Why Exchange Fees Matter — And Which Exchange We Trade On
- Jul 9, 2024
- 6 min read
Updated: Jun 5
Ask most traders what makes or breaks an account and they'll talk about entries, leverage, or "the strategy." Almost nobody mentions the one cost that touches every single trade they will ever make: the fee.
Whether you're trading a $500 account or a $10,000 one, fees quietly compound on every entry, every exit, and every hour a position stays open — and over a month of active trading, they add up to real money that comes straight out of your edge.
We learned this the slow way: by actually trading on it. We started on Binance, like most people do. Then we moved to Bybit and traded there for a good while. As we dug deeper into how fees actually work, we switched to BingX for its more competitive structure. Along the way we also tested plenty of others — OKX, Bitget, MEXC and more — but kept coming back to either BingX or Bitunix as our favorites. And most recently, after a deep dive into the numbers, we're moving fully to Bitunix — both for its fee structure and for the perks we can pass on to our community.
This is the story of that journey — exchange by exchange, with the real reasons behind each move — and an honest look at what you should actually be paying.
PART 1
The Two Fees That Actually Matter
On perpetual futures, there are really only two costs worth your attention, and a lot of comparison tables get them confused.
Trading fees (maker / taker). Makers add liquidity with limit orders and pay less. Takers remove liquidity with market orders and pay more. Since most active traders enter and exit at market, the taker fee is the one that matters — and you pay it twice per trade, once to open and once to close.
Funding fees. This is the time-based cost of holding a perpetual position, exchanged between longs and shorts roughly every 8 hours — so a 3-day trade pays it about 9 times. Here's what most blogs get wrong: there is no separate "interest fee" stacked on top of funding on perpetuals. The small "interest rate" in fee docs is just a component inside the funding formula, not an extra charge. Funding is the holding cost, it's market-driven, and it's roughly the same on every major exchange.
In plain terms: the only fee that genuinely differs between exchanges is the trading (taker) fee. That's the number worth fighting over — and exactly where your choice of exchange, and your referral link, makes a real difference.
PART 2
Our Journey, Exchange by Exchange
Where we started — Binance
Like most people, Binance was our first home. Biggest name, deepest liquidity, a perfectly solid place to learn. But two things nudged us to look elsewhere: the best rates lean on holding BNB, and as we got more cost-conscious we also grew uneasy with how centralized our trading felt — the negative headlines around the exchange's former CEO (who stepped down and pleaded guilty to U.S. anti-money-laundering violations in late 2023) made us less comfortable keeping everything in one place. It works — it just wasn't built for a fee-conscious, slightly cautious active trader.
Then Bybit — for a good while
Bybit was decent at first. But as it grew more popular, the fee structure felt less generous, and the cost of our trades started to stand out. Take this real RAYDIUM short we closed: https://youtube.com/shorts/1V_pO94-4p8?feature=share
The trade itself was a modest loss on price — but look at the fees: nearly $24 gone to opening and closing alone on one position. That's the moment it clicked for us. On an active month with dozens of trades, that kind of per-trade cost isn't noise — it's a serious drag on returns. It's exactly what sent us down the rabbit hole of actually understanding fee structures. (
Then BingX — once we understood fees properly
The deeper we dug, the more BingX made sense. It was a clear upgrade: a more competitive fee structure, transparent costs, and a cleaner experience on our short-term trades. We also secured −20% for our members through our link.
And plenty of others along the way
We didn't only test these. We also spent real time on OKX, Bitget, MEXC and several more — comparing fees, execution, and the overall experience. Each had its strengths, but for our style we consistently came back to just two favorites: BingX and Bitunix.
The community step — how we found Bitunix
Here's the part we didn't expect. We have a large community, so we simply asked them where they trade. A surprising number were on Bitunix — an exchange we hadn't tested. So we tried it. And what we found there is the rest of this story.
PART 3
So… What Do You Actually Pay?
Here are our four favorites on standard perpetual-futures rates, before any discounts:
At standard rates, Bitunix is actually the most expensive taker — its advantage comes later, from VIP tiers and perks.
At face value they look almost identical — and Bitunix even looks like the most expensive taker. If you stopped reading here, you'd pick Binance or BingX and move on. But the headline rate isn't what you actually pay. The real story is in who you are and how you reach a discount.
What a regular $500–$1,000 trader actually pays
Most of us aren't whales. The average account sits between $500 and $1,000 — and that's where exchange choice quietly matters most, because the big VIP discounts are usually locked behind balances and volumes a normal trader will never hit.
At a regular account size, every major exchange keeps you at standard rates — except Bitunix.
At $500–$1,000, every major exchange keeps you at VIP 0 — except Bitunix. Binance wants ~$1M volume plus holding their token; Bybit, ~$100k in assets; BingX, ~$100k or ~$5M in volume. But Bitunix gives you VIP 1 the moment you deposit $500 — no volume grind, no token. That alone drops its taker from 0.060% to 0.050%, instantly erasing its "expensive" headline and matching the cheapest. It's the only exchange that rewards a small balance at all.
PART 3
Stop Reading Our Numbers — Here Are Yours
Every trader is different. So instead of telling you what we pay, plug in how you trade and see your real monthly cost on each exchange, with our member perks already applied:
PART 5
Why Bitunix Won Us Over
1. Nothing hidden
The single thing that struck us most: Bitunix lays out every trade on one clear page — opening fee, closing fee, funding, exit type, P&L — all itemized, nothing buried. After years of squinting at fee schedules and reconciling numbers ourselves, seeing exactly what we paid on the same screen as the result felt like a different standard of honesty. For a blog literally about understanding fees, that transparency is everything.
2. $500 = instant VIP1 (this is the madness)
On every other exchange, real fee discounts are gated behind six-figure balances or seven-figure monthly volume. On Bitunix, a $500 deposit unlocks VIP 1 on its own, and VIP 2 / VIP 3 are reachable far more easily than anywhere else. For a normal-sized account, that's genuinely unmatched.
3. The perk we can give our community
Through our link, our members don't get the standard deal — they start at VIP 3 for their first month with an additional −10% on top, plus new-user bonuses and fee vouchers. Being able to hand our community a genuinely better rate than they'd get alone is a real plus — and a big reason this move felt right rather than just another switch.
The discounts differ in kind: a flat cut on BingX, versus a VIP tier head start plus a discount on Bitunix.
Run the math and the standard-rate table flips completely:
After perks, Bitunix has the lowest effective taker fee of the four.
4. It scales with you
From our own trading we found the value holds across account sizes. Past roughly $1,000 it's already the better deal; at $10k–$50k+ the combination of low base fees and an easy-to-climb VIP ladder makes it, in our opinion, one of the best-value places to trade — period.
PART 5
The Honest Bottom Line
We won't pretend any single exchange is perfect, or that we use only one. We still hold coins and use specific features across several of them, and the major exchanges here are reputable and transparent about reserves.
But on the one number that touches every trade you'll ever make — the fee — Bitunix, with our member perks applied, is the cheapest place we've traded. Lowest effective taker, a VIP head start, a $500 entry to real discounts, no token requirement, and a level of trade-by-trade transparency we hadn't seen anywhere else.
(Quote block) Whether you're starting with $500 or scaling a $10,000, the math is the same: keep your fees low, and grow fasterThat's the whole game.
Swallow Academy
Join Bitunix: https://www.bitunix.com/activity/basic/SwallowAcademy0529?vipCode=4t7T (-10% From commissions + VIP3 at start + No KYC needed) Join BingX: https://bingx.com/invite/IMZYPAVP6 (-20% From Commissions)
