the server can read this way carry a “Site checked” label; the rest carry Est.
A check records two amounts: what the site said you would receive, and the market value of what you sent, at the same moment. The difference between them is the whole cost of the swap on that site, commission and network fee together, which is the one number every exchange can be compared on whether or not it publishes a fee.
What “below market” is measured against
Every percentage on these pages is a distance below the market price, and the market price is the midpoint between the best bid and the best ask on Binance’s public order book, read by the same server at the time of each check. USDT is counted as one dollar. Using the check’s own midpoint means an exchange’s figure and the market it is measured against come from the same minute.
When a Cambio quote is set beside a check, it is measured against that check’s midpoint too, not against the price stored with Cambio’s quote. If a Cambio quote ever reads as more than 0.1% above that midpoint, which would mean the two prices were not taken from the same market, its percentage is hidden and only the amount is shown.
An Est. row is fitted from the prices an exchange quoted Cambio
Rows marked Est. are Cambio estimates based on the most recent available observations and may not have been checked at the same time as Cambio’s quote. Checked figures show the observation time.
Cambio used to ask other exchanges for prices as part of every comparison, and stored their answers. An Est. row is fitted from those stored answers: for each exchange and each coin paid out, the loss below market is split into a percentage of the amount and a flat fee, as loss = pct × mid + flat fee, using every stored quote in the basis. A coin needs at least eight quotes from that exchange before it gets a row.
That basis has a known lean, and it is disclosed on every row it affects. Some exchanges add a partner fee to prices quoted to a partner’s account, so an Est. for them can read a little worse than their own website would show a visitor. For ChangeHero the lean is Cambio’s own: its quotes to Cambio carried a markup Cambio had set on its account, so ChangeHero’s Est. rows would overstate its cost, and they are left out entirely. ChangeHero appears only through checks of its own website.
Cambio no longer asks other exchanges for prices, so the Est. basis does not refresh. An Est. carries no date and no quote count: it is Cambio’s estimate, not a reading from a given time, and no claim on any page rests on an Est. alone.
Why an exchange can be missing from a table
An Est. that works out below 0.40% under the market is dropped. That is a rule of this comparison, not a finding about the exchange: it means an exchange that priced very tightly on a coin may be absent from that coin’s table rather than shown above Cambio. The rule exists because a figure fitted from a handful of quotes that far below the usual range is more likely to be a promotion or a quirk of the fit than a price a visitor would be offered.
An exchange also has no row on a route it never quoted, and there is no page for an exchange Cambio holds no dated evidence about. Exchanges that fill swaps behind Cambio’s own row are never shown as a comparison row at all.
The exchanges compared here are a selection of well-known instant exchanges, not the whole market. “Cambio gave the most” on any page means of the exchanges on that page, at the times shown.
How a Cambio quote is paired with a check, and when it is a tie
A Cambio quote is compared with a website check only when the check was made at the same size band and within 90 minutes of the quote; of the checks inside that window, the nearest in time is used. A quote with no check that close is not compared at all. Prices move, and a comparison across a longer gap would mostly measure the market moving.
When two amounts differ by less than 0.05% of the market value, the result is called a tie and neither side is said to have given more. The same band applies when two exchanges’ checks from the same hour are compared with each other.
When a page may say who gave more, and how often
A single row can always be shown: this check, this quote, this amount. A summary sentence such as “Cambio gave more on N of M” appears only once there are at least 40 matched pairs for that exchange spread over at least 7 days. A sentence about two exchanges against each other needs at least 100 same-hour pairs over at least 7 days. Until then the pages print the individual rows and name the leader of each, in both directions.
One older study is also cited. On 11 Sep 2026, before the website checks began, six routes at two sizes were checked by hand on ChangeNOW’s website and on Cambio. It is quoted with its date and its method wherever it appears, and nowhere else is it treated as a record.
How long the evidence is kept
The working table of website checks deletes each check after 30 days. Before a set of pages is published, the checks and Cambio quotes behind every figure on them are exported to a dated archive file, and that file is kept for as long as the pages it supports stand. A figure on these pages can therefore be traced to the row it came from after the working table has moved on.
Pages are built from that stored evidence and nothing else: building them makes no request to any exchange. That is also why nothing here is current to the minute. A figure shows the time it was made only while that is under a day old when you read it; after that it is marked Est.
What Cambio’s own figures are
Cambio’s figures are its own stored quotes, each shown with its time while it is under a day old and marked Est. after that. Cambio charges 0.38% inside the quoted rate on the swaps its main liquidity provider fills. Monero swaps and some bitcoin payouts are priced by a second provider at its own price, with the network fee inside the rate. Every other Cambio quote states its network fee as its own line; that fee is set by the liquidity provider and changes, so each page prints every value it has seen with its dates.
Your deposit goes to the one-time address shown for your order, and the selected execution route sends the payout. Cambio keeps no balance for you, and it sends no order to any other exchange named on these pages. They appear only as reference figures.
About the method
Are the prices on the compare pages current?
No page shows a price as it is this minute. A figure shows the time of the check or quote it came from while that is under a day old, and is marked Est. after that; a page is fixed at the time it was built. Your own Cambio quote is priced when you ask for it.
Why are some exchanges marked Est.?
Because Cambio cannot read their own website yet. Their rows are fitted from the prices they quoted Cambio, marked Est., with any known lean disclosed.
Is this every instant exchange?
No. It is a selection of well-known exchanges. Where a page says Cambio gave the most, it means of the exchanges on that page at the times shown.
How close in time must a check and a Cambio quote be?
Within 90 minutes and at the same size band, or they are not compared. Differences under 0.05% of the market value are called a tie.
The fee Cambio states for each payout coin, beside other exchanges’ figures, is on the withdrawal fees page.