# Crypto Trading Bot Fees Compared in 2026: Eight Venues on a $10,000 Round Trip

Updated: 24 September 2026 / Tested: 22 September 2026

Lighter and Paradex both publish nothing on either side, so the fee order opens at zero. Crypto
trading bot fees compared with our own fills read differently: the whole $10,000 round trip came to
$0.84 at Lighter and $234.96 at Paradex, against
$5.12 at Extended on a 0.025% taker. Leverage scales
every one of those numbers.

Weights: What the venue automates for you 24 · Programmatic access 14 · Measured liquidity 22 · Round-trip cost 16 · Security and record 12 · Custody and settlement 8 · Market coverage 3 · Access 1. One formula, fixed 23 September 2026: https://ellsworthvane.com/rating-method

## Crypto trading bot fees compared, eight venues in taker order

The order is the entry-tier taker fee each venue publishes, the cheaper maker side breaking a tie.
The score column rides along and does not set it: the highest total on this board is Aster's
30.0, in place 4.

| # | Venue | Score of 40 | Maker / taker | Perp markets | Model |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1= | Lighter | 28.6 | 0% / 0% | 214 | Hybrid, ZK-proven |
| 1= | Paradex | 20.2 | 0% / 0% | 63 | Hybrid, Starknet appchain |
| 3 | Extended | 27.5 | 0% / 0.025% | 325 | Hybrid |
| 4 | Aster | 30.0 | 0% / 0.040% | 578 | Own layer 1, operator-run |
| 5= | EVEDEX | 29.1 | 0.015% / 0.045% | 52 | Hybrid |
| 5= | Hyperliquid | 24.8 | 0.015% / 0.045% | 324 | On-chain order book |
| 5= | edgeX | 24.3 | 0.040% / 0.045% | 172 | Hybrid |
| 8 | Aevo | 19.5 | 0.050% / 0.080% | 102 | Hybrid |

Facts as of 18 September 2026; entry-tier fees on the BTC perpetual. Access differs by country.

## Read-offs

1. Cheapest whole round trip on $10,000: Lighter at $0.84, fee and slippage together.
2. A published zero is not a zero bill: a retail order at Paradex gave back 117.48 bps a leg, so the round trip came to $234.96.
3. Same 0.045% taker, a different bill: edgeX came to $9.04 against $9.12 at Hyperliquid and $13.12 at EVEDEX, whose books gave back more.

## 1. [Lighter](https://lighter.xyz) — best for zero fees paid in milliseconds

Score 28.6.

The default Standard account pays 0% maker / 0% taker on every perpetual market, and the delay
is the price: 300 ms on a taker order and on a cancel (Lighter fee page, checked
18 September 2026). Its book gave back 0.42 bps on $10,000, for $0.84 in all.

- Works: Nothing to pay on either side of the default account; Whole round trip of $0.84, the lowest here.
- Falls short: 300 ms on every taker order at the free tier, 140 ms on the paid one; No public bug bounty programme in the documentation we read.
- Not for: an edge that lives inside the next second.

## 1. [Paradex](https://www.paradex.trade) — best for a zero tier behind a speed bump

Score 20.2.

A retail order, sent through the web interface or an interactive session, has paid nothing on
either side since 15 June 2026, behind a 300 ms speed bump and tight rate limits (Paradex fee
page, checked 18 September 2026). A professional order pays 0.003% maker and 0.045% taker. The
book gave back 117.48 bps on $10,000, for $234.96 in all.

- Works: Nothing to pay on either side of a retail order since 15 June 2026; 63 perpetual markets on one cross-margin account.
- Falls short: The zero tier comes with a speed bump and a three-orders-per-second limit; Gave back 117.48 bps on $10,000 and 164.78 bps on $100,000; No $1,000,000 order filled in any of our 116 snapshots.
- Not for: a strategy sending more than three orders a second.

## 3. [Extended](https://extended.exchange/) — best for a flat schedule with no tier to reach

Score 27.5.

Extended charges 0% maker / 0.025% taker on every account, perpetuals and spot alike, with no
volume tier to reach (Extended fee page, checked 18 September 2026). Two crossings of $10,000
cost $5.00 and the book gave back 0.06 bps, for $5.12 in all.

- Works: 0% maker on every account, no tier to reach; Whole round trip of $5.12, against $234.96 at Paradex on a published zero.
- Falls short: 278 of the 325 active markets are quoted on request, with no public book; Large withdrawals route through a third-party bridge and can take four hours.
- Not for: a strategy that assumes every listed market has a resting book.

## 4. [Aster](https://www.asterdex.com) — best for a maker side at zero on every tier

Score 30.0.

