Many five-star user Koinly reviews testify that this crypto tax calculator is a game-changer for anyone looking to simplify their crypto tax reporting. It integrates with various wallets and exchanges, including popular options like Binance and Bybit, has a user-friendly interface, and supports multiple tax reports.
To provide a comprehensive view and determine if the positive Koinly reviews are accurate, I'll delve into its security measures, tax reporting and portfolio tracking capabilities, pricing plans, and more.
Once you have read this review, you’ll have a good understanding of whether it’s the right crypto tax tool for you. Let’s go!
Verdict at a glance: Koinly offers comprehensive crypto tax reporting and portfolio tracking. It supports major exchanges and wallets and is generally secure, complying with industry standards. However, it lacks 2FA and has quite pricey plans. Consider using a Koinly promo code to potentially save on your subscription costs.
Pros
- Regulatory-compliant and user-friendly
- Comprehensive portfolio tracking features
- A variety of crypto reports
- Suitable for tax agents and accountants
Cons
- Paid plans are quite costly
- User experience and feature gaps
Table of Contents
- 1. What is Koinly?
- 2. Koinly Review: PROS
- 2.1. Regulatory-Compliant Crypto Tax Reporting Tool
- 2.2. Robust Portfolio Tracking Features
- 2.3. Detailed Tax Reports
- 2.4. Suitable for Tax Agents and Accountants
- 3. Koinly Review: CONS
- 3.1. Costly Subscriptions
- 3.2. User Experience and Feature Gaps
- 4. Koinly Pricing Plans
- 5. How to Set Up a Koinly Account?
- 6. Conclusions
What is Koinly?
Koinly is a cryptocurrency tax software. If you’ve read user Koinly reviews, you might have noticed that this tool aims to simplify the often complex process of managing crypto taxes by automatically importing transaction data from various crypto exchanges, wallets, and blockchains.
This crypto tax calculator was built by Robin Singh as a result of his personal problem, frustrated with the manual effort required to accurately track his crypto assets using spreadsheets and mobile trackers. So, he tried to find a solution that can:
- Identify transfers within his exchange accounts and wallets;
- Automatically track cryptocurrency across his exchange accounts;
- Combine multiple trades for the same order into a single transaction;
- Handle fees in any currency;
- Keep track of original acquisition costs when he exchanges assets;
- Support various accounting methods;
- Display how the gain/loss for each transaction was calculated.
With these clear requirements in mind, Robin developed Koinly over four months and launched this tool in 2018. The tool quickly gained popularity and has attracted over 1 million users worldwide at the time of writing.
Koinly is renowned for its core features of real-time portfolio tracking and automated tax report generation. These capabilities empower users to monitor their crypto investments and accurately calculate capital gains and losses. The platform's user-friendly interface is also widely appreciated, making it accessible to both novice and seasoned crypto investors.
Now that you have a basic understanding of Koinly, let's dive further.
Koinly Review: PROS
From the previous section of the Koinly review, you know that it's among the most popular cryptocurrency tax platforms. Given Koinly's popularity and huge base, let's delve into its features and benefits to understand why it's well-regarded.
Regulatory-Compliant Crypto Tax Reporting Tool
When evaluating any crypto platform, safety is a top priority. So, is Koinly safe? Committed to data security and operating within the European Union (EU), this platform has obtained General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance.
The GDPR sets high standards for data protection in the EU.[1] As Koinly is GDPR-compliant, it shows that the platform has put in place strong measures to comply with the regulation and keep your data safe, underscoring its commitment to privacy and transparency.
Moreover, Koinly has acquired industry-recognized certifications, including SOC 2 and ISO 27001.
SOC 2 is a security standard set by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), ensuring data is safe, accessible, processed correctly, confidential, and private. Meanwhile, ISO 27001 is a framework for managing information security risks.[2] It helps companies identify potential threats and develop effective security measures tailored to their specific needs.
To further enhance security, Koinly employs frequent updates, read-only API connections, encryption, regular audits, and strong access controls. Its API technology auto-syncs data from all possible sources without needing private keys, so your data remains safe and secure.
So, if you ask, “Is Koinly safe?”, I think this compliance with regulations and its security measures show that Koinly is committed to security and data privacy.
