Notional value
Notional value is the full size of a position — price × quantity — including any leverage. Trading fees and funding payments are calculated on notional, not on the margin you posted.
Leverage separates the money you commit (margin) from the exposure you control (notional). Buying 0.5 BTC of perpetual futures at $60,000 creates $30,000 of notional whether you posted $30,000 at 1x or $1,500 at 20x.
This is the most common source of fee surprises for new futures traders. A 0.06% taker fee sounds negligible until it is applied to leveraged notional: on that $30,000 position it is charged on the full $30,000, and again when you close. Funding payments on perpetuals work the same way — rate × notional, regardless of leverage.
Because both fees and paybacks scale with notional, leveraged traders generate proportionally large fee flows — and proportionally large rebates. When estimating what a payback is worth, always start from your notional volume (position sizes summed), not from your account balance.
Estimate fees on your real position sizes →