Coinberry and Shakepay are two of the most popular ways to buy bitcoin in Canada. Below I compare both methods to buy bitcoin and take into consideration the costs, ease of use, mobile apps, and verification systems. There are many different ways to buy bitcoin in Canada, but I think Shakepay and Coinberry are two of the best right now.
For a list of all the best places I think you should be aware of to buy bitcoins in Canada, click here to check out my main post about how to buy bitcoin in Canada. This main post is where I provide links and resources about all the major sites such as Coinberry, Shakepay, Coinsquare, BullBitcoin, and others. If you would like me to review a specific site or you would like me to review a particular aspect of any place to buy bitcoins in Canada, please comment this post or send me a DM.
Account Opening
The account opening process for both Shakepay and Coinberry is very similar. You can join each site with an e-mail and password, you’ll have to confirm your credentials.
Depositing
Both Coinberry and Shakepay basically use the same method to make deposits with Interac e-transfer. For Canadians, this payment method should be easy. Log into your online banking (or banking app) setup a contact and then send an e-transfer. It seems like both Coinberry and Shakepay use the Interac API so that when they receive the e-transfer they electronically read your security question and answer to determine your account. For example, with Shakepay my security question is my username and the security answer is a code. Shakepay knows this info (since they provided it to me). So when they receive my e-transfer their system reads these codes and credits my Shakepay account. Same with Coinberry, users are required to input a msg (provided by Coinberry) to their e-transfer so that when Coinberry receives your e-transfer they will know which account the deposit is for.
Price to Buy Bitcoins
So once you have opened an account and funded it, the next step is to exchange the Canadian dollars you just deposited for bitcoins or the other cryptos that Coinberry and Shakepay offer for sale. Coinberry offers five different cryptos for sale (btc, eth, xrp, bch, ltc), whereas Shakepay offers btc and eth only. In this regard, Coinberry seems a bit better. But keep in mind that you probably should choose the cheapest currency to buy then withdraw, more on this below.
The prices listed to buy bitcoins on Coinberry and Shakepay are very similar. At the time of writing the price of btc on Coinberry is $11,776 and on Shakepay is $11,551. So in this case, Shakepay is a little cheaper then Coinberry. If you want to purchase $200 worth of bitcoin, the difference in price would mean at $3.89 difference. More importantly, at the time of writing, the price for bitcoin on Coinsquare (a Canadian based exchange) is $11,449. This makes sense because Coinberry and Shakepay need to buy their bitcoins from somewhere, and they mark it up for their own customers as the price of their service.
Fees
So let’s be clear on the fees. The first fee is the rate of bitcoins for Canadian dollars. This fee is hidden in the spread we pay Coinberry and Shakepay for their service. Its represented as the price we pay to exchange our Canadian dollars for bitcoins. While this isn’t an explicit fee, its still a cost to us users. Another fee we’ll pay to use Coinberry and Shakepay is the withdrawal fee (in bitcoins).
So unless you just want to hold a nominal amount of bitcoin for fun (so you can tell your friends at a cocktail party that you own bitcoin I guess?) you’ll likely want to transfer the bitcoin you purchased at Coinberry and Shakepay to another wallet or service so that you can actually use it, either to invest, buy something, gamble, play fantasy sports, etc. This withdrawal fee is an explicit cost to users. At the time of writing, I’m not completely sure what the bitcoin withdrawal fee is for Shakepay and Coinberry. Users should expect something like a few bucks of bitcoin to make a bitcoin withdrawal.
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