Maker-taker fees

The equities track priced commissions and the free-that-isn't. Crypto's fee model is more explicit and more controllable: it charges you differently for adding liquidity than for demanding it.

The two sides of the fee

• Taker: a market order crosses the book and takes liquidity - the dearer fee, a percentage of trade value; the price of immediacy, paid for certainty of fill.
• Maker: a resting limit order adds liquidity and waits - the cheaper fee, sometimes a rebate on some venues; the price of patience, paid in the risk of not filling.
• Both legs pay: entry and exit each carry a fee, so the round-trip cost is two fees plus the spread crossed - a 0.1% taker fee round trip on a £20,000 trade is £40 before the spread.

The volume tiers

Fees fall with trading volume on most venues - the active trader pays materially less per trade than the occasional one, the platform's flat-versus-scaled cost story inverted into a volume discount. The consequence for a plan: the fee rate is not a constant to look up once but a function of the account's own activity, and a high-frequency crypto rule's real fee tier differs from its backtest's assumed one unless the test modelled the tier - module 6's concern, flagged here.

The controllable line

Unlike a fixed commission, the maker-taker split is a choice: patient rules that rest limit orders pay the maker fee and sometimes earn the rebate; urgent rules that cross the book pay the taker fee every time. The saving is real and compounding at frequency - but it is bought with fill uncertainty, the limit order's standing risk from the equities track. The habit: know the venue's maker and taker rates and your volume tier, cost trades at the side actually used, and treat the maker-taker choice as the execution decision it is - the first crypto cost, and the one most within the trader's control.