Recap vs Koinly for UK crypto tax, and the option both leave out
On this page
The verdict in three lines, for the impatient. Recap if UK-first design and the strongest privacy among cloud tools matter most, and you accept reports that stop when the subscription does. Koinly if coverage breadth and multi-country reports matter most, and you accept paying per tax year, forever. And if the assumption underneath both bills is the thing you object to, there is a third option neither page mentions, further down.
The two, fairly
Koinly is the coverage champion. Enormous integration lists, portfolio tracking free up to 10,000 transactions, tax reports for many countries. Reports are bought per tax year at the tier fitting 1,000 transactions, each year its own purchase, and the years you buy stay yours.
Recap is UK-native and privacy-serious in a way that deserves respect, your data is encrypted on your device before upload, keys stay yours, their staff cannot read your holdings. It is subscription software, £119 a year at the entry tier covering 5,000 transactions, all your tax years included while the subscription runs, none after it stops.
Side by side, their pages, their models
| Recap | Koinly | |
|---|---|---|
| Model | Annual subscription | Per tax year purchase |
| Plan fitting 1,000 transactions | Basic, annual | Hodler, per tax year |
| Three tax years, filed each April | Three subscription years | Three separate purchases |
| Free tier | No permanent free plan, trial signup | Tracking free to 10,000 transactions, no report downloads |
| Past years included | Yes, while subscribed | No, each year purchased |
| Reports after you stop paying | Access ends | You keep years you bought |
| Privacy design | Encrypted on your device before upload | Standard server processing |
| UK focus | UK-first | Multi-country |
Choose Recap if
You are UK-only and want software shaped around HMRC rather than localised to it. You value the encryption design, it is genuinely the strongest custody story among cloud tax tools. You are catching up several years at once, one subscription year can cover the backlog, which beats per-year pricing for that job.
Choose Koinly if
You need non-UK reports now or soon. Your exchanges and chains sit outside smaller tools’ coverage, Koinly’s integration list is the industry’s largest. You would rather own the years you pay for than rent access, per-year purchase beats subscription on that one axis.
The question neither page answers
Both models share one assumption so deep it never gets stated, that computing your taxes requires sending your financial history to someone’s servers, and therefore someone must charge you rent, per April or per year, for as long as you have tax obligations. That assumption is an architecture choice, not a law of nature.
gains.tax is the third answer. The engine runs entirely in your browser, your history never leaves your machine at all, not even encrypted, and because your computer does the computing, reports are free under 1,000 transactions and one £39 payment covers everything to 9,999, all years, forever. Every disposal names the statutory matching rule that produced it, and every import proves its row count on screen, including files exported from either competitor above.
Choose it if the bill that never returns and the history that never leaves are the point. Choose against it, honestly, if you need synced dashboards across devices, non-UK reports, or integrations beyond its current list.
Prices and claims are from the vendors’ published pages on the dates in the sources, re-verified the day this page went live. General information, not tax advice, the vetted professionals are there when you want a human.