A maker fee is the trading cost applied when your order rests on the order book and provides liquidity to the market. The term comes from the idea that you are "making" the market by offering a price at which others can trade.
When Are You Charged a Maker Fee?
You incur a maker fee whenever your order does not execute immediately. The classic example is placing a limit buy order below the current ask price. Your order joins the bid side of the book and waits. When another trader's sell order matches yours, you pay the maker fee on the filled amount.
- Limit buy order below the lowest ask → maker
- Limit sell order above the highest bid → maker
- Post-only limit order (guaranteed not to cross the spread) → maker
Typical Maker Fee Rates (2026)
Maker fees vary across exchanges and decrease as your monthly trading volume increases. At the base tier, most major exchanges charge between 0.02% and 0.25% for maker orders:
- Binance: 0.10% base, drops to 0% for high-volume VIP tiers; BNB holders receive an additional 25% discount
- Kraken: 0.25% base, declining through nine volume tiers down to 0.00%
- Coinbase Advanced: 0.40% base for low-volume accounts
- Gemini: 0.20% maker fee on the ActiveTrader platform
How to Guarantee Maker Status
The most reliable way to ensure your limit order is treated as a maker order is to enable post-only mode. When post-only is active, the exchange will only place your order if it will rest on the book. If the price you set would cause an immediate fill (crossing the spread), the order is cancelled rather than executed as a taker. This eliminates the risk of accidentally paying the taker fee.
Maker Fees vs. No Fee
Some exchanges, including Binance on select pairs, offer 0% maker fees as a promotional rate or for market makers running high-volume strategies. Zero-fee maker trades are effectively subsidized by the taker fees collected from the other side of every trade. This is why exchanges strongly incentivize maker activity — without liquid order books, the exchange cannot attract takers who pay higher fees.
Maker fees are often lower because they stabilize the market. Lower maker fees incentivize traders to provide liquidity, which benefits all participants through tighter spreads and better price discovery.
