Every trade on a crypto exchange costs something. Some of the cost is printed on a fee page. Some of it is hidden in the price you get. If you run a bot like Atheron Trading, which places trades in your own exchange account, those costs come out of your balance, not ours. So it is worth knowing where they come from.
A note on numbers before we start. Exchanges publish their own fee schedules and change them from time to time. We have not copied any exchange's schedule into this article, because a number read today can be wrong next month. The figures below are round, made-up examples chosen to show the mechanism. For the real rate, open your exchange's fee page and note the date you read it.
Maker and taker fees
An exchange keeps an order book: a list of people willing to buy at certain prices and people willing to sell at certain prices.
If you place an order that sits in the book and waits, you are a maker. You add liquidity. If you place an order that fills right away against something already in the book, you are a taker. You remove liquidity. Most exchanges charge takers more than makers, because makers help the market work.
Worked example. Say an exchange lists a maker fee of 0.10% and a taker fee of 0.20%. You buy 1,000 Canadian dollars of a specific coin.
- As a maker, the fee is 1,000 x 0.0010 = 1.00 dollar.
- As a taker, the fee is 1,000 x 0.0020 = 2.00 dollars.
That looks small. Now sell the same position later as a taker again. Another 2.00 dollars. A round trip at taker rates cost 4.00 dollars on 1,000, or 0.40%. The price had to move 0.40% in your favour just to break even. A bot that trades often can pay this many times a week.
Many exchanges also lower fees as your monthly volume rises, or if you hold a balance of their own product. Those tiers are on the same fee page. Check which tier you are actually in, not the best one on the list.
The spread
The spread is the gap between the highest price a buyer will pay (the bid) and the lowest price a seller will accept (the ask). It is not a fee on any schedule, but you pay it on every taker trade.
Worked example. The best bid is 100.00 and the best ask is 100.20. The spread is 0.20, or 0.20% of the price. If you buy at the ask and then sell at the bid a second later, with no fees at all, you have lost 0.20%. On a quiet coin, or in a fast market, the spread can be far wider than the printed fee.
A maker order can avoid paying the spread, because you set your own price and wait. The cost is that your order may never fill.
Funding payments
Funding only applies to perpetual futures, not to buying outright. A perpetual contract has no expiry, so exchanges use a periodic funding payment between long and short traders to keep the contract price near the spot price. If the contract trades above spot, longs usually pay shorts. If it trades below, shorts usually pay longs.
Worked example. You hold a long position worth 1,000 dollars. The funding rate for the next period is 0.01% and it is paid every eight hours. You pay 1,000 x 0.0001 = 0.10 dollars per period, or 0.30 dollars a day, while the rate stays there. That sounds tiny, but funding rates can flip sign and climb during a crowded trade, and they are charged whether or not your position moves.
Funding goes between traders. The exchange still charges its normal maker and taker fees on top.
Table: The four costs side by side, with illustrative figures only
| Cost | Where it is shown | When you pay it | Example on 1,000 dollars |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maker fee | Fee page | When your resting order fills | 1.00 at 0.10% |
| Taker fee | Fee page | When your order fills at once | 2.00 at 0.20% |
| Spread | Order book, not the fee page | Every time you cross the book | 2.00 at a 0.20% spread |
| Funding | Futures page | Each period you hold a perpetual | 0.10 per period at 0.01% |
How to read a fee page without being misled
- Find the date on the page, or write down the date you read it. Rates change.
- Look for your own tier, based on your real monthly volume.
- Check whether the rate is for spot or for futures. They are often different.
- Look for withdrawal and deposit fees. They are separate and often flat amounts.
- Open the order book for the specific coins you trade and look at the spread at a normal time and a busy time.
What this means for a bot
Atheron Trading places trades in your own account through an API key that can trade but never withdraw, so every fee lands on your exchange statement where you can see it. Every trade the bot makes is explained, and your own rules on budget, stop-loss and coin list are checked before each one. If you want to see how a run of trades adds up before any real money is involved, paper trading at real prices is the place to start. You can read more at Atheron Trading.
Fees are not a reason to avoid trading. They are a reason to count. Know the rate, know the spread, know whether funding applies, and write down when you checked.
