Maker and taker fees are commonly used by cryptocurrency exchanges when they charge fees for buying bitcoin. In this article, the most popular ones compared.

Cryptocurrency exchanges are a very important part of the cryptocurrency market. Indeed, thanks to them, users are able to buy and sell virtual currencies. However, there are some differences between these platforms. Of course, services differ but they also have higher or lower fees depending a lot on their business strategy.

Centralized exchanges make a profit every single time that a trader makes a transaction on these platforms. When a transaction is processed, the exchange takes a small fee for the trade. In general, these are just a small percentage of the trade. Nonetheless, in the long term and for large orders the fees for buying Bitcoin can become very high in nominal terms.

It is worth mentioning that traders that process large transactions in the market have generally lower fees than those that trade occasionally or that never use these platforms. In general, the rule is that the larger the volume, the lower the fees in terms of percentages. This is how exchanges attract larger users and incentivize trading on their platforms.

What are maker and taker fees?

It is also necessary to take into account that maker and taker fees are different. Maker orders are those that create liquidity in the market rather than taking it from the order book. In general, these orders have lower fees. Meanwhile, taker orders tend to have little higher fees for buying Bitcoin.

For example, if you market buy 1 BTC at the current price of 9100 USD, you have to pay a taker fee. In this instance, you have taken liquidity from the order book. On the other hand, if you place a limit buy order at 9075 USD(which is below current ticker price) and the price falls in this buy order, later on, you have to pay the maker fee.

Nowadays, the total cryptocurrency industry has exploded in coins(5164) and being traded at hundreds of different exchanges on a global scale. In this article, we deep dive into the fee structure of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges which are: Coinbase, Binance, Bitfinex, and Kucoin.

Coinbase Pro

Coinbase Pro has a tiered fee structure in which they allow users that trade more than $10,000 per month to already enjoy discounted fees. Most of the exchanges make a clear distinction between maker and taker fees.

Fees start at 0.50% per trade for both taker and maker orders if a user volume was lower than $10,000 monthly. As soon as trading volumes grow, users can already get some benefits. For example, if your trading volume in a month was between $10,000 and $50,000 the fees paid will be equal to 0.35% per trade.

High trading volumes reduce the fees for buying bitcoin

After surpassing $50,000 of trading volume per month, Coinbase Pro offers reduced trading fees for maker orders with 0.15% and 0.25% for taker orders.

The lowest fees are those paid by users with a total monthly volume of more than $1 billion per month. In this case, fees for buying Bitcoin will be equal to 0.04% for taker orders and 0.00% for maker orders. Once the user surpasses a monthly volume of $50 million, maker orders have 0% fees.

Trading fees Coinbase Pro

Pricing tier	Taker fee	Maker fee
<$10k	0.50%	0.50%
$10 – $50k	0.35%	0.35%
$50 – $100k	0.25%	0.15%
$100k – $1 million	0.20%	0.10%
$1 – $10 million	0.18%	0.08%
$10 – $50 million	0.15%	0.05%
$50 – $100 million	0.10%	0.00%
$100 – $300 million	0.07%	0.00%
$300 – $500 million	0.06%	0.00%
$500 – $1 billion	0.05%	0.00%
$1Billion+	0.04%	0.00%

It is worth taking into account that Coinbase Pro does not take fees for withdrawing funds compared to other exchanges.

Binance Exchange

Binance is also another popular crypto platform that is offering users the possibility to buy and sell a wide range of cryptocurrencies. In a similar way to Coinbase, users that trade a larger amount of digital assets will pay lower fees.

Binance has 10 VIP Levels from 0 to 9. The first one is for users that trade less than 50 BTC a month (period of 30 days). In this case, the maker and taker fees are equal to 0.10% for both maker and taker orders.

This exchange has a particularity. Users can pay their fees using the Binance Coin (BNB) virtual currency. In this way, they are able to reduce their fees even further. For example, users will pay 0.075% for taker and maker orders if they use their BNB digital assets.

Binance uses VIP levels when charging fees for buying bitcoin

Taker fees remain the same until users reach a trading volume of more than 4500 BTC monthly. This is equal to almost $40 million in a period of 30 days at current BTC values. In this case, fees will be 0.07% for maker orders and 0.09% for taker orders. There is a further reduction if the user decides to pay using BNB coins, which would drop fees to 0.0525% and 0.0675% respectively.

The lowest fees are paid by users that have a trading volume of over 150.000 BTC in a period of 30 days. Maker fees, in this case, will be equal to 0.02% and 0.04% for taker orders. Users trading with BNB coins will pay 0.015% and 0.03% respectively.

