Maker vs Taker Fees: How They Work, With 2026 Exchange Rates
Last Updated: September 15, 2026
Maker vs taker fees depend on whether your order adds liquidity to the order book or removes it. As of September 15, 2026, EVEDEX and Hyperliquid charged 0.015% maker and 0.045% taker on perpetual futures, while Kraken Pro charged 0.40% maker and 0.80% taker on spot at its entry tier.
Every order book needs two kinds of orders. A maker posts a limit order that waits on the book, giving others something to trade against. A taker fills against those resting orders straight away with a market order or an aggressively priced limit order. Our guide to crypto order types shows how each one behaves. Exchanges usually charge the taker more, because the taker gets immediate execution and uses up liquidity that someone else provided. The US Securities and Exchange Commission, describing stock exchanges, defines the maker-taker model as paying a rebate to provide liquidity and charging a fee to take it. Most crypto exchanges keep the logic but charge both sides. This guide compares the two rates, lists base-tier fees on six venues, and works out what the difference means over a month of trading.
Leverage makes fees heavier relative to margin, and a leverage trading calculator shows how they move break-even. Venues ranked by overall cost appear in our best low-fee crypto exchange guide, and the EVEDEX matching and settlement model is explained in how the perp DEX works.
Maker vs Taker Fees: The Key Differences
| Criterion | Maker | Taker | On EVEDEX (September 15, 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| What the order does | Rests on the order book and waits until another trader's order fills it | Matches immediately against orders already on the book and removes them | Same classification: resting limit orders pay maker, immediate fills pay taker |
| Typical order types | Limit orders placed away from the current price, and post-only orders where offered | Market orders, triggered stop-market orders and limit orders priced through the spread | All 52 pairs are perpetual contracts traded through an order book |
| Base rate | Lower: from 0.01% on dYdX perpetuals to 0.40% on Kraken Pro spot at entry tier | Higher: from 0.035% on Deribit bitcoin futures to 0.80% on Kraken Pro spot | 0.015% maker and 0.045% taker on every pair, charged on position notional |
| Execution risk | The price may move away and the order may never fill, leaving you out of the trade | Fills at once, but a large order can walk the book and suffer slippage | A minimum order of 5 USDT applies to maker and taker orders alike |
| Worked example: $10,000 trade | $1.50 at 0.015%, or $0.975 after the maximum 35% cashback | $4.50 at 0.045%, or $2.925 after the maximum 35% cashback | A limit entry plus a market exit costs $6 in total before cashback |
| Discounts | Volume tiers cut maker rates, and some venues pay rebates to large makers | Volume tiers cut taker rates too, but rebates on taker fills are rare | Cashback of up to 35% on your own trades: up to 30% via gamification plus 5% with Prime |
Data as of September 15, 2026. EVEDEX fees and cashback: EVEDEX docs. Other rates: official fee pages of Hyperliquid, dYdX and Kraken, and the Deribit. SEC definition: Division of Trading and Markets memo, October 20, 2015.
Base-Tier Maker and Taker Fees on Six Exchanges
Headline rates only compare fairly within the same product, so the table separates perpetuals, futures and spot. All rates are for accounts with no volume discount.
| Exchange and product | Maker fee | Taker fee | Fee caveats |
|---|---|---|---|
| EVEDEX perpetual futures | 0.015% on all 52 pairs, including stocks, gold, oil and FX | 0.045% on all pairs, charged on notional rather than on margin | No spot market at any fee; the 35% cashback needs gamification progress plus Prime |
| Hyperliquid perpetuals and spot | 0.015% on perps and 0.040% on spot at tier 0 | 0.045% on perps and 0.070% on spot at tier 0 | Spot costs more than perps; tiers use rolling 14-day volume, and rebates require a large share of maker volume |
| Deribit bitcoin futures and perpetual | 0.015% on BTC dated futures and BTC-PERPETUAL | 0.035% on the same contracts, the lowest taker rate here | Rates read from EVEDEX trading terms rather than a fee page; CoinGecko shows only 57 perpetual pairs |
| dYdX perpetuals | 0.01% at tier 1, under $1 million of 30-day volume | 0.05% at tier 1, higher than EVEDEX, Hyperliquid and Deribit | Maker rebates start only at $100 million of 30-day volume; trading requires moving funds to dYdX Chain |
| Kraken Pro spot and Kraken Futures | 0.40% on spot at tier 1; 0.02% on futures | 0.80% on spot at tier 1; 0.05% on futures | Entry-tier spot fees are the highest in this table; stablecoin pairs cost 0.20% for both sides instead |
| Binance spot | 0.100% for regular users under $1 million of 30-day volume | 0.100% at the same tier, the same as the maker rate | No maker discount at base tier; the 0.075% rate requires paying fees in BNB |
Data as of September 15, 2026. Sources: EVEDEX, Hyperliquid, Deribit, dYdX, Kraken, Binance, pair counts from CoinGecko. Some exchanges vary rates by region; check the fee page shown to your account.