Additionally, it doesn’t require users to do the know-your-customer (KYC) verification unless they want their personal information to be shown on tax reports.
Besides prioritizing security and user data, Koinly ensures accuracy and compliance with specific tax regulations of each country it operates in by working closely with top accounting firms. They regularly review software and tax processes, helping the platform refine the systems through tax experts and consultations.
When I’m writing this Koinly review, the platform has recently completed reviews in three of its markets:
- Canada. Koinly engaged with MNP, a leading accountancy firm in Canada, to pinpoint essential regulated reporting and compliance requirements to the country's Adjusted Cost Basis (ACB) methodology and tax loss rules.
- Australia. It worked with Australian accountants to test its FIFO method and make sure it's accurate and follows the country’s tax rules, including the Australian income tax returns.
- Ireland. FPM Accountants Limited assessed Koinly's Irish tax calculator to ensure it aligns with the Irish Revenue Commissioners' tax guidelines, particularly FIFO and wash sale rules.
Another aspect I want to highlight in this part of my Koinly review is the platform's user-friendliness. As many user reviews say, it's designed to be straightforward and accessible to users of all levels. The layout is generally clean and uncluttered, with no unnecessary elements that could confuse users. For example, starting with the onboarding process, the platform guides them seamlessly through the setup.
Each page clearly explains the steps, and the options, such as individual, business, or accountant accounts, are presented in a straightforward manner. Some pages also use dropdown menus to provide additional options while keeping the layout minimalistic. You can also switch between light or dark mode for a more comfortable viewing experience.
The platform's user-friendliness extends beyond its interface. If you encounter difficulties while exploring certain pages, Koinly offers convenient "i" buttons that provide instant explanations and answers to frequently asked questions relevant to the pages. This eliminates the need to search through the help center, streamlining your experience.
For instance, on the tax report page, you can find dropdown sections containing related questions that offer concise and informative answers to help you understand the tax report features and navigate the platform effectively.
Moreover, it offers valuable resources through a comprehensive help center, tax guide, and crypto glossary, making it easy for users to find answers to their questions. Also, what is Koinly's customer support like? It's approachable with support via email and live chat.
Robust Portfolio Tracking Features
As a portfolio tracker, Koinly can track more than 17,000 cryptocurrencies and seamlessly integrate with over 850 exchanges, wallets, and blockchains to provide a complete overview of your crypto holdings, gains, losses, and income.
It’s compatible with various crypto wallets and exchanges, from hardware wallets to popular platforms like Binance, Bybit, and Kraken. Just connect your accounts to Koinly, and it will track your entire crypto portfolio.
This crypto tax calculator handles various transactions and categorizes them into four types:
- Deposit. This term refers to coins received in your wallet/exchange/service – basically from anywhere that increases your balance. Examples are staked coins, airdrops, coins from a hard fork, and lent coins.
- Send. This is when you send coins out of your wallet/exchange/service. Examples of these “Withdrawal” transactions include paying for an item using a coin, gifting coins to a friend, and other costs related to your assets, like safekeeping fees and margin interest fees.
- Trade. This can be buying crypto for fiat (e.g., EUR to BTC), selling crypto for fiat (e.g., ETH to USD), and exchanging crypto for crypto (e.g., BTC to ETH).
- Transfer. This refers to transactions between two wallets and can only be created internally by Koinly.
Koinly's treatment of transaction fees varies depending on the type of transaction. For "Trade" transactions, fees are displayed directly. However, for "Deposit" transactions, users need to add a separate withdrawal transaction and tag it as a "Cost" to accurately account for fees.
Tags on Koinly act as a label for further categorizing your transactions and appear in special sections in your tax reports. For instance, “Deposits” tags can be “airdrop”, “reward”, “cashback”, or “mining” and are shown in the Income or Miscellaneous section in your tax reports.
Koinly offers three ways to add transactions from wallets, exchanges, or blockchains: using API keys, CSV or Excel files, or manually entering transactions via the Koinly interface. If the CSV/Excel file is over 10MB, you need to split it into smaller parts by cutting and pasting some transactions into a new file.
