Kraken Exchange Review: Trading fees (spot & futures), tier requirements, & comparison against other Crypto Exchanges
Kraken is one of the largest and oldest centralized Crypto Exchanges which is famous among traders. Reason enough to have a closer look at the exchange. In this article, first, we analyze the tier levels and requirements at Kraken and the associated fees for spot and futures trading. Second, we will have a look how the Kraken fees compares to other exchanges and third, we will analyze for which traders and which trading style Kraken is especially attractive. Without further ado, let’s get started right away:
Kraken has a tiered fee structure, that means you pay a different fee depending on which tier level you are in.
Kraken has 9 tier levels for both spot and futures trading and when leveling up in the tiers, you will enjoy lower trading fees. When it comes to tier requirements, Kraken is one of the most straightforward exchanges, as your tier level is only decided based upon your trading volume. Many other exchanges have multiple requirements, such as balance and holding of a certain coin, however Kraken does not. The first tier level at Kraken is from 0 to 50,000 USD 30 days spot volume. This is the tier level everyone starts at. Kraken always differentiates between maker and taker fees. For spot trading in the lowest tier, the users pay 0.16% maker fees and 0.26% taker fees. In case the trader achieves a volume of larger 50,000 USD, the second tier level will apply, which in turn has lower fees. In this case, the spot fees in the second tier level at Kraken are at 0.14% for maker and 0.24% for taker trades. In case of even higher volumes, the trader might be able to achieve 0% maker fees and 0.1% taker fees in the highest tier level.
For futures trading, the volume requirements for each tier level differ compared to spot trading. Instead of the previous 0–50,000 USD volume requirement, in futures trading the first tier goes up to 100,000 USD, which is understandable as the futures volume is mostly leveraged. In that first tier, the futures fees are at 0.02% and 0.05%. The tier levels at Kraken are rather narrow, which result in comparably low volume requirements. Why does that matter? It creates some sweetspots for trader, but we will see the details later when we compare Kraken to other exchanges. In the highest tier, with 100 million monthly volume and more, the futures maker fees are at 0% and the taker fees at 0.01%.
Let’s move to the second point of this article: How do the fees at Kraken compare to other exchanges? The easiest way to compare the fees of Kraken to other exchanges is to just use the automated fee analysis from dr-fee:
We just type in our trading volume, in this case let’s do 100,000 USD spot volume, which would just qualify us for third tier level as seen earlier, and 5 million USD futures volume. Let’s assume we only have market orders, so 0% maker trades, have 20.000 USD on our account and do not any native exchange token. Kraken does not offer any discounts in case holding a certain token anyways. We click next, and I’ll skip the email part here for you and find the fee analysis output.
Actually, for the scenario we just entered, Kraken isn’t the cheapest exchange, but also not the most expensive one. At Kraken, the user would have paid 20.9 thousand USD in fees per year, while at Crypto.com, the user would have paid roughly 18,800 USD, roughly 2 thousand USD less. At Bitfnex or ByBit, the trader would have paid more in fees though, roughly 37k in case of Bybit.
This is only one scenario though, for different volumes and order types the fees can be much different. So in which case would Kraken be the cheapest exchange?
Let’s have a bit of a more differentiated view at the fees, as it is very interesting to see where Kraken performs well in fees, and where not.
Let’s first have a look at the fees compared to other exchanges for spot maker trades, depending on how much monthly volume the user trades. On the y-axis, we always have the fee levels in %. This view is for spot maker trades, and as we can see, Kraken performs rather weak in this dimension. For both low volume as well as high volume traders, the fees at Kraken are significantly higher compared to other exchanges.
For spot taker trades at Kraken, the picture is very similar as can be seen above.
However, looking at the futures charts, the picture is different. While for futures maker trades, Kraken is only showing an average fee level…
… the futures taker trades are very highly attractively priced. Already starting from rather low volumes of 2.5 million USD monthly trading volume, Kraken becomes the cheapest among all major exchanges considered here, and also stays the cheapest exchange until very large volumes. Moreover, the fee difference against other exchanges is very significant. At 100 million USD monthly volume, the fees at Kraken are already at 0.01%, while the average among other exchanges is still at 0.04%. In absolute terms, with a 100 million USD futures taker volume, a trader at Kraken would pay yearly fees of 120k USD, while at ByBit, the trader would still pay 4 times more or roughly half a million USD.
So how does that fit together with what we have just seen in the example at dr-fee? Well, we also had 100,000 USD monthly volume of spot, in which Kraken does not perform very strong. On an overall basis, Crypto.com still yielded slightly cheaper fees in that example. It also showcases though that for each trading style and volumes, users have to take a differentiated look at which exchange fits them best.
So for whom might it be very attractive to trade at Kraken in terms of fees? Spot traders, especially spot taker traders are paying much more at Kraken compared to other exchanges, however futures traders might find great trading fees. Especially traders with a large amount of market orders, hence taker trades, will find unmatched trading fees at Kraken.
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All information in this article may not be up-to-date anymore while reading and should not considered to be financial advice!
