How Crypto Exchanges Actually Make Money

Trading Fees Are the Obvious Answer. They’re Also Not the Whole Story.

When someone asks how crypto exchanges make money, the instinctive answer is “trading fees.” And sure, trading fees are the backbone — they’re probably 40-60% of total revenue for most exchanges. But the operators who stop there are leaving enormous amounts of money on the table.

The most profitable exchanges I’ve worked with don’t rely on a single revenue stream. They stack five, six, sometimes seven distinct monetization layers on top of each other. Each one might look modest in isolation. Together, they compound into something that can turn a small regional exchange into a seriously profitable business.

I’ve spent years helping exchange operators figure out their revenue models, and the pattern is always the same: the ones who think of themselves as “fee businesses” plateau fast, while the ones who think of themselves as “financial infrastructure businesses” keep finding new ways to grow.

Let me walk you through every revenue stream available to a crypto exchange operator, with real numbers and honest assessments of what works and what’s overrated.

1. Trading Fees: The Foundation You Build Everything On

Let’s start with the obvious one, because getting this right matters more than anything else.

The industry standard is the maker-taker model. Makers place limit orders that add liquidity to the order book. Takers place market orders that remove liquidity. You charge takers more because they’re consuming liquidity, and you charge makers less (or sometimes pay them) because they’re providing it.

Typical fee structures:

• Taker fees: 0.1% to 0.25%
• Maker fees: 0.05% to 0.15%
• Some exchanges offer maker rebates of -0.01% to -0.02% to attract market makers

These numbers might seem tiny, but they add up fast. On $10 million in daily trading volume — which is very achievable for a mid-sized regional exchange — a 0.15% blended fee rate generates $15,000 per day. That’s $450,000 per month. From trading fees alone.

Volume tiers are essential. You need to incentivize your biggest traders to stay. A tiered structure might look like this:

Monthly Volume	Maker Fee	Taker Fee
Under $100K	0.10%	0.20%
$100K - $1M	0.08%	0.18%
$1M - $10M	0.06%	0.15%
$10M - $50M	0.04%	0.12%
Over $50M	0.02%	0.10%

The big traders at the top tiers generate less revenue per dollar traded, but they contribute disproportionately to your overall volume and liquidity. Losing a single whale trader can visibly thin out your order books. Keep them happy.

One thing I’ll caution against: don’t undercut the market too aggressively at launch. I’ve seen exchanges launch with 0.05% flat fees thinking they’ll attract volume through low pricing, then realize they can’t cover operating costs. You can always lower fees later. Raising them is much harder — users notice and complain.

A solid crypto exchange platform will let you configure fee tiers, maker-taker splits, and per-pair fee overrides from the admin panel. If your software makes fee adjustments painful, you’ll avoid doing the optimization that drives revenue.

2. Withdrawal Fees: Small Per Transaction, Significant at Scale

Every time a user withdraws crypto from your exchange, you pay a network transaction fee to the blockchain. The standard practice is to charge users a flat withdrawal fee that covers the network cost plus a small markup.

How to price withdrawal fees:

The honest approach is to set withdrawal fees at 1.5x to 2x the average network cost. For Bitcoin, if the average network fee is $2, you charge $3-$4. For Ethereum, if gas averages $1.50, you charge $2.50-$3. For low-cost chains like Solana or Tron, where transactions cost fractions of a cent, you can charge a minimum of $0.50-$1.00.

This seems small. But consider an exchange processing 2,000 withdrawals per day with an average markup of $2. That’s $4,000 per day — $120,000 per month. It won’t make you rich on its own, but it covers a significant chunk of operating costs.

The trap to avoid: Some exchanges charge outrageous withdrawal fees — $25 for a BTC withdrawal when the network fee is $3. Users notice. Crypto Twitter notices. And the resulting backlash can do real reputational damage. Price fairly and you’ll retain users. Gouge them and they’ll find somewhere else to trade.