Binance maker taker fees

Level	30d Trade volume	&	BNB Balance	Maker/taker	Maker/taker(BNB 25% off)	Maker/taker(BNBxReferral)
VIP 0	<50BTC	Of	0 – 50BNB	0.1%/0.1%	0.075%/0.075%	0.06%/0.06%
VIP 1	>50 – 500BTC	&	>50 – 200BNB	0.09%/0.01%	0.0675%/0.075%	0.054%/0.06%
VIP 2	>500 – 1500BTC	&	>200 – 500BNB	0.08%/0.1%	0.06%/0.075%	0.048%/0.06%
VIP 3	>1500 – 4500BTC	&	>500 – 1000BNB	0.07%/0.1%	0.0525%/0.075%	0.042%/0.06%
VIP 4	>4500 – 10000BTC	&	>1000 – 2000	0.07%/0.09%	0.0525%/0.0675%	0.042%/0.054%
VIP 5	>10000 – 20000BTC	&	>2000 – 3500	0.06%/0.08%	0.045%/0.06%	0.036%/0.048%
VIP 6	>20000 – 40000BTC	&	>3500 – 6000	0.05%/0.07%	0.0375%/0.0525%	0.03%/0.042%
VIP 7	>40000 – 80000BTC	&	>6000 – 9000	0.04%/0.06%	0.03%/0.045%	0.024%/0.036%
VIP 8	>80000 – 150000BTC	&	>9000 – 11000	0.03%/0.05%	0.0225%/0.0375%	0.018%/0.03%
VIP 9	>150000 BTC	&	>11000 BNB	0.02%/0.04%	0.015%/0.03%	0.012%/0.024%

The Binance exchange has withdrawal fees that change according to the virtual currency that you want to withdraw.

Bitfinex Exchange

The fees for buying Bitcoin will also follow a reduction taking the volume into account for users using the Bitfinex exchange. In this case, those that trade between $0 and $500,000 monthly will have to pay 0.10% for maker orders and 0.20% for taker orders. Users that hold LEO coins will also get reduced fees up to 25%.

Fees for maker orders in the Bitfinex exchange will be 0% if the user trades more than $7.500.000,00. However, maker fees will remain at 0.20%. As we mentioned before, this is in order to promote maker orders and generate liquidity in the market.

Users that trade more than $30 billion per month (a period of 30 days) will pay a fee of 0.00% for maker orders and a fee of 0.055% for taker orders. There will be a further reduction of 25% if the user holds LEO coins. Other services may have different fees.

This exchange has also withdrawing fees that apply for each of the assets on its platform.

Bitfinex maker taker fees

30d trading volume	Maker fees	Taker fees	Discount LEO holders
$0 – $500.000	0.10%	0.20%	25% discount
>$500k – $1000.000	0.08%	0.20%	25% discount
>$1 million – $2.5 million	0.06%	0.20%	25% discount
>$2.5 million – $5 million	0.04%	0.20%	25% discount
>$5 million – $7.5 million	0.02%	0.20%	25% discount
>$7.5 million – $10 million	0.00%	0.20%	25% discount
>$10 million – $15 million	0.00%	0.18%	25% discount
>$15 million – $20 million	0.00%	0.16%	25% discount
>$20 million – $25 million	0.00%	0.14%	25% discount
>$25 million – $30 million	0.00%	0.12%	25% discount
>$30 million – $300 million	0.00%	0.10%	25% discount
>$300 million – $1 billion	0.00%	0.09%	25% discount
>$1 billion – $3 billion	0.00%	0.085%	25% discount
>$3 billion – $10 billion	0.00%	0.075%	25% discount
>$10 billion – $30 billion	0.00%	0.06%	25% discount
>$30 billion	0.00%	0.055%	25% discount

Kucoin Exchange

KuCoin is also an exchange that offers trading services for users. The fee structure for this exchange is also divided into different levels. There are four different levels for trading discounts that apply to users in the platform.

The first level called “Member” would allow users to trade virtual currencies to pay a fee of 0.10% for both maker and taker orders. Gold members would also have reduced fees that will have trading fees that go from 0.09% for taker orders and 0.04% maker orders with KCS discount.

KCS is the virtual currency created by the exchange and that works in a similar way as Binance Coin.

The Platinum level would allow users trading in the KuCoin exchange to pay between 0.07% for taker orders and 0.02% for maker orders with KCS digital currencies. Finally, the best level and the one with the lowest trading fees for buying Bitcoin is the Diamond level. Fees for traders will oscillate between 0.05% for taker orders and 0.0104% for maker orders paying with KCS.

This exchange has also withdrawal fees for users that change according to the virtual currency that the client wants to withdraw.

Conclusion

When you consider all things related to fees for buying cryptocurrency, the first things centralized exchanges foremost need is liquidity. In other words, ‘real traders’ must be active on the platform performing buy/sell orders. For this reason, we researched the most popular exchanges in the world with the highest 24h trading volumes. In general, the fees charged for regular trades in the crypto industry are much cheaper compared to fees charged in the stocks industry.