Maker vs Taker Fees: How to Pay the Lowest Trading Fees

Two people place the exact same trade at the exact same price, and one of them pays a higher fee than the other. That is not a glitch — it is the difference between being a maker and a taker. It is one of the simplest cost levers in trading and also one of the most ignored, because the gap on any single trade looks tiny. But fees are paid on every open and every close, and over hundreds of trades the maker-versus-taker choice quietly decides whether the exchange skims a little or a lot off your account. This article explains what the two terms mean, how futures fees are actually charged, the legitimate ways to pay less, and the trap that catches people who optimise fees too hard.

This is risk and fee education, not investment advice. Every rate, discount and tier in this article is framework-level; the actual numbers change constantly and live only on each exchange's official fee schedule.

1. What "maker" and "taker" actually mean

Every exchange runs an order book: a live list of buy and sell orders waiting at different prices. Whether your order is a maker or a taker comes down to one question — does your order add liquidity to that book, or remove it?

• A maker order does not fill immediately. It rests on the book at your chosen price and waits for someone else to trade against it. Because it sits there providing depth, you are "making" liquidity. This is what a limit order usually does when you set a price that is not yet available in the market.
• A taker order fills right away by matching against orders already resting on the book. You are "taking" that liquidity off the book and getting an instant fill. This is what a market order does, and also what a limit order does if you price it so aggressively that it executes on the spot.

The rough mental model is: passive and patient = maker; active and immediate = taker. A maker accepts the risk of not getting filled in exchange for a better fee. A taker pays for the certainty and speed of an instant fill.

Why the maker fee is usually lower — or even a rebate

This is not the exchange being generous. A deep, liquid order book is what makes an exchange usable and competitive, and makers are the people supplying that depth. So exchanges reward makers with a lower fee to encourage resting orders, and charge takers more because they consume that liquidity. On many venues the maker fee is meaningfully below the taker fee, and on some it can even be a negative number — a rebate, meaning the exchange pays you a small amount for adding liquidity. Whether a rebate exists, and how large it is, depends entirely on the exchange and the tier; treat it as a possibility to check, not a number to assume.

2. How futures fees are charged (and why it is not like spot)

This is the part beginners most often get wrong, and it can be an expensive misunderstanding. On a spot trade, the fee is charged on the cash value of what you buy or sell — straightforward. On a futures contract, the fee is charged on the position's notional value, not on the margin you actually deposited:

Fee per side ≈ Position notional value × Maker/Taker rate

And notional value is amplified by leverage:

Notional value = Margin × Leverage

Here is a worked teaching example (the numbers are assumed and do not represent any real rate). You put up 1,000 USDT of margin at 10× leverage, so your notional value is 10,000 USDT. If the taker rate is 0.05%, opening the position costs 10000 × 0.0005 = 5 USDT, and closing costs roughly the same, so the round trip is about 10 USDT — even though you only deposited 1,000 USDT. Crank the leverage to 20× on the same 1,000 USDT margin and the notional doubles to 20,000 USDT, so the same trade now costs around 20 USDT round trip. The fee scales with notional, which means higher leverage quietly multiplies your fee on the same deposit.

The lesson is not "leverage is bad," it is that the fee you see quoted (0.05%) is a percentage of a number much larger than your wallet balance. People who only look at the percentage and forget it is applied to leveraged notional consistently underestimate what they are paying. The funding rate compounds this further over time, which is a separate cost we cover in Funding Rate Explained.

3. How to actually pay the lowest fees

There are a handful of legitimate, exchange-sanctioned levers here. None of them is a secret, and none of them requires trading more than you otherwise would.

Use limit orders to trade as a maker

This is the single most controllable lever. If you place a limit order at a price that does not fill instantly, your order rests on the book and you are charged the lower maker fee instead of the taker fee. The trade-off is real: a resting order might not fill, or might fill only partially, and in a fast-moving market you can miss the entry entirely. So this suits planned entries and exits where a few seconds or a slightly worse price does not break your plan — not situations where you must get filled this instant. Many platforms also offer a "post-only" option that cancels the order rather than letting it execute as a taker, guaranteeing maker status when you need it.

Platform-token fee discounts

Several exchanges let you pay trading fees with their own platform token (for example BNB on Binance) and apply a discount when you do. Where this exists, it can shave a fixed percentage off your fee. Two cautions: first, holding the platform token is itself a market exposure — the token's price can fall, so a "fee discount" is not free money. Second, the size and even the existence of these discounts change over time and by region, so confirm the current terms on the official page before counting on them.

