DEX trading fees: maker/taker & pool fee

When you swap, two separate fees are in play, and confusing them is common. One goes to the blockchain (gas, covered already); the other goes to the DEX and its liquidity providers. Let's isolate the second.

The pool fee

On an AMM, every swap pays a small percentage that's added to the pool and shared among the liquidity providers who supplied it. This is the DEX's core fee, entirely separate from gas — and it's why providing liquidity can earn yield: you collect these fees.

Uniswap's tiered fees

Uniswap v3 introduced tiered pool fees, so a pair can have pools at different rates depending on its volatility:

A good interface or aggregator routes you to the cheapest pool automatically. The long-standing 0.30% is just the default for ordinary pairs; stablecoin swaps can be far cheaper.

Maker vs. taker (order-book DEXes)

Order-book venues — common for perps — price differently. A maker posts a resting order that adds liquidity and often pays a lower fee or even earns a rebate; a taker fills an existing order, removing liquidity, and pays a bit more. A simple instant swap is taker-style. You can compare maker and taker fees across venues on the ranking.

Other fees to watch

• Interface fee — some front-ends add a small fee on top of the pool fee.
• Aggregator fee — usually tiny, and often outweighed by the better price it finds.
• Funding — on perps, a recurring payment between longs and shorts (Module 7), not a swap fee.

Add it up: total cost = gas + pool/trading fee + slippage. A cheap headline fee can still cost you if slippage is high — which is the next thing to master.