ChangeHero vs ChangeNOW: Review and Comparison

One of the more prominent names in the post-Changelly instant exchange landscape is ChangeNOW, who built a well-acknowledged brand in eight years. What did a one-year advantage translate into when comparing it to ChangeHero? We tested both services simultaneously and will provide a comprehensive review of ChangeNOW and ChangeHero—as unbiased as possible.😌

ChangeHero vs ChangeNOW Comparison Takeaways

• ChangeNOW is an instant exchange platform established in 2017, a year before ChangeHero. During their eight years in operation, they built an ecosystem of crypto-related products and listed almost a thousand of coins and tokens.
• ChangeHero is its direct competitor, offering an advantage in exchange rates among other things, proven in our test exchange.
• A practical test to compare ChangeHero and ChangeNOW had unexpected results. During the swap on the latter service, a disclaimer warned about high spreads and poor rate. For the purpose of a test, we proceeded and lost about 15% more on rates and commissions than on ChangeHero, despite the swap processing significantly faster in under 2 minutes.

Competitive Edge

ChangeNOW and ChangeHero are essentially the same kind of product: non-custodial instant cryptocurrency exchange or swap platform. The way they work is they connect their users with a multitude of liquidity providers such as centralized and decentralized exchanges. The choice of liquidity sources ensures that an instant exchange can find and provide an optimal exchange rate at a given time.

In this comparison, we are not going to be splitting hairs about similarities such as rate provision or selection of liquidity providers and partners. (Most of it is insider information, anyway.😀) Instead, let us focus on differences in plain sight, as these are often more integral to the brand.

The benefits that the home page of ChangeNOW lists are speed, high limits, exchange rates and access to Uniswap and Pancakeswap as liquidity and asset providers. They also have a smartphone app with a 4.5 star rating on Google Play and 4.8 on App Store. Last but not least, ChangeNOW is only one part of a larger ecosystem, presumably developed by the same company, which includes basically any crypto-related service you can think of: wallet app, payment gateway, custody solution, nodes for rent, a native token and a premium subscription.

In comparison, ChangeHero has no app or a branded ecosystem to its name but places a larger emphasis on global reach and quality service through Web platform and partner integrations alike. Its competitive exchange rates are put front and center as one of the main draws, with speed and quality support assistance around the clock given the same gravitas.

Reputation

When it comes to track record, according to ChangeNOW, it was established in 2017, which makes it a year older than ChangeHero, established in 2018. The company behind the former is incorporated in St.Vincent and Grenadines; the latter is based in Costa-Rica. Interestingly enough, ChangeNOW’s postal address is in Utrecht, Netherlands, which confirms it to be an international team.

We decided to forego a quick brand recognition lookup by comparing the number of mentions of each provider’s brand on Google search. The reason for it is because there is also a social enterprise and summit under the exact same name, established around the same time, and it would not be possible to separate mentions of ChangeNOW the crypto exchange from ChangeNOW the summit.

Another reliable method left is to see the reviews on a reputable platform such as Trustpilot. Since the last comparison, the ChangeHero score remained at an average 3.5 with a few hundred reviews. ChangeNOW seems to be maintaining their 4.5 TrustScore more seriously, with almost 13 thousand reviews up.

Coin & Token Selection

On the home page, ChangeHero claims to list over 400 crypto assets, likely including the same assets in different networks or assets only available through an API. As a Web user, we had 280 coins and tokens to pick as a currency to exchange to with the Best Rate at the time of writing. Buying and selling covered 22 assets.

In comparison, that list was modest as opposed to almost 1,000 positions to exchange to on ChangeNOW. The lists of currencies to buy and sell are similarly long, presenting an impressive range of offers, even if some extra behind-the-scenes crypto-to-crypto exchanges on the same platform are involved.

Interface & UX

Interfaces for services so similar in functionality are another point where it can make all the difference. The starting point in both is conveniently located at the very first screen you are on when you open both sites.

