What is a maker-taker fee?

An order book only works if somebody is willing to leave an order sitting in it. That order is what anyone else trades against, and a venue with an empty book cannot fill a single trade. So venues split the charge: the resting order, the maker, pays little or nothing, and the incoming order that removes it, the taker, pays more.

The split is not symmetrical anywhere. On the 10 order-book venues priced here, four charge makers nothing at all and the dearest maker rate is 0.050%, while taker rates run from nothing to 0.080%. The difference is the venue's opinion of how badly it needs resting orders.

Percentages hide the size of the bill, so convert them. A $10,000 position charged 0.045% to open and the same to close pays $9.00. The same position pays $5.00 at 0.025%, $8.00 at 0.040%, and nothing at all on a venue that charges nothing.

A maker pays half that pattern or less. At 0.015% a $10,000 resting order costs a dollar and a half when it fills, against $4.00 at 0.040% and nothing at four of the 10. The cheapest way to trade on almost every venue is to post and wait, and the cost of waiting is that the order may not fill.

A flat schedule. One pair of numbers for every account. Extended charges 0% maker / 0.025% taker whoever is trading (Extended fee documentation, checked 18 September 2026).

A volume ladder. The rate falls as turnover rises. Hyperliquid starts at 0.015% maker / 0.045% taker and descends with 14-day weighted volume and staked HYPE (Hyperliquid fee documentation, checked 18 September 2026), and publishes every rung of it in basis points rather than percentages.

A zero rate with a condition. Lighter charges nothing on its Standard account and delays taker orders by 300 milliseconds (Lighter fee documentation, checked 18 September 2026); Paradex charges nothing on retail web orders and caps them at three a second (Paradex fee documentation, checked 18 September 2026).

Cashback after the charge. The rate stays put and part of it comes back. EVEDEX charges 0.015% maker / 0.045% taker and returns up to 35% of a trader's own fees, which takes an effective taker rate to 0.02925% (EVEDEX documentation, noted 18 September 2026).

The spread. Crossing it is a cost paid on every market order. Median spreads on the books as read ran from 0.01 bps to 7.45 bps.

Price impact. A market order larger than the top of the book walks into the next price, and the next. On $10,000 that walk ran from 0.02 bps to 95.76 bps; on $100,000, from 0.02 bps to 157.79 bps.

Funding. A perpetual contract has no expiry, so long and short holders pay each other at intervals to keep the contract near the spot price. It is not a venue fee and it does not appear in any figure on this site, but it is charged for as long as the position is open.

Start with the tier a new account is actually on. Most published tables lead with the cheapest rung, and almost nobody trades there: Hyperliquid's base tier is 0.015% maker / 0.045% taker and its advertised floor is far lower. Then check whether the cheap rate carries a condition — a latency penalty, an order-rate cap, a staked balance, a subscription.

Then price one trade you would really make. A $10,000 round trip cost between $0.86 and $191.52 all in across the 10 venues on this page, and the order of the venues on that measure is not the order of their published rates. The two venues publishing nothing finished first and last.

Last, check the date. Aster set maker fees to zero on 2 February 2026 and Paradex dropped retail fees on 15 June 2026; a fee page read a year ago describes a different product.