Maker vs taker fees on crypto futures
Fees look tiny — 0.02%, 0.05%. But they are charged on the full position value, twice per trade. For an active trader they are often the biggest cost after losing trades.
Maker and taker
- Taker — your order executes immediately against existing orders: market orders, and limit orders placed at or through the current price. Taker fees are higher.
- Maker — your order rests in the order book and adds liquidity until someone else fills it: limit orders away from the price. Maker fees are lower.
A stop-market order and a liquidation are always taker.
Typical levels
On the regular (non-VIP) tier of large exchanges, USDT-margined futures fees are typically around 0.02% maker and 0.05–0.06% taker. They change over time and fall with trading volume or exchange-token discounts — check the fee page of your exchange for your actual tier.
Fees are charged on position value
Fee = position value × fee rate, on entry and on exit. With leverage the position is larger than your margin, so fees are larger relative to it.
Example: margin 1,000, leverage 20× → position 20,000. Taker in and out at 0.05%: 20,000 × 0.05% × 2 = 20 — that is 2% of the margin for one round trip, before the trade even moves.
See these numbers for your own trades
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What it costs per month
Ten such trades a day for a month is about 300 round trips — roughly 6,000 in fees on a 1,000 margin account at 20× using market orders. Switching entries to limit (maker) orders can cut that by a large share. That is why it is worth knowing your total fees per week and per month, not per trade.
In CheckMyProfit
Every trade’s result already includes fees where the exchange reports them, and analytics show how much fees took over a period, by exchange and by coin — and what the result would have been without them.