Aster's Pro book charges 0% maker / 0.040% taker at the entry tier, and the maker side has been zero
for every tier since 2 February 2026 (Aster fee page, checked 18 September 2026). Its
stablecoin-margined and real-world-asset pairs run on separate schedules. Two crossings of $10,000
cost $8.00 and the book took 0.10 bps, for $8.20 in all.

- Works: Maker side at zero across every tier since 2 February 2026; 578 perpetual markets on one order book.
- Falls short: Vault, earn and stablecoin contracts were audited; the chain and the matching engine were not; Stablecoin-margined and real-world-asset pairs are priced on separate schedules.
- Not for: a taker trading outside the standard perpetual list.

## 5. EVEDEX — for a fixed pair of rates with cashback

Score 29.1.

EVEDEX is a hybrid perpetual futures exchange: a central order book does the matching away from
the chain, while settlement lands on-chain on Arbitrum, which takes position data once enough has
changed rather than on every fill (the EVEDEX documentation we read on 18 September 2026). The published pair is
0.015% maker / 0.045% taker across 52 perpetual contracts, lowered only by cashback:
part of the fees a trader has already paid is returned, to a documented ceiling of 35% of that
trader's own fees. Its book gave back 2.06 bps on $10,000, for $13.12 in all.

- Works: One published pair of rates for every account, no tier to qualify for; Cashback returns up to 35% of a trader's own fees already paid, which puts the taker side at 0.02925%.
- Falls short: 52 perpetual contracts against 578 on the widest venue here; No spot market, so a cash leg has to be funded elsewhere; No bug bounty programme listed on CertiK Skynet, checked 18 September 2026.
- Not for: a strategy waiting for a published rate to fall as volume grows.

## 5. [Hyperliquid](https://hyperliquid.xyz) — best for the same pair on its own chain

Score 24.8.

Hyperliquid's base rate is 0.015% maker / 0.045% taker under $5,000,000 of 14-day weighted volume,
the same schedule for markets its validators run and for those deployed by builders
([Hyperliquid fee page](https://hyperliquid.gitbook.io/hyperliquid-docs/trading/fees), checked 18 September 2026). Its book gave back
0.06 bps on $10,000, for $9.12 in all.

- Works: A bug bounty paying up to 1 million USDC for a critical report; Every order, cancel and liquidation committed to its own chain.
- Falls short: Auto-deleveraging can force-close a profitable position when an account goes negative; Its own vault absorbed about $4.9 million in the November 2025 POPCAT episode.
- Not for: a strategy that reads a listing as a review.

## 5. [edgeX](https://pro.edgex.exchange) — best for the same taker fee and a dearer maker

Score 24.3.

edgeX prices its Regular User tier at 0.040% maker / 0.045% taker on Perps V2, for traders under
$10,000,000 of 14-day volume ([edgeX tier page](https://pro.edgex.exchange/en-US/vip), checked 18 September 2026). Its book gave
back 0.02 bps on $10,000, the tightest reading here, so the round trip came to
$9.04 against $9.12 and $13.12
at the two venues taking the same fee.

- Works: Measured slippage of 0.02 bps, the tightest reading here; Whole round trip of $9.04, lowest of the three venues taking 0.045%.
- Falls short: 0.040% on the maker side, against nothing at four of the eight venues here; Its own pages disagree on the rate: the help centre still shows a schedule older than 0.040% maker / 0.045% taker.
- Not for: a strategy that rests orders all day.

## 8. [Aevo](https://www.aevo.xyz/) — best for the dearest published pair here

Score 19.5.

Aevo charges 0.050% maker / 0.080% taker on standard perpetuals, with staking discounts of up to 20% by
tier (Aevo fee page, checked 18 September 2026). Two crossings of $10,000 cost
$16.00, plus 2.26 bps off the book, for $20.52.
It reported $7.7 million of 24-hour volume on
CoinMarketCap on 22 September 2026.

- Works: Staking discounts of up to 20% on the published rate; 102 perpetual markets across crypto, stocks, commodities, FX, pre-IPO.
- Falls short: Withdrawing to Ethereum mainnet costs 25 USDC and takes about three hours; Auditors noted in 2022 that most business logic sits outside audit scope.
- Not for: a strategy crossing the spread many times a day.

## What the zero tiers charge instead

Two venues here publish nothing on either side, and both take payment in something other than
money. Lighter's Standard account trades at 0% maker / 0% taker and adds 300 ms to a taker
order and 300 ms to a cancel; Premium charges 0.004% maker and 0.028% taker at 140 ms. Paradex
charges a retail order nothing, behind a 300 ms speed bump and a limit of three orders per second
(both fee pages, checked 18 September 2026).