Calculator widgets are also functionally similar if only vaguely different. Separate tabs for buying and selling cryptocurrencies in the ChangeHero widget might be more convenient from the point of view of the user's intent.

After clicking ‘Exchange’, both ChangeHero and ChangeNOW redirect the user to a separate processing page. They contain some instructions for users about picking the right network and such, as well as some fairly unobtrusive promo banners. These pages persist through changes in the swapping process, such as displaying an address for deposit or tracking the status of a transaction.

Long story short, both platforms turned out to be easy to use and seemed to have reliable tracking of on-chain transfers. The details to verify them and track in blockchain explorers were provided as well. User experience, when it comes to interacting with interfaces, was satisfactory for both, but the actual experience was very different between the two, and we will get to that soon enough.

Hands-On Crypto Swap Comparison on ChangeHero and ChangeNOW

Looking at websites and comparing promotional texts is window shopping. What is the service itself like? Obviously, we did a trial with a real transaction on both platforms. This time, we tried swapping 30 USDT on TRON to Ethereum with the floating rate options.

Let’s explain how the results were so different. The swaps were taking place roughly at the same time to avoid a scenario where one took place at a time with higher gas fees, which would skew the results. However, despite our efforts, this happened anyway: once we finalized the order details on ChangeNOW, this pop-up window appeared.

For testing purposes, we decided to carry on with the exchange—how bad could it be? Besides, the estimated result already accounted for this difference. The amount that arrived at the destination wallet was not too far off of what was expected and even slightly higher. But the highlight of the swap was how quick it was: ChangeNOW delivered on their 2 minute benchmark. Perhaps, this is the reason why over 17% of the initial amount was paid in the process.

In fact, ChangeHero was still to confirm the deposit when the entire swap on ChangeNOW was over with. On the other hand, the estimated and real exchange rate provided in ChangeHero’s swap were noticeably better. The swap took a bit over 5 minutes, which honestly is not that much of a difference and left us wondering if the 15% extra expense was really worth the speed.

Fee & Rate Transparency

The test did not go as planned but sure provided some food for thought regarding the transparency of the swap process. A 2.6% difference between the starting sum and the end result could have seemed substantial for supposedly exchanging with a 0.5% commission that is supposed to cover network fees for at least one transfer. However, when the competition is saving 3 minutes at a much higher cost, this seems downright frugal.

To add to this, ChangeNOW does not state anywhere what their service commission is, only that it is included in the rate calculation. This is not an oversight but presented as a feature, and there admittedly might be an argument made in favor of this approach. However, from the point of view of transparency this is not doing ChangeNOW any favors, especially with the knowledge that the gas fees were not high at the time as they claimed.

Security & KYC Policies

For completeness sake, let’s take a moment to briefly review the KYC policies of both platforms. The test transactions were even lower-volume than the last time, so the chances of experiencing this first-hand were slim, for better or worse.

For how vague ChangeHero’s KYC/AML policy is, it still manages to provide an outline of how the procedure may look. If an automatic risk scoring system flags a transaction, it is paused, and the user is expected to reach out to the support. They will initiate a KYC procedure through a third-party provider that would require a government ID and a selfie or two.

ChangeNOW’s FAQs pertaining to their KYC procedures mention that the flow similar to one above can be applied unless illicit activities are suspected. They also disclose the third-party KYC provider.

There is an option to decline a KYC procedure on ChangeHero reserved for middle-risk clients but under pretty unfavorable terms. According to ChangeNOW’s Terms of use, declining or failing to go through this procedure effectively bans you from using the service.

All this to say is that both services are partially regulated and do not force obligatory KYC on all users. However, it is there, and generally not extensive for regular users, although it does put a wrinkle in their plans.

The Verdict

On the practical side, a single swap is not fully representative of what each platform is like; in the one that we made for a test ChangeNOW won in speed at the cost of the exchange rate. As far as the presentation goes, ChangeHero offers fewer features and products to go with it but outperforms ChangeNOW at least in the rate department.

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