Worked Example: A Month of Active Trading
Take a trader who opens and closes 50 positions a month, each worth $5,000 of notional. That is 100 trades and $500,000 of volume. The assumptions: every trade pays the same type of fee, no volume tier changes during the month, and no funding or slippage is counted.
- All taker on EVEDEX: $500,000 × 0.045% = $225.
- All maker on EVEDEX: $500,000 × 0.015% = $75, a saving of $150 a month.
- Half and half: $150, the typical result of limit entries and market exits.
- With the maximum 35% cashback: $146.25 all taker, or $48.75 all maker.
- Same volume on Hyperliquid spot as taker: $500,000 × 0.070% = $350.
- Same volume on Kraken Pro spot as taker, tier 1: $500,000 × 0.80% = $4,000, although that tier would not last, since Kraken lowers rates as monthly volume grows.
Leverage makes the gap feel bigger. If each $5,000 position is opened at 10x, the trader posts $500 of margin, and a single taker fill of $2.25 equals 0.45% of that margin. Two taker fills per round trip take 0.9% of the margin before the price moves at all. A leverage trading calculator shows how fees shift break-even and liquidation levels for a given position size.
How Exchanges Decide Whether You Are Maker or Taker
The classification happens at the moment of matching, not when you choose an order type. The same rules apply on nearly every order book.
- Limit order away from the market. A buy below the best ask or a sell above the best bid rests on the book. When it fills, you pay the maker rate.
- Market order. It always fills against resting orders, so it always pays the taker rate.
- Marketable limit order. A buy priced at or above the best ask fills immediately and pays taker on that part. Anything left unfilled rests on the book and pays maker if it fills later.
- Post-only order. Where an exchange offers it, the order is cancelled instead of filling immediately, which guarantees the maker rate or no trade.
- Stop orders. A stop-market order becomes a market order once triggered and pays taker. A stop-limit order can end up either way, depending on where the limit sits when it triggers.
Stock markets use the same vocabulary with different economics. Under Rule 610 of Regulation NMS, US exchanges may charge no more than $0.003 per share to take liquidity. The SEC adopted a lower cap of $0.001 per share for stocks priced at $1.00 or more on September 18, 2024, and on June 11, 2026, extended relief from compliance until the first business day of November 2027. For a refresher on how each order behaves, see crypto order types explained.
How to Pay Less in Maker and Taker Fees
- Use limit orders for entries when a delay is acceptable. On EVEDEX that cuts the rate from 0.045% to 0.015%.
- Keep market orders for exits that cannot wait, such as a stop-loss in a fast market, where missing the fill costs far more than the fee.
- Compare the fee on the product you trade. Hyperliquid's spot rates are higher than its perpetual rates, and Kraken's futures rates are a fraction of its spot rates.
- Count all costs of a position. Perpetuals add funding, and wide spreads can cost more than the fee difference.
- Use cashback and volume tiers you already qualify for instead of chasing volume to reach the next tier.
A broader ranking of venues by cost is available in the guide to the best low-fee crypto exchange.
Maker and Taker Fees on EVEDEX
EVEDEX is a hybrid exchange for perpetual futures: orders are matched off-chain in an order book and settled on-chain on Arbitrum L2, with USDT margin under cross margin. The fee schedule is flat across its 52 public pairs: 0.015% maker and 0.045% taker, whether the contract tracks BTC, a US stock, gold, oil or a currency pair. Cashback of up to 35% on your own trades, made up of up to 30% through gamification and 5% for Prime subscribers, brings the effective rates to 0.00975% maker and 0.02925% taker at the maximum. Funding is calculated every 8 hours and charged hourly, and it is a separate cost from trading fees. Leverage reaches 200x on BTC-USD, ETH-USD and SOL-USD for positions up to $50,000 notional.
The limits are clear: there is no spot trading, so there are no spot fees to compare; there are no options; the pair list is short next to the largest exchanges; and reaching the full cashback takes progress in the gamification system. See how the perp DEX works for the matching and settlement model. Perpetual futures carry a high risk of loss.