I’d recommend reviewing and adjusting withdrawal fees weekly. Network costs fluctuate significantly, especially on Ethereum. An automated system that adjusts fees based on current gas prices is ideal, but even manual weekly reviews keep you in the right range.

3. Token Listing Fees: The Revenue Stream Most Small Exchanges Overlook

This one surprises a lot of first-time operators. Token projects will pay real money to get listed on your exchange. Even if you’re small. Even if you only have a few thousand active users.

What projects are paying for:

• Access to your user base (even a small one)
• Legitimacy and credibility for their token
• Another trading venue for their community
• Exposure through your marketing channels

The pricing spectrum:

Exchange Size	Listing Fee Range	What You Offer
Small (under 5K users)	$5,000 - $15,000	Basic listing, pair setup
Medium (5K-50K users)	$15,000 - $75,000	Listing + marketing push
Large (50K+ users)	$75,000 - $500,000	Premium placement, banner ads, social media

Even at the low end, listing three to four tokens per month at $5,000-$10,000 each adds $15,000-$40,000 in monthly revenue. And this is revenue with almost zero marginal cost — the technical work of adding a token takes a few hours at most.

What determines pricing:

The main factors are your daily trading volume, registered user count, geographic reach, and how much marketing support you include. Some exchanges bundle a listing with social media posts, newsletter features, and homepage banner placement, which justifies higher pricing.

A word of caution: Be selective. Every token you list is an implicit endorsement. List a rug pull and your reputation suffers, potentially far more than the listing fee was worth. Do basic due diligence — check the team, the contract audit, the community. If something feels off, pass. There are plenty of legitimate projects willing to pay for listings.

4. Margin and Futures: Where the Serious Revenue Lives

If spot trading fees are the foundation, margin and futures trading are where you build the penthouse.

Margin interest:

When traders borrow funds to trade with leverage, they pay interest. Typical rates range from 0.01% to 0.05% per day, depending on the asset and demand. That works out to roughly 3.6% to 18% annualized.

On an exchange with $5 million in outstanding margin loans, even a conservative 0.02% daily rate generates $1,000 per day — $30,000 per month. And margin balances tend to grow quickly once you have an active trading community.

Futures funding rates:

Perpetual futures contracts use a funding rate mechanism where long positions pay short positions (or vice versa) every 8 hours to keep the contract price anchored to the spot price. The exchange typically takes a small cut of each funding payment — usually 0.005% to 0.01%.

This sounds negligible until you realize that a futures exchange with $50 million in open interest collects funding fees three times per day. At 0.005% per collection on $50M, that’s $7,500 per day — $225,000 per month.

Liquidation fees:

When leveraged positions get liquidated, the exchange typically charges a liquidation fee of 0.5% to 1.5% of the position value. During volatile markets, liquidation revenue can spike dramatically. Some exchanges have reported that liquidation fees represented 20-30% of their total revenue during major market crashes.

The catch: Futures and margin trading require significantly more sophisticated risk management, more capital reserves, and often additional regulatory compliance. The revenue potential is enormous, but so is the operational complexity. You need real-time risk monitoring, auto-deleveraging systems, and insurance funds to handle cascading liquidations.

For operators ready to take this step, the payoff is substantial. Futures exchanges consistently generate 3-5x the revenue of spot-only exchanges with comparable user bases.

5. Staking Yields: Passive Revenue That Compounds

Staking is one of my favorite revenue models because it generates income while you sleep, requires minimal operational overhead once set up, and your users genuinely benefit from it too.

The concept is simple: users deposit proof-of-stake tokens on your exchange, you stake those tokens (or delegate them to validators), earn staking rewards, and share the rewards with your users while keeping a commission.

Typical commission structures:

Most exchanges take a 5% to 15% cut of staking rewards. Some push it to 20-25%, but that’s aggressive enough that informed users will take their tokens elsewhere.

