PerpAtlas Research · July 18, 2026 · With the verified numbers
Exchange fee pages are dense, inconsistent between venues, and frequently misquoted by third
parties. Once you know the four things to look for, they take thirty seconds to read correctly.
Maker vs taker — the one distinction that matters most
Every fee schedule splits into two columns:
Maker: you add liquidity — your limit order rests on the book and waits
to be filled. Cheaper, because you're providing the market something.
Taker: you remove liquidity — your order fills immediately against
what's resting (a market order, or a limit order that crosses the spread). More expensive.
At base tier on USDT perps, every major venue charges 0.02% maker; takers pay 0.05% to
0.06%. Your blended fee is maker_share × maker + taker_share × taker — which is why
knowing your own split matters more than the headline rate.
VIP / volume tiers — read the axis, not just the rate
Below the base row, schedules list tiers that lower your rate as your 30-day volume (and sometimes
your holdings of the exchange token) rises. Two traps: (1) the thresholds are large — meaningful
discounts usually start in the millions of monthly volume, so most traders live on the base row; and
(2) some venues quote spot and futures tiers on the same page with different
ladders. Make sure you're reading the futures (perpetual/USDT-M) column, not spot.
The fine print that trips people up
Funding is not a fee. It's a payment between traders, not to the exchange, and
it won't appear on the fee schedule — but for held positions it's usually the bigger cost
(funding, explained). Read the fee page for execution
cost and the funding page (or our monitor) for holding cost.
Token discounts quote the discounted rate in the headline sometimes,
and the standard rate elsewhere — check whether the number assumes you're paying fees in the platform
token.
The API can disagree with the fee page. Some venues' contract-API fee fields
show nominal or non-standard rates that differ from the VIP-0 tier a normal user actually pays. Trust
the official fee schedule over a raw API field — we learned this one the hard way (see below).
Coin-M vs USDT-M. Coin-margined (inverse) contracts often have a different
schedule than USDT-margined ones. Most retail perps are USDT-margined; confirm which you're trading.
Don't trust third-party fee tables — including comparison sites, and including this one. Base-tier
perp fees are actually quite uniform (0.02% maker everywhere; taker 0.05–0.06%), and it's easy to
copy a wrong number: we ourselves briefly published Binance's taker as 0.04% before catching it
against Binance's own FAQ — it's 0.05%. Always confirm against the exchange's current official
schedule.
A 30-second checklist
Find the futures / USDT-M table (not spot).
Read the base-tier maker and taker — that's your rate unless you do millions in
monthly volume.
Check whether the quoted number assumes a token-payment discount.
Remember funding is separate and usually larger for anything you hold.