Every trade costs something. Some of that cost is printed on your exchange's fee page. Some of it is not printed anywhere, and you only see it in the price you got.
This guide shows you how to read the published fee schedule yourself, and how to check the real cost of a trade in your own account. We do not quote any exchange's rates here. Fee schedules change, and a number copied into a blog post goes stale. The only figures that count are the ones on your exchange's page on the day you read it.
Start with the date
When you open a fee schedule, write down the date you read it. Keep a note or a screenshot. If your costs look different a few months later, you will know whether the schedule changed or your trading did.
Maker and taker fees
Most exchanges charge two different rates.
- A taker fee applies when your order fills straight away against an order already on the book. A market order is almost always a taker order.
- A maker fee applies when your order waits on the book and someone else fills it later. A limit order placed away from the current price is usually a maker order.
The maker rate is often lower than the taker rate, because waiting orders give the exchange liquidity. Check your own schedule to see the actual gap.
The fee is usually a percentage of the trade's value. As a simple piece of arithmetic, not any exchange's real rate: a 0.1% fee on a $1,000 trade is $1. You pay it when you buy and again when you sell, so a round trip costs twice.
Tiers
Many schedules have tiers. The more you trade over a set period, the lower your rate. When you read the table, find three things:
- The period the exchange measures, such as the last 30 days.
- Which tier you are in today.
- Whether holding the exchange's own products changes your rate.
If you trade small amounts, you will most likely sit in the first tier. Plan with that rate, not the best one in the table.
The spread is a cost too
The spread is the gap between the best price someone will buy at and the best price someone will sell at. It does not appear on the fee page. You pay it anyway.
If you buy with a market order and then sell straight away, you lose roughly the spread, plus two fees. On busy coins the spread tends to be small. On quiet coins, or during fast moves, it can widen. That is one reason the list in your rules matters.
Funding, only if you use it
Funding applies to perpetual futures, a type of contract some exchanges offer. It is a payment between traders at regular intervals, and depending on the market it can go either way. If you only buy and sell coins on the spot market, it does not apply to you.
If you do use perpetual contracts, read the exchange's funding page as carefully as the fee page. Funding can add up over days, even when the price barely moves. Our article on leverage explains why your stop-loss sets the limit there.
Find the real cost in your own history
The best real example is your own trade. Most exchanges show the fee charged on each fill in your trade history. Pick one completed trade and check:
- The price you were filled at, against the price on the chart at that moment.
- The fee charged, and whether it was a maker or taker fill.
- The currency the fee was taken in.
Do this for a few trades. You will quickly see which costs matter most for the way you trade.
How this fits with Atheron Trading
Atheron Trading places trades in your own exchange account, through an API key that can trade but never withdraw. So the fees are charged by your exchange, under your exchange's schedule. Atheron never holds your money.
Every trade the bot makes is explained, and your rules (budget, stop-loss, coin list) are checked before each one. Until launch, the bot trades with paper money only, at real prices. That gives you time to learn your exchange's fee page before real money is involved.
Fees are certain. Profits are not.
Crypto trading carries real risk, and fees are paid on losing trades as well as winning ones. Read the schedule, note the date, and check your own fills.