VIP tiers by 30-day volume

Most exchanges run a VIP / fee-tier system, where your maker and taker rates drop as your 30-day trading volume (and sometimes asset balance) climbs. The top tiers are built for high-frequency and institutional traders and are out of reach for most retail users. The honest takeaway: tiers are a genuine benefit if your volume naturally puts you there, but they are not a reason to manufacture volume you would not otherwise trade.

Rebates and fee promotions

As covered above, some venues pay a maker rebate at certain tiers, and exchanges periodically run fee-free or reduced-fee promotions on specific pairs. These are real but conditional, time-limited, and frequently changed. Use them when they happen to line up with a trade you were going to make anyway; do not reorganise your trading around chasing them.

4. The trap: do not overtrade just to save on fees

Here is the contradiction that catches people. Every lever above lowers the fee on one trade. But the total fee you pay is:

Total fees ≈ Fee per trade × Number of trades

Optimising the first factor while inflating the second is how people end up worse off. Saving 0.02% per trade by being a maker is completely undone if the obsession with rates nudges you into trading three times as often. Frequency is the hidden multiplier most beginners never put a number on. A trader who places ten thoughtful trades a month at the taker rate almost always pays less in total than one who places a hundred trades a month chasing maker rebates and VIP volume.

The worst version of this is trading to climb a VIP tier: generating volume purely to unlock a lower rate, when the fees and slippage from that extra volume cost far more than the tier upgrade will ever return. The cleanest rule of thumb is simple — decide your trades on your strategy first, then minimise the fee on the trades you were already going to make. Never let the fee structure decide how often you trade. To see how fee and frequency compound against funding and holding cost, try our cost calculator.

5. Rates differ a lot by exchange — read the official fee schedule

There is no universal maker or taker rate. Each exchange sets its own, and they differ by a surprising amount across venues, by market (spot vs futures), by instrument, by your VIP tier, and over time as exchanges adjust to compete. Any "exchange X charges 0.0Y%" figure you see quoted in an article or a video is a snapshot that may already be stale. The real differences worth understanding are structural, not the exact decimals of any given day:

• The maker-taker spread differs. Some exchanges set makers far below takers to attract liquidity providers; others keep the two closer together.
• Tier structures differ. The volume thresholds for each VIP level, and how steeply rates fall, vary from one exchange to the next.
• Discounts and rebates differ. Whether a platform-token discount or a maker rebate exists at all — and on which markets — is exchange-specific.

So the correct habit is not to memorise numbers but to know where the official fee schedule lives and read it before you trade. Every exchange publishes one, usually in its help centre or a dedicated "fees" page, and it is the only authoritative source for the rate you will actually be charged. Our full cost comparison tool lists each exchange's official fee-page entry point in its data-source section so you can verify for yourself, and if you are still deciding where to trade, our guide on how to choose a futures exchange walks through weighing fees against safety, depth and availability rather than picking on cost alone.

A few honest words for beginners

• Maker beats taker on cost, but only patience makes you a maker. If you need an instant fill, you will pay the taker rate — that is the price of certainty, and sometimes it is worth paying.
• The fee follows the notional, not your deposit. Higher leverage means a bigger notional and a bigger fee on the same margin, so factor that in before you size up.
• Frequency is the real cost driver. Cutting the rate per trade matters far less than not trading more than your strategy actually calls for.
• There is no "always cheapest" exchange — only current rates, tier structures and conditional discounts, all subject to the official fee schedule.

Selected exchange official entry points (includes affiliate links; we receive a promotion service fee and promise no rate or return; verify the live maker and taker fees and tier rules yourself on the official fee schedule):

Binance official → OKX official → Bybit official →

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a maker and a taker fee?

A maker order rests on the order book and waits to be filled, so it adds liquidity; the fee for it is the maker fee. A taker order matches against an order already on the book, so it removes liquidity; the fee for it is the taker fee. Limit orders that do not fill immediately are usually makers, and market orders are usually takers. On most exchanges the maker fee is lower than the taker fee, and some venues even pay a maker rebate.

How are futures trading fees calculated?

Futures fees are charged on the position's notional value, not on the margin you put up. The fee is roughly notional value multiplied by the maker or taker rate, applied both when you open and when you close. Because notional equals margin times leverage, higher leverage means a larger notional and therefore a larger fee on the same deposit. The exact rate is whatever each exchange's official fee schedule states.

How can I pay the lowest trading fees?

Use limit orders so you are charged the lower maker rate instead of the taker rate, consider a platform-token discount such as paying fees with the exchange token where offered, and reach a higher VIP tier through 30-day trading volume. But never overtrade just to climb a tier or chase a rebate, because frequent trading multiplies total fees and usually costs more than it saves. Always confirm current rates on the official fee schedule.

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