Coinbase vs Kraken: fees and real trading cost
Two US-founded spot exchanges, both compared on their USD books. Kraken Pro charges 0.40% maker / 0.80% taker at Tier 1; Coinbase Advanced charges 0.09% / 0.10% at Intro for accounts outside the US, EU and UK (more in the US, EU and UK).
Live order book · updated · refreshed every 20 seconds
BTC spot market buy, Coinbase against Kraken
| Size | Coinbase fee + slippage | Kraken fee + slippage |
|---|---|---|
| $10,000 | $10.00 + $0.03 | $80.00 + $0.01 |
| $100,000 | $100.00 + $4.19 | $800.00 + $0.07 |
| $1,000,000 | $1,000.00 + $203.90 | $8,000.00 + $23.10 |
Over the last 91 hours, a $100k market buy was cheaper on Coinbase in 91 of them and on Kraken in 0.
Try your own size on Coinbase
USDT
Coinbase fee · Intro · 0.100%$100.00
Spread + slippage · live Coinbase book, 23:36:28 UTC$4.19 (0.0042%)
Total cost$104.19
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Coinbase is $695.89 cheaper than Kraken for this order.
Same order on Kraken · Tier 1
Trading fee · Tier 1 · 0.800%$800.00
Spread + slippage · live Kraken book, 23:36:28 UTC$0.07 (0.000073%)
Total cost$800.07
What differs between Coinbase and Kraken
- Coinbase: Coinbase sets Advanced fees by account region. The rates here are the Intro rates for accounts outside the US, EU and UK, read in a signed-in account on 10 Nov 2026; US, EU and UK accounts pay more.
- Coinbase: Your tier comes from 30-day trading volume or USDC balance, whichever is better for you; spot, futures and options each have their own volume thresholds.
- Kraken: A list of selected spot pairs gets 0.02% off at every tier. BTC/USD, ETH/USD, SOL/USD and XRP/USD were not on that list when checked.
- Kraken: Kraken calls bitcoin XBT: the BTC book here is the XBT/USD pair.