Lowest-fee DEXes: spot and perp trading costs compared

On perpetuals, the cheapest venues on paper are Lighter (0% / 0% on standard accounts) and Paradex (0% / 0% for retail), followed by Extended at 0% / 0.025% and Aster at 0% / 0.04%. On spot, Curve's 0.04% is the cheapest way to swap stablecoins, and aggregators such as 1inch and KyberSwap add no fee of their own on top of the pools they route through. Those are the headline numbers; the rest of this guide is about the costs that do not appear in the headline.

We compare base maker and taker fees from each venue's documentation, then walk through spread, price impact, network fees, funding and front-end builder fees. Some links here are affiliate links; the fee tables are generated from our dataset and are not influenced by them. Where a venue's schedule is ambiguous, we show "n/a" rather than guess.

How to read a fee schedule

Every order-book venue quotes two numbers. The maker fee applies when your order rests on the book; the taker fee applies when you hit an existing order. Most DEXes now charge 0% or a small rebate to makers, so the taker fee is the one that separates them. AMMs quote a single pool fee that every swap pays. Our score uses the taker fee as the cost input, weighted at 15%, because for most traders liquidity and safety matter more than a few basis points; the methodology explains the trade-off.

Fees below are base tiers. Volume discounts, staking discounts and premium account types change them, and we note those where they matter.

Perp DEXes by taker fee

Notes on the cheapest entries. Lighter standard accounts pay nothing but accept a 300 ms delay on taker fills; premium accounts pay 0.004% / 0.028% for immediate execution, which is still among the lowest schedules anywhere. Paradex retail accounts pay 0% / 0%, with pro and API accounts from 0.045%; weigh that against the January 2026 outage and rollback. Extended charges 0% / 0.025% on crypto and 0.010% taker on its stock and FX markets. Orderly, RISEx and Derive sit at 0.03% taker, though Derive's figure is third-party and not re-verified against its docs.

At the other end, Jupiter Perps charge around 0.07%, GMX 0.06% as a pool-based venue, and TRUE 0.10% taker, several times the order-book leaders. Hyperliquid at 0.015% / 0.045% is mid-table on fees and wins on depth instead; see the perp ranking for that trade-off.

Spot DEXes by fee

Curve at 0.04% is the specialist for stablecoins and pegged assets; on volatile pairs it is not the right tool. Fluid charges 0.05% and DODO and Balancer 0.10% on their default pools. Meteora and Aerodrome list 0.20%, PancakeSwap and Raydium 0.25%, and Uniswap and Orca a typical 0.30%, though Uniswap has many cheaper pools on major pairs and its V4 supports dynamic fees.

Aggregators such as 1inch, KyberSwap and Jupiter show 0% because they charge no fee of their own; you still pay the pool fee of whichever route they choose. On a large swap the aggregator's better route usually saves more than any fee difference between individual pools. The aggregator lesson explains how routing works.

The costs that are not on the fee page

• Spread. Variational Omni advertises zero explicit fees but earns a 4 to 6 basis-point spread from a single liquidity provider that prices every trade. That is a fee by another name, and it is comparable to Aster's 0.04% taker.
• Price impact. On an AMM, a swap that is large relative to the pool moves the price against you. On a thin pool this dwarfs the 0.3% fee. Slippage and tolerance covers how to check it before you sign.
• Network fees. Ethereum mainnet gas can exceed the pool fee on a small swap; rollups, Solana and BNB Chain cost a fraction. Aster Chain is zero-gas, and order-book venues on their own chain generally do not charge gas per trade.
• Funding. Perp positions pay or receive a funding rate every few hours. Over a week it routinely exceeds the taker fee on entry and exit combined.
• Builder and routing fees. Front-ends such as Liquid and Ranger add an undisclosed fee on top of the venue's; trade.xyz on Hyperliquid charges 0.03% / 0.09%, roughly triple the native markets. If you use an interface rather than the venue directly, find out what it adds.
• Bridging. Venues on their own chain (Hyperliquid, dYdX, Paradex, GRVT) require a bridge deposit, which has its own fee and risk; see bridges and cross-chain.

Worked comparison: what a round trip actually costs

Take a trader who opens and closes a perp position as a taker, once, at the base tier. On Lighter standard the fee is 0% both ways, but each fill waits 300 ms, which on a fast market can cost more in price than the fee saved. On Extended it is 0.025% twice, 0.05% in total. On Hyperliquid it is 0.045% twice, 0.09%, but with the deepest book, so a larger order fills closer to the quoted price. On TRUE it is 0.10% twice, 0.20%.

Now hold the position for a week. Funding at a typical crowded-side rate can add several tenths of a percent, more than any of the entry fees. The lesson: below roughly 0.05% taker, fee differences are secondary to execution quality and funding. Above 0.06%, they start to matter for anyone trading more than occasionally.

Our picks by use case

Stablecoin swaps: Curve, or Jupiter on Solana. Major-pair spot swaps: an aggregator (1inch, KyberSwap, Jupiter) on a low-gas chain; compare Uniswap vs Curve for when the specialist wins. Cheapest perps, patient execution: Lighter standard. Cheapest perps, immediate fills: Lighter premium or Extended. Cheapest with a licence: GRVT at 0% / 0.045%. Best value at size: Hyperliquid, where depth offsets the mid-table fee.

We could not verify Reya's schedule (its docs list zero app fees and a 0.03% taker fee side by side) or the current Synthetix Exchange fees, so both show n/a in the tables. Read the fees lesson if any term here is new.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Hyperliquid fee docs
• Lighter documentation
• Extended documentation
• Paradex documentation
• Uniswap documentation
• Curve documentation
• DefiLlama fees and revenue

Written and reviewed by the dexwatch editorial team. Some outbound "Trade" links are affiliate links; dexwatch may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Educational content, not financial advice. Spotted an error? Tell us.