Maker and taker fees explained: how to compare crypto exchange trading fees
A maker adds an order to the book that waits to be filled. A taker fills against an order already there. Most exchanges charge takers more than makers, because makers supply the liquidity others trade against. Comparing exchanges by the headline fee alone is misleading: you need to know which side you usually trade on, what tier your volume actually puts you in, and how the fee compares with slippage and funding on the same trade.
Fee = position value × rate, charged on each fill. A limit order that rests in the book normally pays the maker rate, and a market order pays the taker rate. For most retail traders, the regular tier's taker rate is the number that matters, whatever the marketing says about the lowest fees.
Maker or taker: which are you?
The role is determined by what your order does at the moment it reaches the book, not by whether it is a buy or a sell.
- Taker: your order matches immediately against resting orders. Market orders are always takers. A limit order priced through the opposite side, such as a buy above the best ask, is also a taker for the part that matches.
- Maker: your order is placed in the book and waits. A buy limit below the best ask that rests there is a maker when someone later trades against it.
A single order can be both. A large limit buy priced slightly above the best ask takes everything up to its price, paying the taker rate on that part, and the remainder rests in the book as a maker. Most exchanges offer a "post only" option which cancels the order if it would take liquidity, so it guarantees you the maker rate or no trade at all.
How fee tiers work
Exchanges price by tier, normally based on your 30-day trading volume, your balance, or both. The OKX fee page we captured on 7 November 2026 is a typical example, and its spot table shows how wide the range can be.
- A regular user pays 0.08% as a maker and 0.10% as a taker.
- VIP 1, which requires a large balance or a large monthly volume, pays 0.0675% and 0.08%.
- At the top tiers, the maker rate turns negative: VIP 9 shows −0.005% as a maker and 0.015% as a taker.
A negative maker fee is a rebate, meaning the exchange pays you to add liquidity. It is real, but it is available only at a volume that most traders will never reach. These rates change, so check the current page rather than relying on a copy from any article, including this one.
How the fee is calculated
The fee is charged on the value of what you trade, not on your margin.
Fee = trade value × fee rate
Opening a 10,000 USDT perpetual position as a taker at 0.05% costs 5 USDT. Closing it as a taker costs about another 5 USDT. So a round trip is about 10 USDT, or 0.10% of position value. With 10× leverage, your margin was 1,000 USDT, so that is 1% of the money you committed, before the price has moved at all. This is why high-leverage short-term trading is often so expensive: the fee rate looks tiny, but the base is many times your capital.
Fees for perpetuals and spot are usually separate schedules, and perpetual fees tend to be lower. Coin-margined contracts may charge in the base coin. Some exchanges let you pay in their own token at a discount, which you should value carefully, because holding that token carries its own price risk.
What does it cost in a realistic trade?
Take a day trader doing 20 round trips a month at 20,000 USDT position value, always using market orders, at a taker rate of 0.05%. That is 40 fills × 20,000 × 0.05% = 400 USDT per month. If half of those fills could be done as maker orders at 0.02%, the fee falls to 20 × 20,000 × 0.05% + 20 × 20,000 × 0.02% = 280 USDT, a saving of 120 USDT a month.
That saving may or may not be real. Maker orders do not always fill. If your limit order is missed and the price runs away, you may then chase with a market order at a worse price than if you had simply taken. The cost of a missed trade rarely appears in a fee comparison, but it can easily exceed the fee you saved. Whether it is worthwhile depends on how urgent your trades are.
Fees are only one part of the cost
Think of three layers. The first is the published fee. The second is slippage, which depends on depth and order size. The third is funding, which depends on how long you hold.
Different traders feel these very differently. A scalper making many small trades is dominated by fees and the spread. Someone moving a large size is dominated by slippage. A swing trader holding for weeks may find funding outweighs everything else. Rather than asking which exchange is cheapest, ask which is cheapest for the trade you actually make. A lower fee on a thin book can cost more overall, and our guide to market order costs shows how to add these together.
