Every cost, written down.

• How a fee you ignore compounds over a year of trading 5 Nov 2026 / fees

  Trading fees compound because each one is charged on the position size, not on your profit, and you pay it again every time you open or close. A cost that looks trivial on one trade is multiplied by how often you trade, so the total depends more on your turnover than on the rate itself. The compounding part is that every fee comes out of the balance that funds your next trade, so the base you are trading with shrinks as well.

• Fee rebates: when a venue pays you to place an order 4 Nov 2026 / fees

  A fee rebate is money a venue returns to you after a trade, either as a reduced fee or as a credit paid back to your account. Three unrelated things get called a rebate: a maker rebate for adding liquidity to the order book, a volume rebate for trading a lot over a period, and a referral rebate paid out of fees you or someone else already paid. Each has a different payer and a different condition, so a rebate only lowers your cost if you would have placed that order anyway.

• Why the advertised spread is a best case, not your cost 3 Nov 2026 / fees

  An advertised spread is a marketing figure drawn from a venue's own best conditions: the most liquid instrument, the calmest hours, the top account tier. It is usually the minimum or a flattering average, not the spread you get at the moment you click. Your real cost is whatever gap exists between bid and ask on your instrument, at your size, in the second your order is filled.

• Inactivity fees: what gets charged while you do nothing 2 Nov 2026 / fees

  An inactivity fee is a recurring charge a broker or exchange takes from an account that has not traded for some defined period. The account holder does nothing, the clock runs, and the fee is deducted from the cash balance on a schedule until either activity resumes or the balance is gone. It exists because a dormant funded account still costs the venue money to keep open.

• Round-turn cost: adding up what one complete trade charges you 1 Nov 2026 / fees

  Round-turn cost is the total you pay to open and then close one position, not just the fee on the entry. It has up to four parts: the commission to get in, the commission to get out, the spread you cross at each end, and any financing charged while the position stays open. Adding all four is the only way to know what a trade had to earn before it broke even.

• Overnight financing: the charge for holding a position past the close 31 Oct 2026 / fees

  Overnight financing is a daily charge or credit applied to a leveraged position that is still open when the trading day rolls over. It exists because leverage means someone else is funding most of the position, and the cost of that funding is measured in days. The amount depends on the full size of the position, not the margin you put up, which is why a small deposit can accrue financing on a much larger exposure.

Where people trade

Published figures from each venue's own fee schedule and terms. The Fee Ledger does not claim its own account measurements, and a link being a referral link never changes the order.

Our editor's pick for what trading actually costs is MEXC. Read why before you act on it.