Maker vs Taker Fees: What You Really Pay per Trade

Most people notice trading fees only after their first few trades, when the numbers in the order history do not quite match what they expected. The reason is usually the same: the trade was charged as a taker, not a maker. The two labels decide which rate you pay, and on some exchanges one of them is double the other.

The good news is that you control which side you land on, at least most of the time. Once you understand the difference and know the real rates of the exchange you use, you can cut your trading costs more than any referral code will. This guide uses the fee schedules that Binance, Bybit, OKX, Bitget and Kraken publish on their own sites, then shows what those rates mean for three typical traders.

Maker vs taker in one minute

An exchange runs an order bookThe list of all open buy and sell limit orders for a trading pair, sorted by price. Trades happen when a new order matches one already in the book.: a list of people waiting to buy at certain prices and people waiting to sell at certain prices. Those waiting orders are what make it possible for anyone to trade instantly.

• A maker places an order that does not fill right away. It sits in the book and “makes” a market for someone else. Example: Bitcoin trades at $60,000 and you place a limit buy at $59,500. Your order waits.
• A taker places an order that fills immediately against an order already in the book, “taking” that liquidity away. Example: you hit the market buy button, or you place a limit buy at $60,100 when someone is already selling at $60,000.

Exchanges want deep order books, because deep books attract traders. So they often charge makers less and takers more. Some charge both the same at the entry level and only open the gap at higher volume tiers.

Spot fees compared: the published regular-tier rates

These are the rates for a regular, non-VIP account as published by each exchange at the time of checking. Fees can differ by country and by account type, so treat your own account’s fee page as final.

A few notes behind the table. OKX’s global framework lists 0.08% maker and 0.10% taker for regular users on all three of its spot fee groups, with zero-fee pairs such as USDC-USDT; its US schedule is higher, and EEA spot-only accounts have their own rates. Bitget’s fee FAQ says enabling “Use BGB to offset fees” lowers the spot rate but refers you to the live schedule for the exact figure. Kraken Pro’s rates drop quickly with volume: 0.30% and 0.60% from $2,500 of 30-day volume, 0.22% and 0.38% from $10,000, and 0.20% and 0.35% from $25,000. Kraken’s stablecoin and FX pairs start lower, at 0.20% for both sides.

Futures fees compared

Derivatives fees look tiny next to spot, but they are charged on the full notional valueThe full size of a leveraged position. With $1,000 margin at 10x leverage, the notional value is $10,000 and fees are calculated on $10,000. of the position, leverage included.

Binance offers a 10% discount on USDⓈ-M futures fees when you pay them in BNB, as long as the BNB sits in your USDⓈ-M futures wallet; otherwise the fee is charged in USDT without the discount. Check Binance’s futures fee page for the rate on your account.

The taker premium on futures is much larger than on spot. That makes order type the biggest single lever on futures costs. Opening and closing a position with market orders on Bitget costs three times what the same trade costs with resting limit orders.

How referral kickbacks and token discounts apply

There are three separate ways to lower the rate you pay, and they stack in a specific order.

1. VIP tier or volume tier sets your base maker and taker rates.
2. Token discount reduces that rate if you pay fees in the exchange token. On Binance spot it is 25%.
3. Referral kickback returns a share of the fee you actually paid, after the first two steps.

On Binance, a regular taker trade of $1,000 costs $1.00 in fees. Paid in BNB, it costs $0.75. If you registered with a Referral Pro code that shares 10%, you get $0.075 back, so the net cost is $0.675. The kickback applies equally to maker and taker fees, so it never changes which side is cheaper; it shrinks both. Our guide to the referral kickback explains where that share comes from and when it stops.

One catch: commissions only exist on fees that are actually charged. Zero-fee pairs generate no kickback, and OKX and Bitget both exclude trades paid with rebate cards or vouchers from commission. If a promotion makes your trades free, the kickback disappears for those trades, which is fine because the fee is gone too.

Worked example: three traders, one month

Here is what the published rates mean in dollars. Each scenario uses the regular-tier rates from the tables above.

Trader A, the monthly buyer. Buys $500 of crypto every month with a market order on spot. Every trade is a taker trade.

At this size, every big exchange except Kraken Pro’s entry tier is cheap. The fee difference between them is a cup of coffee per year. What matters more is the deposit method and the spread on instant-buy screens, which are outside the maker-taker schedule.

Trader B, the active spot trader. Trades $20,000 a month on spot, half with resting limit orders (maker) and half with market orders (taker).

• Binance: $20,000 at 0.1% = $20.00. Paid in BNB, $15.00. With a 10% kickback on top, $13.50.
• OKX: $10,000 at 0.08% plus $10,000 at 0.10% = $8 + $10 = $18.00.
• Bybit and Bitget: $20,000 at 0.1% = $20.00 before any token or referral discount.
• Kraken Pro, already in the $10,000+ tier: $10,000 at 0.22% plus $10,000 at 0.38% = $22 + $38 = $60.00.

Over a year that is $162 on Binance with BNB and a 10% kickback, versus $720 on Kraken Pro at that tier. For this trader, exchange choice and the token discount matter far more than the referral code.

Trader C, the futures trader. Trades $200,000 of notional futures volume a month, 70% as taker and 30% as maker.

• Bybit: $140,000 at 0.055% = $77, plus $60,000 at 0.02% = $12. Total $89.
• OKX: $140,000 at 0.05% = $70, plus $12. Total $82.
• Bitget: $140,000 at 0.06% = $84, plus $12. Total $96.

If the same trader switched entirely to maker orders, each exchange would charge $200,000 at 0.02% = $40. That is a saving of $42 to $56 a month just from order type, more than a 20% referral kickback on any of these exchanges would return ($16.40 to $19.20). Combine both and the monthly bill falls further.

VIP tiers: when your rate starts falling

Volume tiers reward heavy traders. Binance’s spot schedule shows how the maker side drops first:

Two things stand out. The taker fee does not move at all until VIP 3, so a taker-heavy trader gets nothing from VIP 1 or 2. And at VIP 3, Binance stops paying referral commission on your spot trades, so any kickback ends. At that level the VIP rate is the better deal anyway.

Kraken works the other way round: its tiers start from small volumes, and both maker and taker drop sharply in the first few steps, which is why active traders on Kraken Pro rarely pay the entry rates for long.

Practical ways to pay less

• Use limit orders when you are not in a hurry. On futures the maker rate is less than half the taker rate on all three exchanges compared above.
• Turn on the token discount if you trade often and hold a small working balance of the token. Do not buy a large position just to save fees.
• Register with a code that shares commission. Our guide on how to use a referral code explains why this has to happen before the account exists.
• Watch the zero-fee pairs. OKX lists stablecoin pairs such as USDC-USDT at 0% for regular users, and Kraken’s stablecoin and FX pairs start at 0.20% instead of 0.40% and 0.80%.
• Compare the whole cost, not just the headline rate. Instant-buy screens, card deposits and withdrawal fees often cost more than the trade itself.

To compare full offers, start with the exchange referral hub, then check single reviews such as the Bybit referral code, OKX referral code and Kraken referral code pages, which list what each program adds on top of these base fees.