Crypto trading fees explained: maker vs taker, spread, yearly cost

By Overfit Labs · Updated 2026-10-28 · Educational only, not financial advice.

Every crypto trade costs something before the price moves at all. Each fee looks small, but you pay it on every entry and every exit, so how often you trade matters as much as the fee rate. This guide explains each cost and works through the arithmetic.

About the numbers. Every rate on this page is a made-up example chosen to keep the arithmetic easy. None of them is any exchange's actual fee. Fee schedules differ between exchanges, change over time and often depend on your 30-day trading volume, so check your exchange's own fee page for your rates.

The costs in one crypto trade

• Trading fee (maker or taker): a percentage of the trade's value, charged by the exchange on each fill.
• Spread: the gap between the best bid and the best ask. It isn't billed separately; you pay it through the price when you buy at the ask or sell at the bid.
• Slippage: a large or fast market order can fill through several price levels and end up worse than the price you saw.
• Funding (perpetual futures only): periodic payments between longs and shorts while a position is open.
• Network and withdrawal fees: moving coins on-chain to or from a wallet. Not part of the trade itself, but part of what using crypto costs.

Maker vs taker fees

A taker order fills immediately against an order that is already on the book: market orders, and limit orders priced to cross the spread. It takes liquidity. A maker order rests on the book first and fills later when someone trades against it, so it adds liquidity. Many exchanges charge makers less than takers, and on some exchanges and fee tiers the maker fee is zero or even a small rebate.

Worked example with hypothetical rates: with a 0.40% taker fee, a $1,000 market buy costs $4. The same buy as a resting limit order at a 0.20% maker fee costs $2. The catch is that a limit order may never fill, and if price runs away you may end up chasing it with a market order anyway. Where an exchange offers a post-only option, the order is cancelled instead of filling as a taker.

The spread: the cost that isn't on the fee page

Suppose the best bid is $99.90 and the best ask is $100.10 (hypothetical). The mid price is $100.00 and the spread is $0.20, or 0.20%. A market buy pays the ask, $0.10 above mid, and selling straight back at the bid gives up another $0.10. An immediate round trip loses the whole 0.20% to the spread before any trading fee.

Spreads are usually tight on the most liquid pairs and much wider on thin pairs and in fast markets. A simple buy/sell screen that advertises low or zero fees can still charge through a wider spread, so compare the total you pay, not just the fee line.

Round trips: you pay twice

A trade has an entry and an exit, and both are charged. With the hypothetical 0.40% taker fee on a $1,000 position, opening costs $4 and closing costs about $4 (a little more or less, depending on the exit value), so roughly $8 per round trip, or 0.80% of the position. Add the 0.20% spread from the example above and price has to move about 1.0% in your favour just to break even. To run the same numbers with your own exchange's rates, use the trading fee calculator.

How fees add up over a year

The per-trade number looks small. The yearly total is what changes results. Example: $1,000 per trade over 52 weeks, comparing a hypothetical 0.80% round trip (taker on both sides) with 0.40% (maker on both sides). Spread and slippage are not included.

Against a $5,000 account, five round trips a week at the taker rate is $2,080 a year, about 42% of the account, paid whether the trades win or lose. Fees grow with position size and trade count, not with how well you trade.

Leverage: fees are charged on the full position

Fees are charged on the position's value, not on the margin you post. At 10x, $100 of margin opens a $1,000 position, so the hypothetical 0.40% taker fee is $4 each way: 4% of your margin to open and about 8% for the round trip. For how leverage moves the liquidation price, see crypto liquidation price explained.

Funding on perpetual futures

Perpetual futures have no expiry date. Instead, longs and shorts pay each other funding at set intervals. Hypothetical example: a funding rate of 0.01% every 8 hours on a $1,000 position is $0.10 per interval, or $0.30 a day if the rate stayed the same. Real rates change constantly and can turn negative (then shorts pay longs), so funding matters most on positions held for days or weeks. Spot trades have no funding. Daily Edge shows current perpetual funding rates for major coins.

Measure fees in R, not just dollars

If you plan trades in R (the amount you risk per trade), measure fees the same way. Risking $50 per trade with $8 of round-trip fees means every trade starts 0.16R behind. A strategy that makes +0.20R per trade before fees keeps only +0.04R after them. Tight stops make it worse, because the same fee is a bigger share of a smaller risk. The trading fee calculator shows your costs in R when you enter your risk per trade. That's why costs come first in the backtest checklist.

Bitcoin network fees: a different kind of fee

Sending bitcoin on-chain, for example from your own wallet to an exchange or to a shop, costs a network fee paid to miners. It isn't a percentage of the amount. It's priced per virtual byte of transaction size, in sat/vB. A typical payment from a Native SegWit wallet (1 input, 2 outputs) is about 141 vB. Hypothetical example: at 10 sat/vB that's 1,410 sats, about $0.85 if bitcoin were at $60,000. The fee is the same whether you send $50 or $50,000, and the rate rises and falls with demand for block space. When you withdraw from an exchange, the exchange sets its own withdrawal fee, which can differ from the network rate.

The free Bitcoin fee planner shows current network fees from mempool.space at four speeds, from next block to no rush, in sat/vB and dollars. It compares today with the past 7 days, shows whether a time of day has been cheaper, and prices your own transaction from your wallet type and number of inputs and outputs. It covers on-chain network fees, not exchange trading fees.

How to cut trading costs without trading worse

1. Know your real rates. Find your tier on your exchange's fee page and check whether your limit orders get maker pricing.
2. Use limit orders when you aren't in a hurry, and accept that some won't fill.
3. Trade fewer, better setups. Half the round trips means half the fees.
4. Avoid thin pairs and fast moments, where spread and slippage can cost more than the fee.
5. Put fees into position sizing, so a stop-out costs what you planned.
6. Review net results, after fees, in your journal each week (see how to review a trading journal).
7. Send on-chain when it isn't urgent and network fees are lower, and avoid many small transfers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between maker and taker fees?

A taker order fills immediately against an order already on the book, like a market order. A maker order rests on the order book until someone trades against it, like a limit buy below the current price. Many exchanges charge makers a lower fee than takers.

How do I calculate a crypto trading fee?

Multiply the trade's value by the fee rate. With a hypothetical 0.40% taker fee, a $1,000 trade costs $4. Count it on both the entry and the exit, and remember that the spread is a separate cost that isn't billed.

How much do crypto trading fees cost per year?

Multiply the cost of one round trip by the number of round trips. With a hypothetical 0.80% round-trip fee on $1,000 trades, five round trips a week is $8 × 260 = $2,080 a year, before spread and slippage.

Are fees on leveraged trades charged on the margin or the full position?

On the full position. At 10x, $100 of margin controls a $1,000 position, so a 0.40% fee is $4 each way, which is 4% of the margin.

Is the bitcoin network fee the same as an exchange's trading fee?

No. The network fee is paid to miners for an on-chain transaction and is priced in sat/vB of transaction size, not as a percentage of the amount. The free Bitcoin fee planner shows today's network rates. Trading fees come from your exchange's fee schedule.

Fees in Daily Edge

Daily Edge is a free crypto trading journal that runs in your browser. Import a Coinbase, Kraken or Binance CSV and the fees from both sides are counted in each trade's net P&L. The free trading fee calculator works out what your own rates cost per trade and per year. The position size and liquidation calculators take a fee per side, and Paper charges maker and taker fees on simulated fills. To see what's free and what's paid, compare the plans. Educational only, not financial advice.