Maker and taker fees

One adds liquidity to the book, the other removes it. Exchanges charge you differently for each.

Every order either sits on the book waiting, or crosses the spread and takes what is already there. The first is a maker order, the second a taker order, and most exchanges charge noticeably more for the second.

Which is which

• Maker. A limit order placed away from the current price. It rests on the book and adds liquidity. Typical fee: 0.02%–0.04%, sometimes a rebate.
• Taker. A market order, or a limit order priced to fill immediately. It removes liquidity. Typical fee: 0.04%–0.10%.

What the gap actually costs

Assume a difference of 0.03% per side. On a $1,000 position that is 30 cents per side, 60 cents per round trip — trivial. Trade ten times a week and it becomes $312 a year on the same $1,000 of size. Trade larger and it scales linearly.

Run your own numbers through the fee-drag calculator. Traders who think of themselves as low-cost are frequently surprised.

When to accept the taker fee

Fee optimisation is not free. A maker order may never fill, and missing a good entry costs far more than a few basis points.

1. Exits and stops: always taker. Certainty of execution matters more than price.
2. Fast-moving entries: taker. If your reason for entering is momentum, waiting defeats it.
3. Planned entries at a level: maker. You already decided the price, so rest the order there.
4. Large size in a thin book: maker, split into pieces. Here slippage dwarfs the fee.

Why exchanges pay you to be a maker

An exchange with an empty order book is useless. Nobody can trade without resting orders to trade against, so venues compete to attract them — and the cheapest way to attract resting orders is to charge less for placing them, or to pay for them outright.

This is not generosity. Liquidity attracts traders, traders generate taker fees, and taker fees pay for the rebates. Understanding the mechanism tells you something useful: maker rebates are largest exactly where the venue most needs depth, which is often where depth is thinnest and slippage highest. A rebate can be a warning as much as a discount.

The arithmetic across a year

Two things stand out. Frequency matters more than size for most retail traders, and both matter more than people expect. Someone taking twenty trades a week is paying for a holiday every year in the difference between order types — and that is before slippage, which is usually larger still.

Run your own figures through the fee drag calculator. The number is almost always higher than the guess.

Post-only, and how to use it properly

A post-only order cancels itself if it would execute immediately, guaranteeing you never accidentally pay the taker fee. It is the correct tool for a planned entry at a level you already decided on.

The discipline it enforces is worth more than the fee it saves. A post-only order cannot chase. If price runs away before filling, you simply did not get the trade — which is exactly the outcome a plan should produce when the entry no longer exists at your price.

What to actually optimise

1. Trade less. The largest fee saving available to almost everyone. Fewer, better trades beat frequent marginal ones on fees, slippage and results.
2. Enter on limits, exit on market. Captures most of the fee benefit without risking an unfilled exit.
3. Check the tier you actually qualify for, not the headline one. Advertised rebates usually require volume you will never trade.
4. Watch funding before fees on perpetuals. On any multi-day hold, funding dwarfs the maker-taker difference entirely.

Common questions

Is a maker rebate free money?

No. Earning it requires your order to rest and fill, which means accepting the risk that price moves away and you get nothing, or that it fills precisely because the market is going against you. The rebate is payment for taking that risk.

Are crypto fees higher than stock fees?

Generally yes as a percentage, and crypto adds funding on perpetuals plus network fees on withdrawals. The gap narrows at higher volume tiers, but for retail accounts crypto is the more expensive market to trade actively.

Do fees matter if I only trade occasionally?

Much less, which is one of several quiet arguments for trading less. At a few trades a month, fees are noise. At several trades a day, they can consume an entire edge.