Every crypto fee, explained with numbers

Six separate costs, only two of which appear in a fee schedule.

The six costs, ranked by what they actually take

Traders optimise the first and ignore the rest, which is precisely backwards. Funding and slippage together usually exceed trading fees several times over for anyone holding positions beyond a day.

Trading fees, and the tier you actually qualify for

Maker orders rest on the book and pay less, typically 0.02–0.04%. Taker orders fill immediately and pay 0.04–0.10%. Volume tiers reduce both, but the advertised lowest tier usually requires monthly volume no retail trader reaches.

Read the tier you qualify for today, and never trade more to reach a better one — the additional trades cost more than the tier saves. This is a documented trap and venues design it deliberately.

Spread and slippage, the unpublished costs

The spread is the gap between the best bid and best ask, paid on every market order. Slippage is the extra cost of walking further into the book when your order exceeds the best level.

Neither appears in any fee schedule and both scale with how thin the market is. On a $5,000 order, 0.3% slippage costs $15 against perhaps $2.50 in trading fees. Measure it by comparing the price you clicked against the average price you received.

Funding: the largest cost on multi-day positions

Multiply the quoted rate by three, then by 365, to see the annual figure. Most traders who complain about fees have never calculated this one, and for anyone holding beyond a few days it dominates everything else.

Network fees and the convert-button spread

Withdrawal costs depend entirely on the network chosen. Moving a stablecoin on one chain can cost a dollar and on another twenty. Our gas panel reads six chains directly from their public nodes, and the Bitcoin send-timing panel shows when the network is cheap.

The instant-convert button carries a margin inside the quoted price. Nothing is labelled a fee, and the margin is frequently several times the trading fee you would pay placing the same order on the normal spot market. Compare the two before every conversion above a trivial amount.

Reducing total cost, in order of impact

1. Hold perpetual positions for less time, or use spot for long horizons.
2. Trade less often. Frequency multiplies every cost on this list.
3. Enter with limit orders, exit with market orders.
4. Check depth before sizing. Slippage is usually larger than fees.
5. Use the spot market rather than convert buttons.
6. Time withdrawals and pick the cheapest network.

Common questions

What is a good trading fee in crypto?

For retail accounts, anything at or below 0.10% taker and 0.04% maker is competitive on a major venue. Below that, differences are small enough that order book depth matters far more than the fee itself.

Are crypto fees higher than stock trading fees?

Generally yes as a percentage, and crypto adds funding on perpetuals plus network fees on withdrawals. For an active trader the total cost of crypto trading is meaningfully higher than equivalent equity trading.

How do I calculate my total trading costs?

Add both sides of the trading fee, plus estimated slippage, plus funding multiplied by the number of eight-hour periods held. Our true-cost panel does this with the live funding rate for your pair and holding period.