Crypto Futures Fees Comparison for 2026, Ordered by What the Round Trip Costs
Updated: Console View operations
A crypto futures fees comparison that stops at the published rate is half the bill. Lighter and Paradex both charge nothing on a $10,000 round trip, yet the books read here took $0.84 and $206.62 of the same two fills — the half of the bill only a reading of the book can price.
Order-book depth30Round-trip cost25Loss and audit record15Settlement and withdrawal15Contracts listed10Getting started5how we rate
Ordered by the published taker rate and then the maker rate, which is the order a fee schedule puts them in. It is not the order the bill puts them in, and the block below says by how much.
| # | Venue | Score | Cells | Maker / taker | Round trip on $10,000 | Markets | Model | Use it for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Lighter | 13.3 | 0% / 0% | $0.00 | 214 | Hybrid, ZK-proven | paying nothing, if 300 milliseconds is acceptable | |
| 01 | Paradex | 9.8 | 0% / 0% | $0.00 | 63 | Hybrid, Starknet appchain | a zero rate that depends on how the order is sent | |
| 03 | Extended | 12.4 | 0% / 0.025% | $5.00 | 325 | Hybrid | the cheapest bill of any venue here that charges a fee | |
| 04 | edgeX | 11.9 | 0.040% / 0.045% | $9.00 | 172 | Hybrid | the dearest schedule and almost no crossing cost | |
| 04 | EVEDEX | 10.5 | 0.015% / 0.045% | $9.00 | 52 | Hybrid | a published rate that cashback works against |
Fee field: entry tier on the BTC perpetual; the round trip is two taker fills on a ten thousand dollar position at that tier. Count field: venue-reported. Access sits outside the score. Equal totals share a rank, and the lit cells draw the same score again. Facts as of 18 September 2026.
- 01Cheapest round trip of the five: Lighter, nothing charged and $0.84 taken by the book.
- 02Two venues charge nothing and do not cost the same: Paradex gave $206.62 to its book, forty times Extended's whole bill of $5.12.
- 03Same 0.045% taker rate, two different bills: edgeX at $9.04 and EVEDEX at $13.12.
- 04Dearest of the five once the book is counted: Paradex, nothing charged and $206.62 taken by a book holding $728.00.
The default Standard account pays no maker and no taker fee on any market it lists (Lighter fee documentation, checked 18 September 2026), against latency the documentation puts at 300 milliseconds on a taker order. The opt-in Premium tier buys 140 milliseconds back at 0.004% maker and 0.028% taker.
IN FAVOUR
- Nothing charged on either side of the default account, on every market listed
- $0.84 was the whole round trip in the readings, fee and book together
AGAINST
- The free tier delays a taker order by 300 milliseconds before it reaches the book
- Speed costs money instead: the 140-millisecond tier charges 0.004% maker and 0.028% taker
Not for: a taker who treats latency as a cost.
Documentation: lighter.xyz
Retail orders — anything sent through the web interface or an interactive token — have paid nothing on either side since 15 June 2026 (Paradex fee documentation, checked 18 September 2026). Every other route pays 0.003% maker and 0.045% taker. Paradex shares the lowest published price here with Lighter, and at Paradex it sits on the thinnest book, a median $728.00.
IN FAVOUR
- No maker or taker fee on perpetual contracts placed through the web interface
- Audited bridge contracts and a bounty paying up to 500,000 USDC
AGAINST
- The zero rate is decided per order: every other route pays 0.003% maker and 0.045% taker
- A $100,000 order would have paid 158.11 bps against the book read here
Not for: an order above a few thousand dollars on this book.
Documentation: paradex.trade
One flat schedule for every account and no volume ladder to climb: 0.000% maker and 0.025% taker on perpetual contracts (Extended fee documentation, checked 18 September 2026). That is $5.00 on a $10,000 round trip, and the book gave back only $0.12 more.
IN FAVOUR
- A 0.000% maker fee for every account, with no volume requirement behind it
- $5.12 all in, the lowest total of any venue here that charges anything
AGAINST
- Only 47 of its 325 active contracts run on a public book
- The maker rebate needs 0.5% of the venue's 30-day maker volume to pay anything
Not for: a maker expecting the rebate without volume behind it.
Documentation: extended.exchange
A regular account pays 0.040% maker and 0.045% taker on the second-generation contracts (edgeX fee page, checked 18 September 2026) — the dearest maker rate here. It is also where crossing the book cost least: a median $29.2 million rested inside ten basis points and a $10,000 order moved the price 0.02 bps.
IN FAVOUR
- A $10,000 order moved the price 0.02 bps, $0.04 on the round trip
- Six published audits and a withdrawal documented to work without the operator
AGAINST
- A 0.040% maker fee, the dearest entry maker rate here, and no bug bounty published
- The fee pages disagree: the help-centre article still shows 0.018% and 0.038%
Not for: a maker paid to post size elsewhere.
