Spot fee
A spot fee is the trading fee charged on spot market orders — buying and selling actual crypto assets for immediate delivery. Spot rates run several times higher than futures rates on most exchanges.
Spot trading exchanges real assets: buy BTC/USDT on spot and you own the bitcoin, withdrawable to your wallet. Fees follow the same maker/taker structure as derivatives but at higher percentages — commonly around 0.1% per side at base tier on major venues, versus a few hundredths of a percent on futures.
The gap has structural reasons: spot volume per user is lower (no leverage multiplying notional), competition concentrated on derivatives pricing, and spot's simpler risk profile leaves fees as the product's main revenue. Fee-tier ladders and token discounts usually apply to spot as well, with separate schedules.
For cost-aware traders the practical takeaways are two. Occasional spot conversions cost little in absolute terms despite the higher rate — the percentage applies once, without leverage. And where a rebate program covers spot markets, the same share-of-fees logic applies; coverage differs by exchange, so check whether your venue's payback counts spot fills, futures fills, or both.