Once uploaded, the tool processes the file and displays your transactions in a clear and organized format. Koinly highlights errors if you have missed transactions or incorrectly imported the data and skips duplicate transactions so that you don't need to track what you've imported and what's new.
The dashboard “Overview” acts as a centralized control panel where you can track the overall health and performance of your crypto portfolio.
This dashboard consists of three sections:
- Chart area. It shows the total value, cost-basis of all crypto holdings, unrealized gains, and the line chart that you can hover over to show detailed information on a specific date.
- Breakdown area. It’s at the bottom of the chart that displays your totals for the period selected, including a sum of all crypto deposits and withdrawals, as well as trading fees.
- Assets area. This section consists of your asset’s icon and name, balance, cost, market value, and ROI.
You may notice this kind of dashboard on other similar platforms, so what is Koinly’s unique selling point? This platform also owns a dedicated NFTs dashboard with image previews that its alternatives may not have.
It imports NFTs (ERC-721 and ERC-1155) whenever you purchase, mint, receive, sell, or send a collectible from most Ethereum-based blockchains, including Ethereum and AVAX. While support for Solana and Cardano NFTs is limited, it says that it’s working to expand its coverage.
Koinly also has a “Tax Optimization” dashboard (still in the beta version) that lets you identify potential tax harvesting opportunities. It analyzes crypto assets that you can sell to lower your taxes and help you find profitable assets to reduce your losses. This dashboard calculates your capital gains and losses from selling crypto assets and provides an updated overview of your potential gains if you were to sell your holdings.
To see detailed transaction history, click the “Transactions” menu at the top bar. It compiles trades from all accounts and currencies and shows important information: the transaction type (Send, Purchase, Gift, etc), wallet, currency, amount, cost basis, and profit/loss.
You can filter transactions by several criteria, such as type, tag, and manual status, or sort them by date, gains, and value.
A standout aspect of this platform’s portfolio tracker, which I think is often highlighted in user Koinly reviews, is that it’s completely free to use. This may be the reason Koinly has become one of the popular choices for crypto investors seeking a reliable and user-friendly portfolio tracking solution.
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Detailed Tax Reports
In addition to its helpful portfolio tracking capabilities, Koinly offers a suite of tax reporting features. The first thing that’s worth mentioning in this Koinly review is that it provides complete country-specific tax reports for over 30 countries. These include IRS Form 8949, Schedule D (USA), ATO MyTax Report (Australia), HMRC Report (UK), and CRA Report (Canada).
If you can’t find yours, don’t worry. It supports cost-basis methods, such as First In, First Out (FIFO) and Last-In, First-Out (LIFO), that are applicable to more than 100 countries.
It can generate a complete tax report that consists of:
- Transaction history
- Capital gains report
- Income report
- Gifts, donations, and lost assets report
- Expenses report
- End-of-year or beginning holdings report
Perhaps you want an individual end-of-year holdings report to calculate your overall asset wealth for a wealth tax or give a buys/sells report to your accountant; Koinly enables you to download a report for your specific needs and circumstances.
You can find a summary of the Koinly tax review in the "Tax Reports" menu on the top bar. It displays the total number of transactions, deposits, withdrawals, trades, and transfers for the year. It also shows the total capital gains/losses, other gains (from futures, derivatives, etc.), income, costs & expenses, gifts, donations, and lost coins.
Change the settings, including the cost basis and tracking methods, to make any adjustments. Once everything is set up, pick a report type and click the "Download Report" button to generate your tax report.
If you work with an accountant, you can invite them to your Koinly account – without having to download or email reports. You only need to share a link to let them view your dashboard, check your numbers, and give advice on some tax-saving measures. By default, your accountant has full edit rights once invited, meaning they can add, delete, and edit transactions and wallets.
The platform also has a crypto accountant database to help you find trusted professionals in your country and get Koinly tax reviews.
Suitable for Tax Agents and Accountants
In addition to its benefits for traders mentioned earlier in this Koinly review, this platform has valuable features for accountants, bookkeepers, and tax agents. It offers the necessary tools to service crypto clients, including multiple report types and the ability to manage many clients from one account.
Instead of manually reviewing spreadsheets from multiple wallets for different clients, accountants can use Koinly to gather all necessary information in one place, reducing costs and improving overall efficiency for businesses and their clients.