Example math:

Say you have $10 million worth of user-deposited ETH available for staking. ETH staking yields roughly 3-4% annually. At a 10% commission on a 3.5% yield:

• Annual staking rewards: $350,000
• Exchange commission (10%): $35,000 per year

Not earth-shattering on its own. But now add Solana, Cardano, Polkadot, Cosmos, and a dozen other stakeable assets. If you’re holding $50 million in aggregate stakeable assets, that commission climbs to $175,000-$250,000 annually.

The beauty is that this revenue stream is almost entirely passive. A staking platform infrastructure, once set up, requires minimal maintenance. And it increases user stickiness — users who are staking on your platform are much less likely to withdraw and move to a competitor.

Flexible vs. locked staking:

Offering both options increases participation. Flexible staking (users can withdraw anytime) earns lower yields, while locked staking (30, 60, 90 days) earns higher yields and gives you more predictable capital to work with. The locked staking products also reduce your hot wallet management burden since those funds aren’t going anywhere for a while.

6. Fiat On/Off Ramp Spreads: The Gateway Tax

Every time a user converts fiat currency to crypto (or vice versa), there’s an opportunity to earn a spread. This is one of the highest-margin revenue streams available, especially in regions where fiat-to-crypto access is limited.

How it works:

If Bitcoin is trading at $60,000 on the open market, you sell it to your user for $60,300 via the fiat purchase flow. That $300 spread — about 0.5% — is your revenue. The user pays through a bank transfer, credit card, or local payment method, and you deliver the crypto.

Typical spreads:

• Bank transfer: 0.3% - 0.8%
• Credit/debit card: 1.5% - 3.5% (higher because card processors charge 2-3% themselves)
• Local payment methods: 0.5% - 1.5%

For exchanges in emerging markets — Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America — fiat on-ramp revenue can actually exceed trading fee revenue. In countries where accessing crypto is difficult and alternatives are limited, users will happily pay a reasonable premium for a reliable conversion service.

If you’re using a third-party provider like MoonPay or Transak, you’ll share the spread with them. But even a 50% revenue share on a 2% card purchase spread nets you 1% — which on $1 million in monthly fiat deposits is $10,000 per month for doing essentially nothing beyond the initial integration.

7. P2P Trading Escrow Fees: Monetizing Trust

Peer-to-peer crypto trading has exploded in regions where traditional banking rails are unreliable or where regulatory restrictions make centralized fiat-to-crypto conversion difficult. A P2P crypto exchange acts as an escrow service, holding the crypto while the buyer sends fiat payment directly to the seller.

The fee model:

Most P2P platforms charge a fee to the seller (the one converting crypto to fiat), typically 0.1% to 0.5% of the transaction value. Some charge both sides. Binance P2P made zero-fee P2P famous, but they monetize through the spread between P2P prices and spot prices. For smaller exchanges, a direct escrow fee is simpler and more transparent.

Revenue potential:

In markets like Nigeria, Turkey, Vietnam, and Argentina, P2P volume can be substantial. An exchange handling $2 million per day in P2P trades with a 0.3% seller fee generates $6,000 per day — $180,000 per month.

P2P also drives user acquisition in a way that spot trading doesn’t. Someone who comes to your platform to buy Bitcoin with their local currency via P2P often becomes a spot trader too. The P2P module becomes a user acquisition channel that pays for itself.

Ad fees:

Some P2P platforms also charge merchants (frequent sellers) a monthly fee to maintain active advertisements. This typically ranges from $10-$50 per month per ad, but with hundreds of active merchants, it adds a consistent recurring revenue layer.

8. API Trading Premium Tiers

Algorithmic traders and market makers access your exchange through APIs, and they need more than what casual users require. Offering tiered API access is a clean way to monetize your most active (and most valuable) users.

