Koinly vs Recap vs CryptoLens: An Honest UK Crypto Tax Comparison (2026/27)

This is written by the people who make CryptoLens, so you should read it the way you would read any vendor's comparison: sceptically, checking the claims. To make that easier the weaknesses of our own tool are listed before anything else, the comparison table uses criteria that a UK filer would actually choose on, and the last section says who each tool is genuinely best for, including the cases where it is not us.

Koinly and Recap are both good products. The question is not which is "best" but which fits the shape of your holdings and your filing.

CryptoLens's weaknesses, first

• Fewer chains than Koinly. CryptoLens covers 29 chains — Ethereum and the major EVM L2s, Solana, Bitcoin, XRP, Cardano, Cosmos, Polkadot, NEAR, Sui, Aptos, and a handful more. Koinly covers well over a hundred. If you hold on an obscure chain, Koinly is more likely to read it.
• No historical prices before June 2020. CryptoLens's price history for on-chain valuation currently starts in June 2020. Transactions earlier than that need a manual price or a CSV that already carries sterling values. Koinly and Recap both price back further.
• Fewer exchange integrations. CSV import for Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, Bitstamp, Crypto.com, Gemini, Bitfinex and Revolut, plus a Koinly-format fallback. No API sync with exchanges. Koinly syncs hundreds by API.
• UK only. There is no US, Australian or European mode. Dual filers need another tool.
• New. Launched in 2026, with a small user base and no history of supporting an HMRC enquiry. Koinly has years of UK users; Recap has been UK-built since 2018.
• Thinner DeFi protocol coverage. Liquidity positions and lending on the big protocols are handled; long-tail DeFi is not always recognised and may land as unclassified transfers to review.

If any of those is decisive for you, the rest of this article will not change the answer.

The comparison table

Prices as published at the time of writing; all three change tiers periodically.

The criteria that matter for a UK filer

Section 104 and the matching rules

This is the one that decides whether your number is right. HMRC's order is same-day (TCGA 1992 s.105), then acquisitions in the following 30 days (s.106A), then the s.104 pool. All three tools implement it. The differences are in the edges:

• Koinly applies the UK rules only when the country is set to United Kingdom; a user who leaves it on a default or switches for a test can silently end up with FIFO. Check the setting.
• Recap's engine is UK rules throughout, with no toggle to get wrong.
• CryptoLens is the same — UK rules with nothing to switch — and additionally splits the 18%/24% rate by disposal date, which mattered in 2024/25 when the rate changed on 30 October and still matters for anyone amending that year.

For plain holding on major chains, all three produce the same gain. The Section 104 worked example gives a small dataset you can run through any of them to check.

Spousal transfers

TCGA 1992 s.58 makes transfers between spouses and civil partners no-gain/no-loss, with the recipient inheriting the pool cost. Recap has handled this well for years. CryptoLens links two accounts so that a transfer between their wallets moves the pool cost across automatically and the report discloses it. Koinly can be made to do it by labelling the transfer and adjusting cost manually; it is not a built-in workflow. If you and a partner both hold crypto and move it between you, this is a real differentiator.

Staking income

All three recognise rewards as income at the value on receipt, per CRYPTO21200. CryptoLens additionally applies Scottish bands where the user sets a Scottish address, which is the piece most tools ignore and which changes the bill for anyone in Scotland earning over £43,662 — see the Scottish guide.

Price

For a single-wallet holder who wants the SA108 figures, CryptoLens's free tier is the cheapest route: the report is free. Koinly's free tier lets you see the numbers but the downloadable tax report is paid. Recap's per-disposal pricing is fair for modest activity and scales unfavourably for high-volume traders — 10,000 Solana swaps is £329 a year, against £4.99 a month.

For an accountant with twenty clients, the calculation flips: Recap's and Koinly's multi-client portals are mature, and the per-client pricing is a known quantity.

Exchange and chain coverage

Koinly wins this outright. If you have used fifteen exchanges over six years, Koinly's API sync will pull most of them without a CSV. Recap covers the exchanges a UK retail user is likely to have used. CryptoLens covers eight by CSV; anything else has to come through a Koinly-format export or manual entry.

SA108 output

All three produce something you can file from. Recap's and CryptoLens's reports are laid out to follow the SA108 boxes and the HS284 computation format, so an accountant can read them without a key. CryptoLens's includes the closing Section 104 pool per token, the negligible value candidates under s.24, and the s.58 disclosure. Koinly's UK report is complete and a little more generic.

Three filers, three bills

Annual cost of getting an SA108-ready report, using each tool's published tiers at the time of writing.

Where this table flatters CryptoLens is in the first three rows, which are individual filers. Where it does not is the fourth: Koinly's and Recap's accountant plans are more mature, and for a firm the price difference is less important than the workflow.

Where the table hides a cost is the "active DeFi user" row: if that user's wallets include a chain CryptoLens does not read, or transactions before June 2020, the £59.88 becomes £59.88 plus manual work, and Koinly's £149 is the cheaper answer.

What "UK-native output" means in practice

An SA108 has a handful of boxes: number of disposals, proceeds, allowable costs, gains before losses, losses, and the computation attached. All three tools fill them. The differences are in what an HMRC officer sees if the computation is opened:

• Whether each disposal shows which matching rule applied (same day, 30 day, pool) — HS284's format. Recap and CryptoLens do; Koinly's report shows it in its own layout.
• Whether the closing Section 104 pool per token is on the report, so next year's opening position is documented. CryptoLens does; the other two provide it in the app rather than on the filing report.
• Whether s.24 negligible value candidates and s.58 spousal transfers are disclosed as separate schedules. CryptoLens does; Recap handles the transfers; Koinly requires manual notes.
• Whether the report can be handed to an accountant as a read-only link rather than a PDF attachment. CryptoLens now generates a 24-hour signed link for exactly that; the other two share through their accountant portals.

None of these change the tax due. They change how long the conversation with an accountant or an officer takes.

Who each tool is best for

Koinly — anyone with holdings across many chains or many exchanges, anyone who needs a second country's rules as well as the UK's, and anyone who values API sync over CSV uploads. The broadest coverage of the three, at a price that is reasonable for moderate activity.

Recap — accountants and bookkeepers managing several clients, and individuals with UK-specific complications (spousal transfers, gifts, business use) who want a UK-native engine with an established track record. Its per-disposal pricing is a poor fit for high-volume memecoin traders.

CryptoLens — UK-resident holders who want HMRC-native output: an SA108-shaped report with the matching rule per disposal, closing pools, and the specific disclosures HMRC asks for, at £0 for one wallet or £4.99 a month for more. Best fit for Solana and EVM activity including rugged tokens, for couples who move assets between each other, and for Scottish taxpayers. Not the right choice for pre-2020 history, obscure chains, or non-UK filing.

There is a longer four-way version of this comparison including CoinTracker in the UK crypto tax software comparison, and one-page feature tables at CryptoLens vs Koinly and CryptoLens vs Recap.

How to check any of this yourself

Take the seven-transaction dataset from the Section 104 worked example, enter it into whichever tools you are considering, and compare the 2025/26 net gain (it should be £547.16) and the closing ETH pool (2.0 ETH at £5,289.16). Then add a purchase within 30 days of one of the sales and see whether the gain moves. That five-minute test tells you more than any comparison article, including this one.

This is general information, not personal tax advice. Product details for Koinly and Recap are taken from their public pages and may have changed.