Spot vs Futures Fees: Why the Cheaper-Looking Market Often Costs More
By Alex Wu · Published · Updated
Open any fee schedule and futures look like the bargain. Binance lists 0.1% for a spot trade and 0.05% for a futures taker order, half the price. But traders who switch to futures to save on fees often end up paying more each month. The reason is not the rate. It is what the rate is charged on, how often, and the extra costs futures carry that spot does not.
The headline rates
At the base tier, most exchanges on TradeSavings charge:
- Spot: 0.1% maker and 0.1% taker. Gate.io is a little lower at 0.09%, Crypto.com is 0.075%, and HTX is higher at 0.2%.
- Futures: around 0.02% maker and 0.05–0.06% taker. MEXC is the cheapest at 0% maker and 0.02% taker; Weex is the highest taker at 0.08%.
So per dollar traded, a futures taker order costs roughly half to two thirds of a spot trade. Per dollar of your own money, the picture flips.
Fees are charged on the position, not your margin
On spot, a $1,000 purchase is charged on $1,000. On futures, the fee is charged on the full notional value of the position. With $1,000 of margin at 10x leverage you hold a $10,000 position, and the fee is worked out on $10,000.
| Same $1,000 of your money | Position size | Fee to open (taker) |
|---|---|---|
| Spot, Binance (0.1%) | $1,000 | $1.00 |
| Futures 5x, Binance (0.05%) | $5,000 | $2.50 |
| Futures 10x, Binance (0.05%) | $10,000 | $5.00 |
| Futures 20x, Bybit (0.055%) | $20,000 | $11.00 |
At 10x leverage, opening the position costs five times what the spot purchase did. Closing it costs the same again. Leverage multiplies fees exactly as it multiplies gains and losses.
Funding: the cost spot traders never pay
Perpetual futures have no expiry date, so exchanges use a funding rate to keep their price close to spot. Every few hours (often every eight), traders on one side pay traders on the other. When the market is bullish, longs usually pay shorts.
Funding is charged on the position size too. A rate of 0.01% per eight hours on a $10,000 position is $1 per payment, $3 a day, or about $90 a month if you hold through every payment. In strong trends funding can run several times higher. A referral code does not reduce funding; it only applies to trading fees.
Spot has no funding. If you plan to hold for weeks, spot is usually cheaper even though its trading fee looks higher.
Trading frequency changes the answer
Futures traders also tend to trade more often. A spot investor might buy once a month. A futures trader opening and closing a position every day pays two fees a day, about 40 a month. That is where fee choices start to matter, and where the gap between maker and taker rates is largest. Our maker vs taker guide shows how much limit orders save on futures.
A side-by-side month
Two traders each have $5,000.
- The spot trader buys $5,000 of BTC on Bybit and sells it a month later: two trades at 0.1%, so $10 in fees.
- The futures trader uses 5x on Bybit, a $25,000 position, opened and closed with market orders three times a week: about 13 round trips at $27.50 each (0.055% × 2), so $357.50 in fees, plus funding while positions are open.
The futures trader's rate was about half the spot rate, and the bill was 35 times higher. That is not an argument against futures, which let you hedge, short and use capital efficiently. It is a reason to count fees on your position size and trading pattern, not on the headline rate.
Where a referral code helps most
Because futures traders pay fees on large notional sizes and trade often, a fee discount is worth far more to them. A 20% cut on the futures trader above saves about $71 a month; on the spot trader it saves $2. If you trade futures, entering a code at sign-up is one of the few savings you get without changing how you trade. Check first whether your exchange lets you add a code after sign-up, because many only link a code at registration.
Leverage limits differ widely too, from 40x on Hyperliquid to 500x on selected MEXC pairs; see maximum leverage compared. Higher leverage raises the fee on the same margin and the risk of liquidation.
Frequently asked questions
- Are futures fees lower than spot fees?
- Per dollar of position, usually yes: around 0.05% against 0.1% at the base tier. Per dollar of your own money they are often higher, because leverage makes the position bigger than your margin.
- Is the futures fee charged on my margin or my position?
- On the full position (notional) size. A $1,000 margin at 10x is a $10,000 position, and the fee is charged on $10,000.
- Does a referral code reduce funding payments?
- No. Funding is paid between traders, not to the exchange, so a fee discount does not touch it. The code reduces trading fees only.
- Which is cheaper for holding a coin for months?
- Spot. You pay one fee to buy and one to sell, with no funding in between. Holding a leveraged perpetual for months means paying or receiving funding every few hours.