MEXC markets itself on low fees, and on paper it is the cheapest large centralised exchange. Makers pay nothing on its BTC markets. Takers pay 0.05% on BTCUSDT spot, half the usual 0.10%, and 0.02% on the BTC_USDT perpetual, less than half of the 0.05% that Binance and OKX charge. The obvious question: does a cheap fee come with an expensive order book? A thin book can cost more in slippage than the fee saves. We tested it against five large exchanges, on both spot and futures.
MEXC fees at a glance
| Exchange | Spot maker / taker | Futures maker / taker | Fee on $100k futures market order |
|---|---|---|---|
| MEXC | 0% / 0.05% | 0% / 0.02% | $20.00 |
| Binance | 0.1% / 0.1% | 0.02% / 0.05% | $50.00 |
| Bybit | 0.1% / 0.1% | 0.02% / 0.055% | $55.00 |
| OKX | 0.08% / 0.1% | 0.02% / 0.05% | $50.00 |
| Bitget | 0.1% / 0.1% | 0.02% / 0.06% | $60.00 |
| Gate.io | 0.1% / 0.1% | 0.02% / 0.05% | $50.00 |
On a $100,000 futures market order the fee is $20.00 on MEXC against $50 to $60 elsewhere. That $30 head start is what the order book has to eat before MEXC stops being cheaper.
Futures: the fee gap was never closed
Taker fee + median spread and slippage, basis points, MEXC against the cheapest of Binance, Bybit, OKX, Bitget and Gate.io at each size. 6 Nov 2026, 00:00 UTC to 10 Nov 2026, 03:00 UTC.
Show the numbers
| Exchange | $1k | $10k | $100k | $500k | $1M |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MEXC (0.02%) | 2.0 | 2.0 | 2.1 | 2.1 | 2.1 |
| Binance (0.05%) | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.2 | 5.4 |
| Bybit (0.055%) | 5.5 | 5.5 | 5.6 | 5.8 | 6.1 |
| OKX (0.05%) | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.1 | 5.3 |
| Bitget (0.06%) | 6.0 | 6.0 | 6.0 | 6.3 | 6.6 |
| Gate.io (0.05%) | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.1 | 5.6 | 6.0 |
The fee was not bought with a thin futures book. At $1M, MEXC's BTC spread and slippage were 0.11 bps, against 0.29 on OKX and 0.42 on Binance. Its public futures book showed large orders close to the price all day (see our liquidity ranking); we report the book as displayed. Even if those orders were ten times thinner in practice, book gaps of tenths of a basis point cannot close a fee gap of three basis points. MEXC had the lowest total in 100 of 100 hours for BTC, 100 of 100 for ETH, 83 of 83 for SOL and 83 of 83 for XRP (at $100k). On XRP and SOL its books were even among the tighter ones at $100k.
| Exchange | $1k | $10k | $100k | $500k | $1M |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MEXC (0.02%) | 2.0 | 2.0 | 2.0 | 2.0 | 2.1 |
| Binance (0.05%) | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.1 | 5.5 | 6.0 |
| Bybit (0.055%) | 5.5 | 5.6 | 5.7 | 6.4 | 6.9 |
| OKX (0.05%) | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.1 | 5.3 | 5.7 |
| Bitget (0.06%) | 6.0 | 6.0 | 6.3 | 6.9 | 7.4 |
| Gate.io (0.05%) | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.2 | 6.7 | 8.4 |
Spot: cheaper until the book runs out
Spot is a different test. MEXC's spot taker fee is 0.05%, so the head start over a 0.10% exchange is 5 bps ($50 per $100,000), larger than on futures. But spot books are thinner everywhere, and MEXC's thinned out faster than most beyond a few hundred thousand dollars.
| Exchange | $1k | $10k | $100k | $500k | $1M |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MEXC (0.05%) | 5.1 | 5.2 | 5.4 | 5.9 | 11 |
| Binance (0.1%) | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 11 |
| Bybit (0.1%) | 10 | 10 | 10 | 13 | 14 |
| OKX (0.1%) | 10 | 10 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| Bitget (0.1%) | 10 | 10 | 11 | 11 | 12 |
| Gate.io (0.1%) | 10 | 10 | 13 | 18 | 24 |
For BTC, MEXC was cheapest from $1k to $500k: its total at $500,000 was 5.9 bps against 10 bps on Binance. At $1M its slippage jumped to 6.0 bps and Binance came out cheaper (10.85 bps against 11.01). Hour by hour, MEXC had the lowest $100k BTC spot total in 96 of 100 hours.
| Exchange | $1k | $10k | $100k | $500k | $1M |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MEXC (0.05%) | 5.2 | 5.3 | 5.7 | 24 | 45 |
| Binance (0.1%) | 10 | 10 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| Bybit (0.1%) | 10 | 10 | 12 | 14 | 17 |
| OKX (0.1%) | 10 | 10 | 11 | 13 | 14 |
| Bitget (0.1%) | 10 | 10 | 11 | 13 | 14 |
| Gate.io (0.1%) | 10 | 10 | 15 | 24 | 38 |
ETH spot shows where a low fee stops helping. Up to $100,000 MEXC was still the cheapest (5.7 bps). At $500,000 its book cost 19 bps in slippage alone, and the total of 24 bps was more than double Binance's 11 bps. At $1M it was $4,533 against $1,247. SOL and XRP spot followed a milder version of the same curve: MEXC won the hourly comparison at $100k in 56 of 83 hours for SOL and 62 of 83 for XRP, fewer than for BTC.
And with limit orders?
With post-only limit orders there is no spread or slippage to pay, and MEXC's 0% maker fee beats every other exchange in this comparison (0.02% on futures and 0.08–0.10% on spot elsewhere). On $1M a month of maker trading that is $0 a year on MEXC against $2,400 on a 0.02% futures venue, as our maker vs taker study shows.
Verdict
On futures, MEXC's low fee held up against the order book at every size we sample, for all four coins: it was the cheapest of these six exchanges for market orders up to $1M. On spot it held up for BTC to about $500,000 and for ETH to about $100,000; above that its thinner book cost more than the fee saved. For large spot orders, a deeper book with a higher fee was cheaper.
Fees are not everything a trader weighs: funding on futures, withdrawal fees, and an exchange's rules and track record all matter, and none of that is measured here. This is cost data, not advice. The MEXC page shows the live cost for your size, and fee-free on-chain venues such as Lighter were cheaper still on futures in our full ranking.
Method
Order-book cost: CostDepth samples all six exchanges' public BTC, ETH, SOL and XRP books (spot and USDT perpetual) every 5 minutes, walks them for market orders from $1k to $1M from the mid price, and stores hourly averages. We used the median hour from 6 Nov 2026, 00:00 UTC to 10 Nov 2026, 03:00 UTC, buy and sell averaged. The hour-by-hour count compares the six at $100k with each one's taker fee added. SOL and XRP have 83 hours.
Fees: MEXC sets its rates per trading pair. The rates used here are those MEXC's own API reported for BTCUSDT spot and the BTC_USDT perpetual on 5 November 2026, and CostDepth applies them to all four coins. MEXC's ETH, SOL and XRP pairs may carry different rates, or promotions, so check the pair before relying on the non-BTC figures. Other exchanges' rates are VIP 0 from their official fee pages. No token, VIP or referral discounts.
A public order book shows resting orders at the moment of the read; it cannot show hidden orders or whether displayed orders stay when a large order arrives.
The numbers behind every chart and table are in data.json (free to reuse with a credit to CostDepth). This is fee and cost data, not financial advice.