Kraken fees & measured trading cost
Exchange fee pages quote one number; the order book charges three. FeeFloor measures Kraken's spot and futures markets on BTC, ETH, SOL and XRP — fee plus the spread and slippage the fee page never mentions, so a $100K BTC futures market order currently costs $47.11 all-in. The full measured breakdown is below, ranked against every venue we track. We count only what a market order pays to execute — funding, withdrawals and gas are measured separately.
- Markets measured
- spot and futures
- Assets
- BTC, ETH, SOL and XRP
- Pricing
- live order books
Live verdict · $100K BTC futures · taker
Measured 04:38 UTC · updates every minute
Rank
of 49 venues
Measured cost
fee + spread + slippage
On a $100K trade
what you actually pay
Vs the floor
Lighter sets it at 0.42 bps
Trade on Kraken with 20% lower fees
Code applied automatically · about $10.00 back per $100K trade · no extra cost
Trade on KrakenWhere the cost comes fromat $100K
Fee
4.00 bps5.00 bps
$40.00 on a $100K trade
The published taker fee, after the 20% referral discount our link applies.
Spread
0.32 bps
$3.18 on a $100K trade
Half the gap between best bid and ask. You pay it the instant your market order fills.
Slippage
0.39 bps
$3.93 on a $100K trade
How far your fill walks down the live order book at this trade size. Grows with size, invisible on fee pages.
What our measurements show
Kraken's rank moves with trade size: #12 of 49 at $10M, but #26 at $1M. Fees are flat — depth is not.
Only 4.00 bps of the 4.71 bps total at $100K is the advertised fee — the rest is spread and slippage the fee page never mentions.
At $10M, slippage alone reaches 5.44 bps — size this venue accordingly.
Spot execution at $100K runs 33.64 bps all-in (#19 of 21 spot venues) — more expensive than the same trade on its futures book right now.
Patient traders do better here: resting maker orders pay 2.00 bps in fees against the 5.00 bps taker rate — $30.00 back on every $100K filled passively.
Signing up through our link takes 20% off the fee component — the discount is applied in every number above, and the struck-through figures show list price.
Where Kraken fits
Kraken is among the longest continuously operating exchanges in this comparison, with a track record that predates most of the venues FeeFloor tracks. That history has built a reputation for stability that gets repeated constantly, but reputation and measured cost are two different questions: a venue can be trusted and still not be cheap, or unfamiliar and still execute tightly.
Whether Kraken's standing as an incumbent translates into a competitive fee, spread and slippage total is exactly what the breakdown above answers, size by size. Longevity says nothing on its own about where a book ranks against dozens of younger, more aggressively priced venues right now; only the live numbers do.
Cost by trade size
Fees are flat, but spread and slippage scale with size — so a venue that wins at $10K can be mid-pack at $10M. BTC futures, taker.
| Size | Total cost | In dollars | Vs the floor | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10K | 20 | 4.40 bps | $4.40 | +$4.07 vs Lighter |
| $100K | 23 | 4.71 bps | $47.11 | +$42.92 vs Lighter |
| $1M | 26 | 6.13 bps | $613.02 | +$443.87 vs Lighter |
| $10M | 12 | 9.84 bps | $9.8K | +$4.4K vs GMX |
Spot market
$100K BTC spot · taker
Rank
of 21 spot venues
Measured cost
fee + spread + slippage
On a $100K trade
what you actually pay
Vs the spot floor
Toobit sets it at 0.00 bps
Cheaper right now$100K BTC futures
Kraken: quick answers
What does a $100K BTC trade actually cost on Kraken?
As of 3 August 2026, a $100K BTC futures market order on Kraken costs $47.11 all-in (4.71 bps): 4.00 bps fee, 0.32 bps spread and 0.39 bps slippage. That ranks #23 of 49 venues we measure.
Is Kraken better for small or large orders?
Right now, large orders: Kraken ranks #20 at $10K and #12 at $10M. Fees are flat percentages, but slippage grows with size, so the answer shifts with the venue's live order-book depth.
Does Kraken have hidden costs beyond the trading fee?
Yes — every order-book venue does. On top of the 5.00 bps list fee you pay the live spread (0.32 bps right now) and slippage that grows with order size (0.39 bps at $100K). Neither appears on the fee page, which is exactly why we measure them.
How do I get the 20% fee discount on Kraken?
Sign up through the referral link on this page — it carries a live code that cuts the fee component by 20%. The discount never touches spread or slippage (those are paid to the market), and the toggle on our front page shows undiscounted list prices for comparison.
Ready to trade on Kraken?
Our link cuts the fee 20% — about $10.00 back on every $100K trade, applied automatically.
Affiliate link · rankings can’t be bought
How FeeFloor measures Kraken
FeeFloor measures Kraken on its spot and futures markets for BTC, ETH, SOL and XRP, pricing from the live order book.
The fee component is Kraken’s published standard-tier (VIP0) taker rate; spread and slippage are walked live from its order book at four trade sizes. FeeFloor measures execution cost only — funding, withdrawals, fiat conversion and borrowing are not included.
Regulatory assessment is outside FeeFloor’s scope: we measure execution cost, not whether Krakenis legally available to a given user. Legal-entity and regulatory data are not independently verified by us — see Sources & verification below.
Sources & verification
- Fee schedule (official)
- kraken.com · link checked 16 Jul 2026
- Terms / legal (official)
- kraken.com · link checked 16 Jul 2026
- Regulatory data
- Not independently verified by FeeFloorFeeFloor measures execution costs and does not determine whether a venue is legally available to a particular user.
- Fee data basis
- Published standard-tier taker rate + live order book · methodology
- FeeFloor market data updated
- 3 Aug 2026, 04:38 UTC
- Source URLs last checked
- 16 Jul 2026 · legal fields pending review
- Spot an error?
- Report a correction
Keep comparing
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