Its user-friendly interface and helpful resources also ensure a quick learning curve, and its integrations with popular tax software like QuickBooks, Nexo, and TurboTax offer flexibility for businesses and their clients.
With QuickBooks, for example, Koinly can seamlessly import transactions, track clients' portfolios in real time, and automate tax calculations.
Did you know?
Compare Crypto Exchanges Side by Side With Others
All Crypto Exchanges may look similar to you but they're NOT all the same!
Koinly Review: CONS
As mentioned in this Koinly review so far, you know that this platform has many useful features for crypto tax reporting and portfolio tracking. Still, it's important to consider potential drawbacks or limitations before deciding to use this tool. Let’s discuss those in this section to provide you with a balanced perspective.
Costly Subscriptions
Overall, Koinly offers a robust set of features for crypto tax reporting and portfolio tracking. Its user-friendly interface, comprehensive features, and various integrations make it a helpful tool for many users. However, many user Koinly reviews mention that it’s one of the more expensive platforms for getting tax return reports.
Koinly's pricing is based on your past transaction history, which can limit future reporting and increase costs. Compared to some alternatives, Koinly's pricing might seem steep, especially for active traders who may need to choose the highest plan to accommodate their transaction volume.
The most expensive package doesn't even cover unlimited transactions! Users have to pay an additional fee if they want to process more transactions.
In contrast, CoinTracking, offers unlimited transactions and priority customer support on its highest-tier plan.
On the positive side, Koinly can exclude spam and small reward transactions. Additionally, it can automatically group smaller trades from large orders that exchanges often split, saving you potential costs.
User Experience and Feature Gaps
Although this platform is mostly praised for its easy-to-navigate interface, some user Koinly reviews point out areas for improvement. For example, someone noticed that the instructions for identifying transactions causing warnings could be more explicit so that users can avoid unnecessary delays or confusion.
Some users also urge the Koinly team to simplify the Layer 2 wallet importing process, particularly for popular L2s like Loopring. Currently, they may need to import a separate wallet for each L2 they use, which can be cumbersome, especially for users with multiple addresses.
Another drawback worth highlighting in this Koinly review is the absence of two-factor authentication (2FA). While this might be attributed to the feature of shareable dashboards, the lack of 2FA can be a significant security concern for some users. Requiring 2FA for every login when sharing dashboards with an accountant could be inconvenient, but it's a standard security measure that any online tool should use.
Is Koinly safe even without 2FA? While the lack of this feature might be a minor drawback, the overall security practices are quite reliable.
I also noticed some user Koinly reviews related to regional limitations. For instance, Koinly's French users have faced challenges with its performance, especially for Formulaire 2086. The platform incorrectly marks transaction fees as separate trades, leading to inaccurate tax calculations that don't align with French law.
Still, it’s worth noting that Koinly maintains an active discussion channel where users can share feedback, submit support requests, and participate in existing threads. This community-driven approach shows that Koinly recognizes the importance of user feedback and is actively working to improve its platform based on customers’ input.
Koinly Pricing Plans
As I mentioned in the previous section, many user Koinly reviews consider this platform expensive. So, what is Koinly's pricing structure actually? Let's find out here where I show you a breakdown of Koinly's pricing plans.
Basically, this platform’s pricing structure is based on three requirements:
- Yearly plan. You need to buy a Koinly price package for the year you want to generate the tax report. For instance, get a plan for 2023 if you want to generate a report for that year.
- Yearly transaction limit. You need a plan that covers all transactions in the year. For example, if you have 2,000 transactions in 2023, you need to make sure the plan you choose covers that many transactions (or more).
- Account-wide transaction limit. Your plans must add up to cover all your transactions because Koinly needs to review all your past-year transactions to calculate your gains. For example, if you have 5,000 transactions, your plans must total at least that number or more.
With this Koinly price structure, there might be occasions when users are asked to buy the highest plan. This is most likely because of their account-wide transaction limit and the number of transactions in the previous years.
The free plan includes essential features, such as importing 10,000 transactions, a free Koinly tax review summary, and a portfolio tracker for all available wallets and exchanges.
