Crypto Trading Fees Explained: Maker, Taker and Network Costs

Order-book exchanges distinguish between two roles. A maker places an order that rests on the book — for example, a limit order to buy below the current price — and thereby adds liquidity. A taker submits an order that executes immediately against a resting order, removing liquidity. Exchanges typically charge takers more than makers, because resting orders are what make a market deep and tradable.

The practical consequence: how you enter an order changes what you pay. A patient limit order usually qualifies for the maker rate, while a market order always pays the taker rate. On competitive venues maker fees can be very low — on PrimeFTX, for instance, they start from 0.01% — which is why active traders pay close attention to order types, not just to which exchange they use.

Every market has a bid (the highest price buyers will pay) and an ask (the lowest price sellers will accept). The gap between them is the spread, and anyone who buys at the ask and sells at the bid loses that gap even if the quoted trading fee were zero. Spreads are effectively an invisible cost of trading.

Spreads widen when liquidity is thin — in small-cap tokens, during volatile moments, or at off-peak hours — and tighten in deep, active markets. This is why a venue advertising zero fees is not automatically cheap: if its markets are illiquid, the spread can cost far more than a transparent commission would.

Separate from anything an exchange charges, moving assets on-chain costs a network fee paid to the blockchain's validators or miners. These fees vary enormously by network: Bitcoin and Ethereum fees fluctuate with congestion and can rise sharply at busy times, while Solana confirms transactions in under a second with fees below one cent.

For traders, network fees matter mainly at the edges — depositing, withdrawing, and moving funds between wallets. Trades executed inside an exchange's order book do not usually incur network fees, since they settle on the venue's internal ledger. It is worth checking withdrawal fees separately, as venues set these themselves and they are often where hidden costs live.

A single fee looks trivial, but trading costs scale with turnover, not with profit. A trader who turns over their account many times a month pays the fee on every round trip, and those charges accumulate whether the trades win or lose. Over a year, the difference between two fee tiers can be a meaningful share of returns.

The arithmetic favors deliberate habits: use limit orders where your strategy allows, trade liquid markets with tight spreads, and understand a venue's full fee schedule — trading fees, withdrawal fees and any hidden markups — before committing. A platform like PrimeFTX publishes maker fees from 0.01% across its 150+ spot and margin markets, but whatever venue you choose, the same checklist applies.

Trading digital assets involves significant risk of loss, and fees are only one factor in overall trading outcomes. Past performance does not indicate future results, and nothing in this article is investment advice. Trade only with funds you can afford to lose.