Documentation: pro.edgex.exchange
The published rate at EVEDEX is 0.015% maker and 0.045% taker, which makes a $10,000 round trip $9.00 at the moment it is charged (EVEDEX documentation, logged 18 September 2026). What arrives afterwards is cashback on fees already taken: a base share that climbs with a gamification level any user can reach, and a flat 5 percentage points on top for Prime subscribers.
IN FAVOUR
- Up to 35% of a trader's own fees can come back afterwards, on charges already taken
- A median $18.6 million resting inside ten basis points, the second-deepest book on this page
AGAINST
- Cashback stops at 35% of a trader's own fees, so the entry taker rate bottoms out at 0.02925%
- A median spread of 4.12 bps, the widest of the four deep books here, put $4.12 of the round trip on the book rather than on the schedule
- 52 perpetual contracts against 214 at Lighter and 325 at Extended
- No bug bounty was listed on CertiK Skynet when we read it on 18 September 2026
Not for: a trader who wants the headline rate itself to be low.
What the book took on top of the fee
A fee schedule is the half a venue publishes. The other half is what the book charges for crossing it, and that one has to be measured: on this console's ten-minute poll, over the two days to 22 September 2026 every BTC perpetual book here was read and the distance between the fill price of a $10,000 market order and the mid was recorded. Doubled, because a position is closed as well as opened, that is the middle column.
| Venue | Fee on the round trip | What the book took | The two added |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lighter | $0.00 | $0.84 | $0.84 |
| Extended | $5.00 | $0.12 | $5.12 |
| Paradex | $0.00 | $206.62 | $206.62 |
| edgeX | $9.00 | $0.04 | $9.04 |
| EVEDEX | $9.00 | $4.12 | $13.12 |
Rates are each venue's entry tier, read in its own documentation on 18 September 2026; the middle column is measured, from the capture cycle. Two rows move against the published order, and one of them moves the length of the table: Paradex charges nothing and still ends up the dearest row here, and edgeX carries the dearest maker fee yet finishes ahead of a venue quoting the same taker rate. Both halves of the bill are taken out of margin, and margin is the smaller number of the two. At 100x, one percent against a position is the whole margin behind it.
Why the same rate is not the same price
The gap widens with size, and not evenly. At $10,000 the Paradex book took 103.31 bps; at $100,000 it took 158.11 bps, because only $728.00 rested within ten basis points of the mid. The deepest book here, edgeX at $29.2 million, moved 0.02 bps on the same $100,000 order. And a perpetual carries a third line neither table shows: funding, exchanged between the two sides of the contract every hour the position stays open, which on a position held for days is larger than both.
How this page was put together
Nothing prints here that was not polled or copied out with its date. Depth, spread and impact are this console's own work — every listed BTC book opened on this console's ten-minute poll, over the two days to 22 September 2026, each a median of what came back. The documentary columns came off each venue's own pages on 18 September 2026: fees, contract list, leverage ladder, settlement, sign-in terms, audit history. Open interest and turnover are neither — each venue's own report, as CoinMarketCap published it on 22 September 2026. Six weights, fixed 22 September 2026 before any venue was scored, score the 5 venues on this page (how we rate). No account is held at any of them.
First line, the disclosure: publication here is paid for; row order is not. Settlement and the audit record are marked off documents: a console prints what a venue says of itself, not what it did. The fee column is a new account's rate, before volume tiers, rebates or cashback. Depth is measured, but on BTC alone and over one span of readings: a narrower contract holds less, and another hour reads differently.
How much are crypto futures trading fees?
At the entry tier on these five venues, takers pay between nothing and 0.045% of the position, charged again on the way out. On a $10,000 round trip that is $0.00 at Lighter and $9.00 at the dearest of them, each read in its own documentation on 18 September 2026.
Are crypto futures fees charged on the leverage or on the margin?
On the position, not on the deposit behind it. A taker fee is a percentage of the notional, so a $10,000 position opened against $200 of margin is charged as $10,000. At 0.045% that is $4.50 to open and $4.50 to close, whatever multiple was used.
Which perpetual futures exchange has zero fees?
Two here. Lighter charges nothing on its default account and adds 300 milliseconds of latency instead. Paradex charges nothing on orders sent through its web interface, and 0.003% maker with 0.045% taker on any other route. Neither is free once the book is counted.
How do you work out the total cost of a futures trade?
Add three lines. The taker fee twice, once to open and once to close; the distance between the fill price and the mid, also twice; and funding for every hour the position is held. On this page the first two ran from $0.84 to $206.62.
What is slippage and how is it different from a fee?
A fee is a published percentage of the position. Slippage is what the book charges for crossing it, so it moves with depth and order size, and no schedule states it. A $100,000 order moved the Paradex book 158.11 bps and the edgeX book 0.02 bps.
Are funding payments part of the trading fee?
No. Funding is exchanged between the two sides of the contract rather than paid to the venue, and it is charged for every hour a position stays open. On anything held for days it can outweigh the entry and exit fees together.
Updated: | Console View operations | corrections to readout@wp-monero-miner.com