Start with the two numbers that decide most bills
An exchange quote has two moving parts: what you pay when you add to a position, and what you pay when you take it off. At ActivTrades the maker fee is 0% and the taker fee is 0%, so trades cost nothing at the top of the list. Bancor charges a maker fee of 0% and lists no taker fee, which tells you something about how it routes orders.
Across the rest of the field, a maker fee of 0% to 0.15% at Alpaca sits against a taker fee of 0.1% to 0.25%. AscendEX is the same number on both sides at 0.1% and 0.1%, so it makes no difference whether an order sits or fills straight away.
For a quick shortlist, work through the maker and taker pair on each provider review before anything else. A platform with a low maker fee and a high taker fee rewards patient order placement, and the reverse favours quick in-and-out dealing.
Flat rates and ranges both hide a decision
Some brands publish one number, and some publish a band. Anycoin Direct lists a maker fee of 0.15% and a taker fee of 0.15%, a flat pair. bit2c gives a maker fee of 0.05% to 1.25% and a taker fee of 0.05% to 1.25%, a wider band that stretches further at the top end.
A band usually means the rate depends on your account tier, your volume, or which asset you trade. Binance.US shows this clearly with a maker fee of 0% paired with a taker fee of 0.01% to 0.02%. Binance TH lists a maker fee of 0.1% to 0.25% and a taker fee of 0.1% to 0.25%, and the lowest end of each band is the figure worth chasing.
Watch the gap between the two sides
A narrow gap rewards active trading, and a wide gap quietly punishes it. Bit2Me charges a maker fee of 0.5% and a taker fee of 0.6%, one of the widest gaps among the brands here. bitbank runs the other way, with a maker fee of -0.02% to 0% while its taker fee sits at 0.1% to 0.12%.
Backpack sits in between at a maker fee of 0.08% and a taker fee of 0.1%. Ajaib charges 0.111% to make and 0.222% to take, exactly double on the taker side. BingX keeps both sides level at 0.1% and 0.1%, as does Binance Australia at 0.1% and 0.1%.
Decentralised venues price fees differently. Balancer charges a taker fee of 0.001% to 10% on vault swaps, and Bancor's maker fee of 0% applies to the pool side rather than a central order book. Start from Decentralised exchanges and the Balancer review rather than a centralised ranking.
Getting money out usually costs more than getting in
Withdrawal charges are where the small print does the damage, because deposits tend to be cheap while withdrawals are priced per network.
bit2c lists a withdrawal fee of 80 ILS per shekel withdrawal; 0.0005 BTC, 0.015 ETH, 0.015 LTC, 50 USDC, and bitbank lists a withdrawal fee of JPY withdrawal 550 JPY (770 JPY when the amount is 30,000 JPY or more); crypto withdrawals charged per asset (e.g. 0.0006 BTC, 0.005 ETH) with per-asset crypto amounts. AscendEX lists a withdrawal fee of 0.0005 BTC, while Backpack lists a withdrawal fee of varies by asset.
Two brands describe withdrawal costs in words rather than numbers. At abarai there is no separate withdrawal charge, only the blockchain network fee, which shifts with the network and how busy it is. Banxa passes a chain charge through on buy orders alone, priced from the gas it last paid on that chain and itemised on the bill. Local currency withdrawals at Binance TR cost nothing, and so does moving crypto from the main Binance platform to Binance TR, while other crypto withdrawals vary by network.
Belo Wallet is the case where one route is explicitly free: its withdrawal fee of 0 - BTC Lightning withdrawal free covers a free Lightning withdrawal.
The venue you buy on may be a different venue
A wallet or on-ramp can look free at the point of use and still charge for conversion. Banxa lists a taker fee of 0% to 15%, a wide span that reaches high, and that sits on top of the chain charge on buys.
Buy-side flows tend to advertise a headline rate and bury the spread. Treat Anycoin Direct, Ajaib and Belo Wallet as costing candidates rather than free ones, and run them through the same checklist as the exchanges. The where to buy crypto picks, plus the abarai and Backpack write-ups, show whether the withdrawal route suits how you actually move money.
How to run the comparison in one pass
Write each candidate on one line and fill the same six boxes: maker fee, taker fee, withdrawal fee, what the band depends on, which asset the charge applies to, and whether the tier needed for the low rate matches your volume. That last point matters, because the lowest rate at Binance.US, Binance TH, Alpaca, bit2c or bitbank is the one you may never reach.
Then total a realistic month. If you place a handful of limit orders, weight the maker side. If you trade often and take liquidity, weight the taker side. If you move coins to another platform each month, add the withdrawal charge once per move, because that cost recurs and the maker side is irrelevant to it.
Check the rankings and reviews for each finalist as you go, because a low fee only helps if the account, custody and support hold up. The crypto futures exchanges and Decentralised exchanges pages cover the cases where the fee structure is not a maker and taker pair at all.