ZenLedger vs. Koinly

Which crypto tax app is better, Koinly or ZenLedger?

Looking for a crypto tax calculator that features everything you need to calculate and report your crypto taxes? If you’re torn between Koinly and ZenLedger, check out our side-by-side comparison for everything you need to know.

With more integrations and more features available on the free plan, Koinly looks like the better option at a glance, Koinly looks like the best ZenLedger alternative at a glance, but we need to dive deep into it to get the full story.

Integrations

With thousands of coins and tokens available to trade, you need to know your crypto tax platform supports all your investments - and Koinly takes the lead, with more than 800 integrations overall, compared to ZenLedger’s 550.

As well as this, Koinly supports more blockchains via API - more than 170 blockchains in fact, and thousands of tokens - compared to ZenLedger’s 42 blockchains. Koinly also supports users with importing their data every step of the way with more than 190 integration how-to videos on YouTube, that show you exactly how to generate your API keys or locate your CSV file for upload. On the other hand, ZenLedger's 71 videos focus on marketing messages.

Portfolio tracking

Both Koinly and ZenLedger function as both a free portfolio tracker and tax calculator, meaning both products can help you better understand your portfolio investments and performance.

But when it comes to the macro and micro levels of data, Koinly outshines ZenLedger. While ZenLedger offers a high-level overview of market prices for the top coins and the price and value of your holdings, that’s it. 

Meanwhile, Koinly offers a high-level view of your portfolio, including the total value, cost basis, unrealized gains/losses, a breakdown of your transactions, and fiat held on exchanges. As well as this, on an individual assets level, Koinly provides: 

• Balance

• Cost (total and per unit)

• Market value

• Rank

• Market cap

• Gains/losses

• ROI

• Allocation

When it comes to managing your NFTs, Koinly has a dedicated NFT dashboard that lets you preview your NFTs in the app, as well as see total and individual asset value, cost basis, and unrealized gains/losses.

DeFi, NFTs, margin trading, and derivatives

Degen? You need tax software that can handle your chaos. From DeFi to margin trading to derivatives to lending, both Koinly and ZenLedger are up to the task. As well as this, both platforms can handle simpler transactions like mining and staking income, alongside airdrops, but Koinly stands out with superior blockchain support for DeFi investors.

While ZenLedger can handle DeFi transactions, if you’re using less common blockchains, Koinly is the superior choice with automatic import for more than 170 blockchains. As well as this, Koinly has extensive help guides for users importing liquidity transactions and DeFi lending platforms to make it as easy as possible to navigate your transactions and troubleshoot any potential issues.

It’s also worth noting that while ZenLedger does support DeFi, margin trading, futures, options, CFDs, lending, and NFTs - all of this is only available with a premium plan (starting from $149 a year). Koinly on the other hand lets you import and supports all your transactions on the free plan, including a free NFT dashboard. You’ll only ever pay when you want to download your tax report.

Free plan

Both Koinly and ZenLedger operate on a freemium model, but Koinly’s is far more generous.

All of Koinly’s features, excluding the ability to download your tax report, are available on its free plan. This includes support for all transaction types (no matter how complicated!), rich transaction detail, your tax summary that lets you preview your gains, losses, income, etc., as well as a free tax loss harvesting tool, an NFT dashboard, and the ability to see what reports are available to download before you spend your money on a paid plan. Nothing is locked behind paywalls, so you can make sure you’re happy with how Koinly works before you’ll ever pay a cent. 

Meanwhile, ZenLedger does offer a free plan that includes a tax report for customers with less than 25 transactions. Still, this plan doesn’t include features like support for more complex transactions (including NFTs), a tax loss harvesting tool to optimize your tax liability, and more. So while this may be a great option for a small number of investors with a minimal number of simple transactions, it’s not a suitable option for most crypto investors. 

Usability and features

Because Koinly was built by crypto investors who get how much of a pain accounting for crypto transactions on your tax return can be, it’s user-focused. That means Koinly has made it as easy as possible to navigate, view, edit, and troubleshoot your transactions.

So while both products feature automatic error detection, transaction filters, and tags, Koinly offers a lot more support in all regards. Koinly makes it easier to filter your transactions, tag them accurately to ensure your tax report is accurate, and provides a wealth of self-help guides to help you troubleshoot any common data import issues.

As well as this, crypto tax guidance from governments around the world is lackluster at best. Most tax offices haven’t kept up with the innovation of crypto and as such, guidance is often lacking around specific transactions. While Koinly encourages a conservative approach to your crypto taxes by assuming the majority of transactions are taxable, it does offer several customizable tax settings that you (with the help of an experienced accountant) can amend.

These tax settings are set by default based on your country’s guidance, but they’re particularly helpful for investors internationally as several countries are clear that things like crypto to crypto trades or staking directly as part of a PoS consensus mechanism are not taxable. Meanwhile, ZenLedger’s tax settings are limited to cost basis, country, and currency only, meaning it may be unable to support users worldwide.

This is particularly important for investors where a very specific cost basis method is dictated, for example, the Share Pooling method in the UK, the PVCT/PFU method in France, and the Adjusted Cost Basis method in Canada. Koinly supports all of these methods, as well as FIFO, HIFO (including optimized HIFO), LIFO, and ACB while ZenLedger only supports FIFO, HIFO, LIFO, and ACB.

Customer support

More than 1 million customers have used Koinly to calculate and file their crypto taxes, as well as thousands of CPAs globally - and it shows, with an average 4.8-star rating on Trustpilot from more than 1,500 reviews. Meanwhile, ZenLedger has a respectable average of 3.5 stars on Trustpilot from just over 60 reviews.

While both platforms offer free email support and live chat for all plans, if you want an expert to review your transactions to make sure everything is in order, Koinly’s pricing works out better, with expert reviews priced between $499 to $1999 depending on the season. With Koinly’s expert reviews, one of our seasoned handlers will go through every aspect of your transaction data, to make sure everything is imported and calculated correctly, so you can file your taxes with confidence knowing the figures are correct. Meanwhile, ZenLedger offers a 60-minute consultation for $275 or a premium prepared plan starting from $3500.

Supported Countries 

Both Koinly and ZenLedger offer excellent support for US users, including dedicated IRS forms such as Form 8949, Schedule D, and Schedule 1, and reports you can upload directly into your preferred tax filing solution like TurboTax or TaxAct. 

But outside the US, Koinly stands out - with dedicated reports for Canada, Australia, the UK, Sweden, France, Finland, and Switzerland - as well as a Complete Tax Report PDF that can help you file in many more countries. While ZenLedger claims to support international investors, it only offers generic gains, income, end-of-year valuation reports, and so on for international users.

Conclusion: Koinly wins!

While ZenLedger’s free plan may be suitable for a small number of investors with minimal transactions on major exchanges, for the majority of crypto investors, Koinly is the better choice with a feature-packed freemium model, better pricing, better customer support, more integrations, and superior international support.