About Augea
Evidence-led crypto cost intelligence. Snapshot-backed cost estimates, a research umbrella, and a retail-reality data program — with transparent provenance, no sponsored rankings, no affiliate bias.
What Augea is
Augea is a crypto cost intelligence platform. It estimates the total cost of buying crypto across exchanges, including fees, spreads, and payment-method costs, and presents them with clear provenance so you can see exactly where each number comes from. Beyond comparison, it carries a research umbrella for periodic publications, a Retail Reality program for user-reported experiences (under privacy-first methodology), and a coverage credibility roadmap that binds every expansion to a named destination.
Augea is not an exchange. It does not hold funds, execute trades, or provide financial advice. It is a decision surface: a place to understand what you might actually pay, before you pay it — and a research surface that turns those measurements into citable findings.
The problem
Comparing crypto fees is harder than it should be. Exchanges publish fee schedules, but the real cost of a purchase depends on spreads, payment method surcharges, minimum fees, and tier structures that vary by country and amount.
Most comparison sites either show headline rates that miss half the cost, or rank exchanges based on affiliate deals rather than evidence. There is no standardised way to compare the total cost of buying crypto across exchanges in your country. Augea exists to solve that.
How it works
- Snapshot pipeline — fee data is collected from exchange APIs and documentation into timestamped snapshots.
- Cost modelling — each snapshot is modelled into estimated total cost ranges per scenario (asset, country, amount, payment method).
- Evidence-based ranking — exchanges are ranked by estimated total cost, only when enough data exists to rank fairly.
- Provenance tracking — every estimate links to its snapshot ID and timestamp, so you can verify freshness.
What makes Augea different
Evidence, not opinions
Every estimate is backed by a timestamped snapshot. No editorial rankings, no subjective scores, no sponsored placements.
Explicit unknowns
When data is missing or incomplete, Augea says so. Gaps are shown as unknown with reason codes, never filled with guesses.
Rankings only when earned
Exchanges are only ranked when enough verified data exists. Partial data gets tracked, not ranked.
Transparent freshness
Every estimate shows when it was last updated. Stale data is flagged, not hidden.
Research and Retail Reality
The comparison surfaces are one half of Augea. The other half is published evidence and user-reported reality.
Augea Research
Augea Research is the umbrella for periodic, methodology-frozen publications — including the Augea Retail Cost Index v2 (full-matrix), the Card vs Bank cost study, and the monthly cost report. Every publication is snapshot-backed and links back to the underlying data and methodology. Reports live under /reports.
Retail Reality
Retail Reality is Augea's in-progress data program for user-reported buying experiences. The methodology — privacy-first, aggregate-by-default, with right-of-reply for any named-exchange finding — is published before any survey instrument runs. No surveys are live yet; the contributor scaffold documents the privacy posture before collection begins.
Methodology comes before publication
Both research and retail-reality outputs follow the same discipline: methodology lands first, samples and confidence tiers travel with every claim, unknowns stay visible, and named-exchange comparative findings carry right-of-reply protocol status.
What Augea is not
- Not an exchange. Augea does not hold funds or execute trades.
- Not financial advice. Estimates help you compare, not decide.
- Not a recommendation engine. Rankings reflect estimated cost, not endorsement.
- Not affiliate-first. Affiliate links exist but never influence rankings or estimates.
How data is verified
Every estimate on Augea follows a verification pipeline before it reaches a comparison page.
- Required fields gate — each exchange row must have fee and spread data present. Rows with missing critical fields are flagged, not ranked.
- Freshness check — data older than 7 days is classified as degraded. Data older than 90 days becomes unrankable and is excluded from cost comparisons.
- Confidence scoring — each estimate receives a confidence level (high, medium, low) based on data freshness, coverage completeness, and source count.
- Provenance tracking — every estimate is linked to a specific snapshot ID and timestamp. The public trust dashboard shows all coverage data openly.
Explore
Start with a specific comparison or dig into the underlying data.
Estimates, not quotes.