Polymarket Fees Explained (October 2026): Taker Formula, Maker Rebates, Tiers and Bot Costs

Polymarket used to be famous for having no trading fees. That's no longer true. Most categories now carry a taker fee, and Datawallet reports the change came in March 2026 (Datawallet). A volume-based taker rebate program started on May 28, 2026, and apps and bots that route orders through Polymarket can add their own builder fee on top. If you trade manually a few times a month, you'll barely notice. If you run a bot that trades all day, fees can decide whether the strategy works at all.

This guide covers every layer, with the formulas, worked examples and the break-even edge each fee implies. All figures come from Polymarket's documentation as of October 8, 2026. Polymarket says it can change rates at any time, so check the fees page before relying on a number.

The short answer

• Takers pay, makers don't. If your order crosses the spread and fills immediately, you pay a fee. If it rests on the book and someone else fills it, you pay nothing and may earn a rebate.
• The fee depends on price and category: fee = shares × feeRate × p × (1 − p). It's largest at 50¢ and shrinks toward 1¢ and 99¢.
• Category rates: crypto 0.07; sports, economics, culture, weather and other 0.05; politics, finance, mentions and tech 0.04; geopolitics 0 (free).
• No Polymarket fee to deposit or withdraw, though on-ramps such as Coinbase or MoonPay may charge their own.
• Bots and apps can add a builder fee of up to 1% on taker orders and 0.5% on maker orders.

The taker fee formula

Polymarket charges takers according to (fees):

fee (in USDC) = C × feeRate × p × (1 − p)

where C is the number of shares and p is the share price. The fee is applied by the protocol at match time, so you don't include it in your order. It's rounded to five decimal places, and anything below 0.00001 USDC rounds to zero.

Category	Taker fee rate	Maker fee	Share of taker fees paid back to makers
Crypto	0.07	0	20%
Sports	0.05	0	15%
Economics, Culture, Weather, Other	0.05	0	25%
Politics, Finance, Mentions, Tech	0.04	0	25%
Geopolitics	0	0	n/a (fee-free)

What that means as a percentage of your stake

Dividing the fee by what you spend (C × p) gives a cleaner rule of thumb:

fee as a share of stake = feeRate × (1 − p)

So the fee in dollars is symmetric around 50¢, but the fee as a percentage of what you spend is highest on cheap longshots:

Price you pay	Politics (0.04)	Sports (0.05)	Crypto (0.07)
10¢	3.6%	4.5%	6.3%
30¢	2.8%	3.5%	4.9%
50¢	2.0%	2.5%	3.5%
70¢	1.2%	1.5%	2.1%
90¢	0.4%	0.5%	0.7%

(Our calculation from the formula above.) Two consequences for strategy:

1. Taking cheap longshots is expensive. Paying 6.3% of your stake on a 10¢ crypto outcome means your probability estimate needs a big margin over the price before the trade is worth it.
2. Taking near-certain favourites is cheap per trade, but the payoff is small, so the fee is a large fraction of the profit. At 90¢, a 0.5% sports fee takes about 4.5% of the 10¢ you stand to win.

Makers pay nothing, and can earn rebates

Orders that add liquidity (resting limit orders that someone else fills) are never charged. Part of the taker fees collected in each category goes into the Maker Rebates Program, paid daily in pUSD and weighted by how much of your resting liquidity actually got taken. The minimum payout is $1 (Maker Rebates). Separately, Polymarket runs liquidity rewards on selected markets.

For bots, the practical lesson: if your strategy doesn't need an instant fill, rest an order instead of crossing the spread. You give up some fills and take on the risk that the price moves away, but you avoid the fee entirely. In code that usually means a post_only limit order (see Polymarket API with Python).

The Taker Rebate Program (tiers)

Since May 28, 2026, takers earn Weighted Volume (wV) on every fee-paying trade: trade size × (1 − entry price) × category weight. Category weights are Sports 1.0; Politics, Finance, Mentions and Tech 1.3; Economics, Culture, Weather and Other 1.7; Crypto 2.3; Geopolitics 0. Your tier depends on your trailing 30-day wV, and rebates are paid daily at midnight UTC (Taker Rebate Program):

Tier	30-day weighted volume	Rebate on your taker fees
Bronze	$2,000	3%
Silver	$20,000	8%
Gold	$200,000	18%
Platinum	$1,000,000	32%
Diamond	$4,000,000	44%
Obsidian	$10,000,000+	50%

There's also a one-time level-up bonus per tier. Third-party integrations that use omnibus wallets aren't eligible. That's one reason some traders prefer tools that trade from their own wallet: the volume and any rebate stay with them.

Builder fees: what bots and apps can add

Apps that route orders through Polymarket (terminals, Telegram bots, copy-trading services) can join the Builder Program and attach a builder code to each order. Under CLOB V2 they can then charge a builder fee that is added to Polymarket's platform fee, never instead of it. Limits are up to 1% on taker orders and 0.5% on maker orders, and a builder can change its rate at most once every seven days (Builder Fees).