However, to generate reports, you have to subscribe to paid Koinly price plans starting at $49/tax year. Moreover, if you have more than 10,000 transactions on the free plan, Koinly will stop calculating your gains and losses. This means your wallet balances and dashboard data might not be correct. To fix this, you'll need to upgrade to a paid plan that covers all your transactions.
The entry-level "Newbie" plan starts at $49 per tax year and includes essential features like error reconciliation and custom file import, but is limited to 100 transactions. For those with more extensive crypto histories or higher transaction volumes, the "Hodler" plan at $99 or the "Trader" plan at $199 offer coverage for up to 10,000 transactions.
If you exceed the transaction limit, you need to upgrade to the Pro plan and pay extra fees to unlock up to 100,000 transactions. This costs $10 for each additional 1,000 transactions.
Additionally, Koinly provides custom solutions for individuals or businesses with exceptionally high transaction volumes or specific requirements.
Before investing in a Koinly plan, I recommend exploring the free plan to assess its capabilities. If you're already purchasing one of the paid packages and exceed the transaction limit, you can upgrade to a higher tier by paying the difference.
To reduce your costs, consider checking an available Koinly promo code. Find it on a coupon website or a community site like Reddit. This can help you save money on the subscription, as the discounts can be around 20-65%.
For your convenience, Koinly supports a variety of payment methods, including major cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dai, and USD Coin), as well as credit and debit cards.
How to Set Up a Koinly Account?
After weighing the pros and cons in this Koinly review, let's get ready to set up your account if you decide that this platform is the right fit for you. I'll walk you through the simple account setup process, from initial registration to selecting a pricing plan.
Step 1: Visit Koinly’s official website and click the “Sign up” button in the upper right corner.
Step 2: Enter your name and email address, and then create a password. Click on the toggle buttons if you want to receive news related to crypto taxes and Koinly’s product updates, and then hit the “Create an account” button. Alternatively, register with a Revolut or Google account.
Step 3: Pick your account type: Individual, Business, or Accountant. In this step, I select “Individual”.
Step 4: Choose what you want to do with your Koinly account: Tax reports + portfolio tracking or portfolio tracking only. Select your home country and base currency to help Koinly tailor your tax reports and portfolio data to your specific needs.
Step 5: Add your wallets by clicking on the available options or typing the name on the search bar.
Step 6: Choose how you want to import your data. Set up automatic syncing by entering your API key and selecting the desired time period, or manually import data by dragging and dropping a file into the designated area or browsing for it on your device.
You can also click “Create without data” to start using Koinly without adding your transaction history. Don’t worry, it’s possible to add it later.
Step 7 (optional): If you want to purchase a paid Koinly price plan, click on your profile in the upper right corner of the dashboard and select “Plans”. Then, you should see an order page displaying the tax year, available plans, features included, and additional services if you need them, like dual nationality or expert review.
Scroll down to choose your payment method and enter a Koinly promo code if you have any. Click on the “Buy now” button once you’re ready to complete your purchase.
Conclusions
That’s pretty much all I have to say in this Koinly review. Overall, Koinly offers a comprehensive set of features for crypto tax reporting and portfolio tracking. It also supports many popular crypto exchanges like Binance and Bybit, as well as popular wallets and blockchains.
For those questioning, “Is Koinly safe?” the platform is generally considered secure. It complies with GDPR and industry standards like SOC 2 and ISO 27001. However, at the time of writing this review, Koinly hasn’t implemented 2FA, which could be a concern for some users.
Besides the absence of that security measure, you should consider other drawbacks, like transaction limits and restricted support for certain regions.
The content published on this website is not aimed to give any kind of financial, investment, trading, or any other form of advice. BitDegree.org does not endorse or suggest you to buy, sell or hold any kind of cryptocurrency. Before making financial investment decisions, do consult your financial advisor.
Scientific References
1. C. Tikkinen-Piri, A. Rohunen, J. Markkula: ‘EU General Data Protection Regulation: Changes and Implications for Personal Data Collecting Companies’;
2. F. Kitsios, E. Chatzidimitriou, M. Kamariotou: ‘The ISO/IEC 27001 Information Security Management Standard: How to Extract Value from Data in the IT Sector’.