Basic tier (free):

• 10 requests per second
• Standard market data
• Basic order types

Professional tier ($99-$299/month):

• 50-100 requests per second
• Real-time WebSocket streams
• Advanced order types (iceberg, TWAP)
• Priority order matching

Enterprise tier ($500-$2,000/month):

• Unlimited or near-unlimited rate limits
• Co-location options
• Dedicated support channel
• Custom API endpoints
• Historical data access

This isn’t a massive revenue driver on its own, but it’s pure profit and it attracts exactly the type of users you want — high-volume algorithmic traders who generate significant trading fee revenue. Twenty enterprise API clients at $1,000/month is $240,000 per year, plus whatever they generate in trading fees.

The key is making each tier genuinely valuable. Don’t artificially cripple the free tier to force upgrades. Instead, offer real advantages at the premium tiers that professional traders actually need. If your rate limits are generous enough on the free tier, nobody will upgrade. If they’re unreasonably restrictive, traders will just use a different exchange.

9. Launchpad and IEO Fees: Riding the Token Launch Wave

A launchpad platform lets new token projects raise funds directly through your exchange, with your users getting early access to buy tokens before they hit the open market. It’s a win for all three parties: the project gets funding and distribution, your users get early access to promising tokens, and you get paid handsomely for facilitating it.

Revenue model:

• Project fee: 5-10% of total funds raised. On a $500,000 token sale, that’s $25,000-$50,000. On a $2 million raise, it’s $100,000-$200,000.
• Token allocation: Many exchanges also negotiate a 1-3% allocation of the project’s token supply. If the token performs well, this allocation can be worth multiples of the cash fee.
• Listing fee: After the IEO, the token lists on your exchange. This is a separate listing fee (see section 3), often bundled into the overall deal.
• Trading volume spike: New token listings drive massive trading volume in the first 24-72 hours. The trading fees from this volume are significant and sometimes exceed the actual launchpad fee.

A mid-sized exchange running two to three launchpad events per month can generate $50,000-$150,000 monthly from this single revenue stream. It also generates excitement, brings new users to the platform, and keeps your existing community engaged.

The risk: If you launch a token that collapses and your users lose money, the backlash is severe. Reputation damage from one bad IEO can take months to recover from. Vet projects thoroughly. Require audited smart contracts, locked team tokens, and clear roadmaps. Your users’ trust is worth infinitely more than any single project fee.

10. Revenue Projections: What to Actually Expect

Let me put all of this together with realistic projections for three different exchange sizes. These numbers are based on patterns I’ve seen across hundreds of exchanges, not theoretical maximums.

Small Exchange (Launch Phase: 1,000-5,000 Users)

Revenue Stream	Monthly Revenue
Trading fees ($500K-$2M daily volume)	$15,000 - $60,000
Withdrawal fees	$3,000 - $8,000
Listing fees (1-2 per month)	$5,000 - $20,000
Fiat on-ramp spreads	$2,000 - $8,000
Total	$25,000 - $96,000

At this stage, you’re probably not offering margin, futures, or staking yet. Focus on spot trading, nail the user experience, and build liquidity. Even the low end of this range — $25,000/month — is enough to cover operating costs for a lean team and reinvest in growth.

Medium Exchange (Growth Phase: 10,000-50,000 Users)

Revenue Stream	Monthly Revenue
Trading fees ($5M-$20M daily volume)	$75,000 - $300,000
Withdrawal fees	$15,000 - $40,000
Listing fees (3-5 per month)	$30,000 - $100,000
Margin/futures interest	$30,000 - $100,000
Staking commissions	$5,000 - $20,000
Fiat on-ramp spreads	$10,000 - $30,000
P2P escrow fees	$10,000 - $40,000
Launchpad events (1-2 per month)	$25,000 - $75,000
Total	$200,000 - $705,000

This is where the revenue stacking really kicks in. No single stream is carrying the business — it’s the combination that creates serious profitability. At $300K-$700K per month, you’re running a genuine business with healthy margins.

