Maker vs Taker Fees: How Crypto Exchange Trading Fees Work

Maker fees are charged on orders that add liquidity to an exchange's order book, and taker fees are charged on orders that remove liquidity by filling immediately. Makers are usually charged less than takers, because exchanges want deep order books. For high-frequency or low-margin strategies, the difference between the two can decide whether a trade makes money.

Key takeaways

• Maker: your order rests on the book and waits to be filled.
• Taker: your order fills right away against existing orders.
• Fee = notional × fee rate, charged on every fill.
• Rates usually fall with higher 30-day trading volume and sometimes with holding the exchange's own token.
• A round-trip hedged trade can have four fills, so fees add up quickly.

Maker vs taker at a glance

	Maker	Taker
Effect on liquidity	Adds to the order book	Removes from the order book
Typical order types	Resting limit, post-only	Market, limit that crosses the spread
Fill speed	Only when someone trades against you	Immediate
Fill certainty	May not fill	Fills, subject to depth
Slippage	None beyond your price	Can be significant on large orders
Fee level	Lower, sometimes negative	Higher

Which orders count as maker or taker?

• A market order is always a taker.
• A limit order below the best ask (for a buy) rests on the book and is a maker.
• A limit order at or above the best ask (for a buy) fills immediately, at least in part, and is charged as a taker.
• A post-only order is cancelled if it would fill immediately, so it is always a maker when it executes.

Part of a single order can be taker and part maker: the portion that fills at once pays taker, and the rest rests on the book and pays maker when filled.

How fee tiers work

Most exchanges publish a fee schedule with tiers. Common features:

• Volume tiers based on the last 30 days of trading.
• Discounts for paying fees in the exchange's own token.
• Different rates for spot and derivatives; perpetual futures fees are often lower than spot fees on the same exchange.
• Maker rebates at the highest tiers or for market-making programs on some venues.

Fee levels change over time and differ by venue, so always check the current schedule.

Worked example: fee impact

Assume illustrative perp fees of 0.02% maker and 0.05% taker. You open and close a $50,000 position.

Execution	Open fee	Close fee	Round-trip cost
Taker both sides	$25	$25	$50
Maker both sides	$10	$10	$20
Maker open, taker close	$10	$25	$35

Using maker orders on both sides saves $30 per round trip. Over 20 round trips a month, that is $600.

Why fees matter for funding and arbitrage

A two-leg hedge, such as a delta-neutral funding trade, needs four fills to open and close. At 0.05% taker per fill, that is 0.20% of the notional of one leg.

Baseline funding on many exchanges is 0.01% per 8 hours, or 0.03% per day. At that rate it takes about 0.20 ÷ 0.03 ≈ 6.7 days of funding just to cover taker fees. Higher funding shortens that break-even, and maker execution cuts it further, but a resting order may not fill before the opportunity moves.

For price arbitrage, the gross spread must beat both taker fees plus slippage. ArbTide's arbitrage scanner shows spreads net of taker fees, and the methodology page explains the fee assumptions. To test your own fee levels, use the arbitrage profit calculator or the funding rate calculator.

DEX fees are different

On AMM DEXs there is no maker or taker: every swap pays the pool fee, plus gas. On-chain order book perp DEXs, such as Hyperliquid, do use a maker and taker model similar to centralized exchanges. See CEX vs DEX for more differences.