Beginners watch the price ticking up and down and often miss something that chips away at their capital far more steadily: fees. Each one nips off only a little, painless at a glance, but once you start trading frequently the year-end total can be more alarming than any single bad call.
What makes it trickier is that "the fee" isn't one fee — it's several different fees mixed together: some collected by the exchange, some by the blockchain network, and one that only surfaces when you withdraw. This article pulls them apart one by one, tells you whose pocket each dollar lands in, and offers the saving habits an ordinary person can genuinely use.
- One-line answer: the trading fee is what the exchange charges when you buy or sell crypto, a small percentage of the trade value, once on the buy and once on the sell.
- The trading fee splits into Maker (you post a resting order) and Taker (you fill immediately); posting is usually cheaper.
- The network fee (miner fee / gas) is paid to the blockchain, not earned by the exchange, and floats with congestion.
- The withdrawal fee is charged when you move coins off the exchange; it varies a lot by network.
- The core of paying less: don't overtrade, post limit orders when you can, and pick the right network and consolidate larger withdrawals.
Type one: the trading fee (Maker / Taker)
This is the service fee the exchange charges every time you buy or sell, usually a tiny percentage of the trade value. It comes in two roles — Maker (the order-poster) and Taker (the order-filler) — and understanding these two is the key to saving.
An exchange matches trades through an order book: one side is the buy prices people have posted, the other is the sell prices. Whether your order adds a line to that book or eats someone else's line decides your role. Place a limit order that won't fill instantly (say the price is 100 and you bid 99), and your order rests on the book waiting for someone to trade with you — you're a Maker, adding liquidity, usually at a lower fee. Conversely, fill instantly at the current market price, eating an order someone already posted, and you're a Taker, removing liquidity, usually at a slightly higher fee.
Most exchanges also run tiered fees: the more you trade, or if you hold the platform token or use a referral discount, the lower your rate may be. For beginners with small volume the difference is minor, but the habit of posting limit orders when you can never hurts.
Type two: the network fee (miner fee / gas)
When you move coins from one address to another — say from an exchange to your own wallet — that transfer needs the blockchain network to package and confirm it. For that you pay a fee to the network itself, the network fee, also called the miner fee or gas on different chains.
Here's a point beginners often get wrong: the network fee is not earned by the exchange. The exchange merely collects it and forwards it to the blockchain network. So its size has little to do with which exchange you use, and depends mainly on two things. One is which chain you're on — network fees can differ dramatically between blockchains, some costing a fraction to send, others noticeably pricier at peak. The other is how congested the network is at that moment: when lots of people are competing to get packaged, the fee climbs; when it's quiet, it falls — the same logic as a toll road that charges more at rush hour.
Type three: the withdrawal fee
The withdrawal fee is what the exchange charges when you move coins off the platform. It's often bundled with the network fee above into a single number, which makes them easy to confuse. Simply put: the withdrawal fee roughly equals the network fee the exchange fronts on your behalf, plus a little of its own processing cost.
What's really worth noting: the same coin can cost very different amounts to withdraw on different networks. A given stablecoin might cost more on network A but far less on network B. So before withdrawing, look at the per-network fees the exchange lists and — provided the receiver supports it — pick the cheaper one. But don't reverse the order: always confirm the network matches first, then talk about saving money. Never pick the wrong network to save a fee.
BN1606, which also trims your trading fee — where that 20% discount comes from and where to enter it is its own piece), then run through it for real with our first-purchase walkthrough. Opening an account at a large, reputable exchange is the safest choice for a beginner.
The three fees, side by side
Put all three together and you can see exactly "who's taking your money":
| Fee type | When it happens | Who collects it | What affects it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trading fee (Maker/Taker) | When a trade fills | The exchange | Posting vs taking, your volume tier |
| Network fee (miner fee / gas) | On an on-chain transfer | The blockchain network (collected and forwarded by the exchange) | Which chain, how congested the network is |
| Withdrawal fee | When withdrawing off the exchange | The exchange (including the fronted network fee) | The coin, the withdrawal network chosen |
We ran a small comparison: the same buy, once as a market order filling instantly, and once as a limit order resting near the current price waiting to fill. The market order filled almost instantly but at the Taker rate; the limit order took a short while to fill but charged the lower Maker rate. On a single trade the gap is tiny, nearly negligible. But we did the math: if someone trades back and forth twenty or thirty times a month, over the long run the accumulated savings from posting instead of taking stop being trivial. The biggest takeaway from this test wasn't those few cents per trade — it was that the habit of frequent trading itself quietly skims money, charging you a fee every extra time you act.
The saving habits an ordinary person can actually use
No need to memorize complex formulas. Do the following and your costs are already lower than most beginners'.
- Don't overtrade — this is the single biggest saving lever. Every buy and sell costs a fee, so the more you act, the more fees grind you down; this is the same idea behind our consistent advice to dollar-cost average rather than trade in and out.
- Post limit orders when you can. For orders that aren't urgent, a limit order as a Maker is usually cheaper than a market order as a Taker.
- Consolidate withdrawals and pick the right network. Many small withdrawals pay the fee repeatedly; and provided the receiver supports it, pick the lower-cost network.
- Choose a large, mainstream exchange with transparent fees. Larger venues usually have more competitive rates and lay the fees out clearly.
The point of understanding fees isn't to nickel-and-dime — it's to develop a feel for the fact that every action has a cost. With that feel, you naturally stop trading mindlessly. Before you enter, it's worth running the pre-entry readiness checklist to see whether you're ready.
FAQ
What's the difference between Maker and Taker?
Does the exchange collect the network (miner) fee?
How can a beginner pay fewer fees?
Understand the cost so it doesn't grind you down
Choosing a large, mainstream exchange with transparent fees is a beginner's first step in controlling cost. Going to look at its fee page yourself is more illuminating than a hundred guides.
Referral code: BN1606
Crypto prices are highly volatile and you could lose your entire principal. This content is for information only and is not investment advice.