Flip through Binance's fee page and you'll see two numbers after every tier: one marked Maker, one marked Taker — and the Maker one is almost always smaller. Plenty of beginners stare at the two terms, lost: which am I? Will I pay more if I pick wrong? This piece makes maker/taker and VIP tiers clear, and along the way gives you one conclusion: for someone just starting, the thing actually worth your effort isn't climbing tiers — it's two other moves.

1. What maker and taker are

These two words describe the relationship between your order and the market, not two different account identities. The same person can be a maker on this order and a taker on the next.

  • Maker (the one providing the market): your order doesn't fill right away — it rests on the book waiting for someone to trade against it. You "add liquidity" to the market, like setting up a stall and waiting for buyers/sellers to come.
  • Taker (the one taking): you fill immediately at the current market price, "taking" a ready order off the book. The "market buy" a beginner uses is basically always a taker — the whole point is filling at once.

In one line: resting and waiting to fill is a maker, taking the ready order is a taker.

2. Why a maker pays less

There's a bit of exchange calculation behind this, but the logic is sound. What an exchange fears most is an empty book with no resting orders, so newcomers wanting to buy or sell find no counterparty — a poor experience. So it's willing to "reward" the people who place resting orders with a lower rate — because those people fill the book for it and give the market liquidity.

Conversely, takers are consuming that liquidity (eating others' resting orders), so the rate is a touch higher — a bit like a "queue-jump fee". In some promotions the maker rate can even be zero or a rebate. For the definition of the maker/taker mechanism, see Investopedia's explanation. For how the various fees add up together, see how Binance fees are actually calculated.

3. How to be a maker more often

Since makers pay less, can you try to be a maker as much as possible? You can — the key is using the right order type:

  • Use a limit order, not a market order. A market order is "fill right now, whatever the price" and is almost always a taker. A limit order is "buy/sell only at the price I set" (the standard definition of a limit order is on Investopedia).
  • Place the limit where it won't fill immediately. If you want to buy, set the price a little below the current market — the order won't fill against the book right away but rests there waiting for the price to come to it — and the fill usually counts as a maker.

The cost is: you have to wait. The price may never reach where you set it and the move passes you by. So this is a "save a bit of fee vs maybe miss the fill" trade-off. A beginner shouldn't agonise over this fee to the point of missing a buy worth making — just be aware: the more urgently you want to fill at once, the more you're paying that "queue-jump fee".

Don't put the cart before the horseThe fee a maker saves is usually far smaller than the swings in profit and loss from "stubbornly waiting on a resting order" and missing the move, or chasing highs and dumping lows. Get the buy/sell judgement right first, then talk about saving a little fee with a limit order. Don't reverse the order.

4. Roughly what VIP thresholds look at

That row of "VIP 0, VIP 1, VIP 2…" on the fee page — the higher the tier, the lower the base maker and taker rates. How do you move up? The thresholds roughly look at two dimensions (exact figures follow Binance's page; the platform adjusts them):

  • Trading volume over the past 30 days. Your fill volume over the last month clearing a certain threshold is the main condition for moving up. The larger the volume, the higher the tier you can reach.
  • BNB holdings. Holding a certain amount of BNB in the account is usually also one of the reference conditions.

These two conditions generally need to be met together or either-or (the exact rules differ per tier); the precise thresholds and algorithm follow whatever the official Binance fee page shows at the time, and the details of how tiers are judged and moved up or down can also be found in the Binance help center. Here we just want you to form a concept: a VIP tier is essentially a discount only those with "big volume + large holdings" can reach.

5. Beginners can't reach it soon — don't fuss

Hold the thresholds above against your reality and it's clear: the 30-day volume a VIP upgrade requires is basically out of reach in the short term for a beginner without a big balance who's just starting. Trading frequently to pile up volume would, instead, cost more fees and make reckless moves that lose money — penny-wise, pound-foolish.

So my advice is direct: beginners shouldn't spend effort on VIP tiers. It comes naturally — once you really trade at that scale, you rise to it; before then, there are more realistic, immediately usable ways to save:

  • Turn on the BNB discount. It cuts the trading fee directly at settlement, available to everyone, regardless of tier (official note in Binance's BNB discount FAQ). How to turn it on is in paying fees with BNB: worth it, and how to turn it on.
  • Register with an invite code for the rebate. It returns a percentage of the trading fee afterward, and stacks with the BNB discount. Our invite code is BN0128, with the rebate percentage following Binance's page.

Neither of these requires big volume or an upgrade — set each once at sign-up and on your first trade and it works long-term. For an ordinary person, what they save is far more real than grinding for VIP.

The more realistic saving combo for ordinary people
Enter our invite code BN0128 at sign-up for a percentage off your trading fees; once inside, turn on the BNB discount in the trading screen. No tier needed — these two work right away and long-term.

* The final rate is whatever Binance shows on its page; the perk comes from registering through our invite code and adds nothing to your cost.

Sign up with our code

6. Editorial check

How to confirm for yourself whether a trade counts as maker or takerYou don't need to take anyone's word for this part — you can check it yourself. Per the official logic, a market order (immediate fill) is usually marked taker with a slightly higher rate; while a limit order placed where it won't fill immediately, filling when the price comes to it, usually counts as maker with a slightly lower rate, and the per-trade difference is generally small. Verifying is simple: after a fill, open that order's detail and it states whether the trade was maker or taker and the matching rate — look once and it's clear. A caveat — don't pile up volume to test a VIP upgrade; the bit of rate that frequent trading saves is nowhere near worth the extra fees and the risk of reckless moves.

Take this away: resting and waiting to fill is a maker with a lower rate, taking the ready order is a taker, a touch higher; to be a maker more often, use a limit order placed where it won't fill immediately — but don't miss the move over that bit of fee. VIP tiers look at 30-day volume and BNB holdings; beginners can't reach them soon and needn't fuss — the more realistic saving is the BNB discount plus the invite-code rebate, which don't depend on tier and take effect right away.

Lin Yue · Bitu editorial
Exchange notes written for beginners. Lin Yue is a pen name; we don't pretend to be anyone's expert — we just write down the steps and traps we've checked again and again. For decisions involving money, go by the official pages and your own verification.

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