How to compare two exchanges
The method is straightforward once you stop looking at the headline.
- Find your real tier. Use your actual 30-day volume and balance. Marketing usually quotes the best rate, which may not apply to you.
- Estimate your maker share. Look at your trade history and see how many fills were maker versus taker.
- Use the right product. Spot, USDT-margined, USDC-margined and coin-margined products often have separate fee tables. Some contracts have their own rates, and fee promotions on selected pairs come and go.
- Calculate a month. Multiply your typical volume by the rates and compare amounts of money instead of percentages.
- Check discounts and referrals carefully. A referral discount or token discount may lower the rate, sometimes for a limited period only. Confirm in your account after your first trade.
Discounts, referrals and rebates
Many exchanges offer referral programmes that reduce the fee for the new user and pay the referrer. Some of the links on this site are referral links, as we state on each page where they appear. Such a discount is worth having if you were going to use that exchange anyway, but it should not decide your choice. Reliability, liquidity and whether the exchange is legally available where you live matter far more over time than a small percentage off the fee.
Check how long a discount lasts, whether it applies to spot only or to derivatives too, and whether it combines with a discount from the exchange's token. These terms vary and they change often. Your account's fee page and your trade history show what was actually charged.
Check what you actually paid
Every exchange reports the fee on each fill in your trade history, usually with a flag or a rate that shows whether it was maker or taker. Check this after your first trade on any exchange. It takes a minute and confirms three things: your tier is what you thought, your discount applied, and your limit orders are really being treated as makers. Fills from a stop or a partial fill may surprise you. We do not measure account fees, since the numbers depend on your tier and our checks use only public data.
Common questions about trading fees
Why do makers pay less than takers?
Because a resting order provides something other traders want: a price they can trade at immediately. Exchanges want full order books, since deep books attract more traders, so they charge less for adding liquidity and more for removing it.
Are maker orders always better?
No. They are cheaper when they fill, but they do not always fill, and a filled maker order may be filled because the price is moving against you. When you must get out now, the taker fee is a small price compared with the risk of staying in.
Are funding payments a kind of trading fee?
No. Trading fees go to the exchange, on each fill. Funding on major exchanges goes between longs and shorts, at each settlement. You pay fees whichever way you trade, but you might receive funding. Our guide to what a funding rate is explains the difference in detail.
Compare fees properly
- Find your actual tier on each exchange.
- Split your typical volume into maker and taker.
- Use the fee table for the exact product you trade.
- Convert to an amount of money per month.
- Add slippage and funding for your typical trade.
- Confirm the rate on your first fills.
Related reading: How much a market order really costs · How to estimate slippage · How to compare funding rates across exchanges
Sources
OKX · Trading fees · Coinbase Exchange · Orders · How we measure · About Tickmark
Other guides
What is a funding rate in crypto perpetual futures? A plain explanation
A funding rate is a regular payment between traders holding opposite sides of a perpetual futures contract. It exists because a perpetual contract never expires, so something else has to keep its price close to the underlying asset. When the rate is positive, longs pay shorts; when it is negative, shorts pay longs. The exchange sets the formula but, on the major exchanges, the money moves between traders.
How to compare funding rates across crypto exchanges: 8h vs 4h settlement
You cannot compare two funding rates by looking at the percentages alone. A rate only means something once you know how often it is charged, whether you are long or short, and whether the two readings describe the same contract at the same moment. The same +0.01% costs twice as much per day on a four-hour schedule as on an eight-hour one, and it earns a short exactly what it costs a long.
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Funding rate arbitrage explained: how it works and what eats the profit
Funding rate arbitrage means holding two offsetting positions in the same asset so that price moves roughly cancel, and collecting funding payments on one side. The classic version buys spot and shorts the perpetual. A second version shorts the perpetual on the exchange with the higher rate and goes long on the exchange with the lower rate. It is often described as risk free. It is not. The risks are simply different from the risk of an ordinary directional trade.
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