Large Exchange (Scale Phase: 100,000+ Users)

Revenue Stream	Monthly Revenue
Trading fees ($50M-$200M+ daily volume)	$500,000 - $2,000,000+
Withdrawal fees	$50,000 - $150,000
Listing fees (5-10 per month)	$150,000 - $500,000
Margin/futures revenue	$200,000 - $800,000
Staking commissions	$30,000 - $100,000
Fiat on-ramp spreads	$50,000 - $150,000
P2P escrow fees	$50,000 - $200,000
API premium subscriptions	$20,000 - $80,000
Launchpad events	$100,000 - $400,000
Total	$1.15M - $4.38M

At the large scale, you’re looking at $1-$4 million per month in revenue. Operating costs are higher too — compliance teams, larger engineering staff, customer support scaling, infrastructure — but margins of 40-60% are realistic for well-run exchanges at this size.

The Revenue Streams Most Operators Overlook

Beyond the core models above, there are a few additional revenue opportunities that smart operators capitalize on:

Deposit interest: Fiat deposits sitting in your exchange’s bank accounts earn interest. With $10 million in aggregate user fiat balances, even a 4% annual yield from a savings account or Treasury bills generates $400,000 per year. Users don’t typically expect interest on exchange deposits, so this is pure upside.

Data licensing: Your exchange generates valuable market data — order book depth, trade history, volume analytics. Data aggregators and institutional investors will pay for premium data feeds, typically $500-$5,000 per month per subscriber.

Branded debit cards: Partner with a card issuer to offer a crypto debit card branded with your exchange. You earn interchange fees (typically 0.5-1.5%) on every purchase your users make. This is a longer-term play, but exchanges like Crypto.com have demonstrated that card programs can become a major business line.

OTC desk: High-net-worth individuals and institutional investors don’t want to trade large blocks on the open order book (it would move the market). An OTC desk lets them trade directly with your exchange at a negotiated spread, typically 0.1-0.5% on large trades. A single OTC trade of $1 million at a 0.3% spread nets you $3,000.

Getting the Infrastructure Right

None of these revenue streams work if the underlying platform can’t support them. You need exchange software that handles multi-layered fee structures, supports margin and futures modules, integrates staking infrastructure, and can scale as you add revenue streams.

This is honestly one of the strongest arguments for starting with a comprehensive platform rather than a bare-bones spot-only solution. If your software doesn’t support futures, P2P, staking, or a launchpad, you’re leaving money on the table from day one — or facing expensive custom development every time you want to add a new revenue stream.

Take a look at what a complete exchange platform includes and make sure whatever you choose can grow with your revenue ambitions. The operators who plan for five to seven revenue streams from the start — even if they only launch with two or three — are the ones who build the most profitable businesses.

The Revenue Model Decision: Where to Start

If you’re launching a new exchange, here’s my recommendation for sequencing your revenue streams:

Month 1-3: Spot trading fees + withdrawal fees. Get the basics right. Build volume. Build trust.

Month 3-6: Add listing fees + fiat on-ramp spreads. Start monetizing the ecosystem around your trading platform.

Month 6-12: Add P2P trading fees + staking commissions. These are relatively low-risk additions that diversify your revenue.

Month 12+: Add margin/futures + launchpad events + API premium tiers. These require more operational maturity but dramatically increase revenue potential.

You don’t need to do everything at once. But you should have a roadmap. The exchanges that plan for revenue diversification from day one — even if they execute it gradually — consistently outperform those that treat everything beyond trading fees as an afterthought.

To see how the pricing works for a platform that supports all of these revenue models out of the box, check out our pricing options. The ROI math on exchange software becomes very compelling when you model five to seven revenue streams instead of just one.

The bottom line is this: a crypto exchange is one of the best business models in fintech. The margins are high, the revenue is recurring, and every user you acquire generates value across multiple streams simultaneously. The operators who understand this — who think in terms of revenue ecosystems rather than individual fee lines — are the ones building the most successful exchanges in the market today.

Build the platform. Stack the revenue streams. And make sure your technology can keep up with your ambition.