Some services also charge their own per-trade or redemption fees outside the builder system. Published examples as of autumn 2026: Polycopy 0.5% per trade (pricing), PolyCop 0.5% per filled trade (docs), Stand 0.50% on copy trades (FAQ), PolyGun 1% per buy and per sell (per Rivo), and Kreo a per-share curve plus 0.3% on redemptions (docs). Ghost Trader charges a flat monthly subscription and adds no per-trade fee, though Polymarket's own fees still apply to every trade it places.

Deposits, withdrawals, gas and redemption

• Deposits and withdrawals: no Polymarket fee. Intermediaries may charge (fees). Deposits bridged from other chains are converted to pUSD, the USDC-backed collateral token Polymarket trades in (pUSD). Check the bridge quote endpoint for conversion costs.
• Gas: many operations through Polymarket's own wallets and Builder Program apps go through a gasless relayer. A self-managed wallet may need a little POL for on-chain actions.
• Redemption: fees are charged on matched trades. Redeeming winning shares for $1 after resolution isn't a trade. Holding to resolution therefore avoids the second taker fee you'd pay by selling early, though some third-party bots charge their own fee on redemptions (Kreo, Stand).

Worked examples

1. A 15-minute BTC "Up or Down" trade. You buy 200 shares of "Up" at 52¢ as a taker. The fee is 200 × 0.07 × 0.52 × 0.48 = $3.49 on a $104 stake (3.4%). If you sell before the window closes, you pay again on the exit. More in crypto up/down markets.

2. A politics favourite. You buy 500 shares at 80¢ ($400). The fee is 500 × 0.04 × 0.8 × 0.2 = $3.20 (0.8% of stake). If it wins, the gross profit is $100, so the fee takes 3.2% of it.

3. A geopolitics market. Same trade, $0 fee. Geopolitics is fee-free and earns no rebates.

4. Copying a sports trade through a 0.5% bot. 100 shares at 60¢ ($60): Polymarket fee 100 × 0.05 × 0.6 × 0.4 = $1.20, plus a $0.30 vendor fee. That's 2.5% of stake before slippage, and you pay it again if you exit early.

The break-even edge for a bot

A taker strategy needs its estimated edge, meaning your probability minus the price, to beat the fee plus the spread and slippage you pay:

required edge per share > feeRate × p × (1 − p)  +  slippage  +  vendor fee per share

At 50¢ in crypto, that's 1.75¢ per share before slippage, against a $1 payoff. Any bot that doesn't build this into its entry threshold is quietly giving money away. Ghost Trader's runner, for example, only acts when a signal clears a minimum edge you configure, and sizes the trade with fractional Kelly using the post-fee edge (see Kelly criterion for prediction markets).

Polymarket vs Kalshi vs Polymarket US fees

Venue	Taker fee	Makers
Polymarket (international)	Category rate × C × p × (1 − p); rates 0–0.07	Free; share a rebate pool
Kalshi	Round up(0.07 × C × P × (1 − P)) per the standard schedule; some series differ (Kalshi fee schedule)	Free on most series; 0.0175 rate on designated series
Polymarket US (CFTC-regulated)	0.0695 × contracts × price × (1 − price), per DeFi Rate	Earn a rebate, per DeFi Rate

DeFi Rate's October 2, 2026 fee comparison notes that the US apps have converged on Kalshi's 0.07 formula. Polymarket international's lower rates in sports and politics make it cheaper than the US venues for those categories, but it isn't open to US users. Full platform comparison: Kalshi vs Polymarket.

Hidden costs that often beat the fee

• Spread. A 3¢ spread on a 50¢ market costs more than any taker fee.
• Slippage. Large orders walk the book. Estimate before you send (estimate_market_price in the SDK).
• Capital lock-up. Money in a market that resolves in six months can't be used elsewhere.
• Selling early. Every exit as a taker is a second fee.

FAQ

Does Polymarket charge fees on winnings? No. Fees are charged when a trade is matched, not on profits. Redeeming winning shares isn't a trade.

Why did my 15-minute crypto trade cost more than my politics trade? Crypto uses the highest rate (0.07) and these trades usually happen near 50¢, where the fee peaks.

Can I avoid fees entirely? Trade as a maker (resting orders) or in fee-free geopolitics markets. Neither guarantees a fill.

Do fees change? Yes. Polymarket says rates, weights and rebates can change at any time. We update this page when they do.

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Ghost Trader builds Polymarket's fee formula into every decision. Trades only fire when the edge clears your minimum after costs, and Ghost Trader adds no per-trade fee of its own. $199/month, paper mode included, runner on your own machine. See pricing.

Not financial advice. Trading can lose money. Ghost Trader isn't available where Polymarket restricts trading, including the US, and is not affiliated with Polymarket.