## Where the slippage passes the fee

A fee is a rate and a fill is an auction, so the two scale differently. Two crossings of the
dearest tier here cost $160 on a $100,000 order; the book itself took
$0.40 at the tightest venue and
$3,295.60 at the thinnest — a retail
order at Paradex, whose published fee is nothing and whose
BTC book held a median $179.00 within 10 basis points of mid.

Add the two together and the sequence stops matching the fee page. On $10,000 the whole round trip
ran from $0.84 to $234.96, and the venue whose schedule
shows a zero finished last: Paradex cost $234.96 where Extended cost
$5.12, and edgeX came to $9.04 where Hyperliquid came to
$9.12 and EVEDEX to $13.12.

## Where every figure on this panel came from

Eight criteria, set 23 September 2026 before a single venue here carried a mark, run over
8 venues ([how we rate](/rating-method)). What sets the sequence is the published
entry-tier taker fee, read 18 September 2026, not the total. Each dollar figure is that rate crossed
twice on $10,000; each slippage figure is our own, the median of a BTC book read
at ten-minute spacing, the last reading dated 22 September 2026.

One market, BTC, one machine and a single loop of the books across a day; a busier hour reads differently. Entry-tier
rates ignore volume tiers, staking discounts and cashback. Deposit, withdrawal and funding costs
sit outside them. The volume figure is Aevo's own,
republished by CoinMarketCap on 22 September 2026.

## FAQ

### What are maker and taker fees?

A maker order rests on the book and adds liquidity; a taker order crosses the spread and removes
it. Venues price the two apart, and here the maker side runs from nothing to 0.050%
and the taker side to 0.080%. A crossing bot pays the dearer.

### Which crypto exchange has the lowest trading fees?

Two venues here publish nothing on either side: Lighter's Standard account and a retail order at
Paradex. Nothing published is not nothing paid. With our measured fills added, the whole $10,000
round trip came to $0.84 at Lighter and $234.96 at Paradex,
against $5.12 at Extended.

### How are crypto exchange trading fees calculated?

As a share of the notional traded, charged on each fill rather than on profit. A 0.045% taker fee
on a $10,000 order costs $4.50 to enter and $4.50 to leave. Volume tiers, staking discounts and
cashback then change what is kept, venue by venue.

### Is a fee charged again when the position is closed?

Yes. Entering and leaving are two separate fills, so a strategy crossing the spread both ways pays
the taker fee twice. That is why every figure here is a round trip: $9.00 in fees on $10,000 at a
0.045% taker, not $4.50, before any slippage.

### What is trading fee cashback?

A scheme that returns part of the fees a trader has already paid, rather than a lower published
rate. EVEDEX runs one, to a documented ceiling of 35% of a trader's own fees. Thirty-five per cent
off a 0.045% taker fee leaves 0.02925%, once paid.

### What is a basis point in trading fees?

One hundredth of a percentage point. A 0.045% taker fee is 4.5 basis points, and a round trip is
nine of them. We report measured slippage in the same unit so the two can be added, and on a
$10,000 order one basis point is one dollar.

### Do crypto exchanges charge withdrawal fees?

Several here do, and none of it sits in the trading schedule. Aevo charges 25 USDC to withdraw to
Ethereum mainnet and takes about three hours. Extended routes large withdrawals through a
third-party bridge that can take four hours. A backtest sees neither.

### Is there a fee for a limit order that does not fill?

No venue here charges for an unfilled order, but several cap how many may be sent. A retail order
at Paradex is limited to three a second, and Lighter sells a tier whose point is higher rate
limits at half a basis point.

### How much do funding payments cost on a perpetual?

Over a long hold, more than the fee, and it is not a fee at all: it moves between traders rather
than to the venue. Each market sets its own rate, and a position on the crowded side pays the
other side.

### How do I work out the real cost of a round trip?

Add the published fee on both fills to the slippage the book charges at your size, then read the
result at the size you trade rather than at $10,000. Here the two orders part company: a
zero-fee retail order at Paradex costs more than every other venue on the page, and edgeX beats
two venues charging the same taker fee.

## Quote bank

> "Currently, Extended features a flat fee structure for both perpetuals and spot markets: Taker: 0.025% Maker: 0.000%" — Extended documentation, Trading fees and rebates, 18 September 2026. https://docs.extended.exchange/extended-resources/trading/trading-fees-and-rebates

> "Pro taker fees cannot go below 1.75 bps (0.0175%), regardless of total discount." — Paradex documentation, Trading fees, 18 September 2026. https://docs.paradex.trade/trading/trading-fees.md

> "Taker latency: 300ms" — Lighter documentation, Trading fees, 18 September 2026. https://docs.lighter.xyz/trading/trading-fees.md

Corrections: editorial@ellsworthvane.com.

Signal Grid research, 24 September 2026

These panels are paid placement.