The floor is set in four places, not one
What’s the minimum amount to buy crypto?
People look up one number and hit a different limit. There is a minimum deposit, a minimum order, a minimum for the simplified buy widget, and a minimum withdrawal — and they are set independently of each other.
- Minimum deposit — set by your funding method, not the exchange's trading rules.
- Minimum order — a small value in the quote currency, set per trading pair.
- Minimum on the one-click widget — often higher than the trading screen's, and quoted in a different currency.
- Minimum withdrawal — usually the highest of the four, and the one people discover last.
The reason this question produces contradictory answers online is that there is no single minimum. There are four, they live in different parts of the platform, and they are set by different considerations. Somebody quoting “the minimum is $10” is quoting one of them and does not say which.
1. The minimum deposit
Before you can buy anything you need money on the platform, and each funding route has its own floor. Card payments usually accept small amounts. Bank transfers sometimes have a higher minimum, because the processing cost per transfer is fixed regardless of size.
This limit belongs to the payment rail and the local partner handling it, which is why it differs by country on the same exchange. The deposit screen shows the figure that applies to you; an article cannot, and any that quotes one is quoting one country on one day.
2. The minimum order on the trading pair
On the actual trading screen, each pair carries a minimum notional value — a smallest order size expressed in the quote currency. If you try to place something below it, the order is rejected with a message naming the minimum, which is at least an honest way to find out.
These floors exist because settling a trade has a fixed operational cost. Below a certain size the exchange loses money processing your order. The values are small in absolute terms and are published in the exchange's trading rules; the order screen shows them as you type.
3. The minimum on the simplified buy widget
The one-click “buy crypto” panel is a separate product with its own limits, and its minimum is often higher than the trading screen's. It is also frequently expressed in a different currency — a fiat amount rather than a crypto quantity — which is why two parts of the same platform can appear to disagree with each other.
If the convenient widget says your amount is too small, the trading screen may accept it. That is not a workaround; it is simply a different product with different rules, and it usually costs less too, for reasons covered in the order-type guide.
4. The minimum withdrawal
This is the one that catches people, because it applies at the end and nobody reads it at the beginning.
Moving crypto off an exchange to a wallet you control means broadcasting a transaction on a network, and that has a real cost the exchange passes to you. To stop a withdrawal costing more than it moves, exchanges set a minimum withdrawal amount, and it is often larger than the minimum purchase by a wide margin.
The practical consequence: it is entirely possible to buy an amount that you cannot then withdraw. The coins are not stuck forever — you can buy more until you clear the threshold, or sell back to currency — but the option to move them off-platform is not available at every size. If self-custody is part of your plan, check the withdrawal minimum for the specific network before the purchase rather than after. What withdrawal actually involves covers the rest of that.
Minimum to buy: small. Minimum to withdraw: often several times larger. Both are set by the platform, both change, and only one of them is visible on the screen where you are making the decision.
What the numbers actually are today
We are not going to print them, and it is worth being explicit about why rather than looking evasive.
These four figures differ by country, by trading pair, by payment method, and by which network you withdraw over. They change without announcement. A number written into an article is correct for one reader on one day and quietly wrong for everyone else afterwards — and on a page about money, quietly wrong is worse than absent.
Where to read the live values instead:
- Deposit minimum — on the deposit screen, after selecting your method and currency.
- Order minimum — on the order form; it appears as an error the moment you type something too small.
- Withdrawal minimum and network fee — on the withdrawal screen, after choosing the network. The fee changes with network conditions.
- Trading fee rates — on the published fee schedule, which is the authoritative version.
Checked 2026-08: all four still displayed at the points described above, though the layout of the deposit screen varies by region.
Minimum is not the same as sensible
Everything above is about what the platform permits. Whether the minimum is a good size to buy is a different question with a different answer, and it comes down to what proportion of your money the fees take.
A fixed cost is a small percentage of a large purchase and a large percentage of a tiny one. At the very bottom of the permitted range, the share can be startling. The arithmetic is worked through here, and the fee impact table lets you find the row closest to your own situation.
None of which means a small first purchase is a mistake. It means the cost of the lesson should be a number you have seen rather than one you find out afterwards.
Questions people actually ask
Why does the exchange reject my order as too small when I have enough money?
You are almost certainly below the minimum order value for that trading pair, which is separate from your balance. The error message usually names the figure. Either increase the order, or try the same purchase on the other interface — the simplified widget and the trading screen have different limits.
Can I buy an amount I am not able to withdraw?
Yes, and it happens regularly. Withdrawal minimums are set by network costs and are often several times the purchase minimum. The coins are still yours and can still be sold; they just cannot be moved off the platform until the balance clears the threshold.
Do minimums differ between coins?
Yes. Each trading pair has its own minimum order value, and each network has its own withdrawal minimum and fee. A network that is cheap to transact on will generally have a lower withdrawal floor than one that is expensive.