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Kalshi Fees Explained: The Formula, the Maker Discount, and How to Pay Less

Kalshi's fee fits in one line of math, and unlike a sportsbook's cut, you can see it, predict it, and shrink it. The whole schedule in plain English, plus the habits that cut your costs by more than half.

Sportsbooks hide their fee inside the odds. Kalshi publishes its fee as a formula, charges it only when a trade executes, and shows it to you before you confirm. That transparency is genuinely to your advantage, but only if you understand the formula's one quirk: the fee depends on the price of the contract, and it is highest exactly where most people trade.

Everything below reflects Kalshi's fee schedule as of July 2026. Fee schedules change; the formula here has been stable in shape, but check the current schedule before building anything precise on it.

The formula

For standard event contracts, Kalshi's trading fee is:

Fee = 0.07 × contracts × price × (1 − price), rounded up.

In words: seven percent of the product of the price and its complement, per contract. If that sounds abstract, the table makes it concrete. Straight from the official schedule, per 100 contracts:

Contract price	Taker fee per 100 contracts	Fee as % of your outlay
10¢	$0.63	6.3%
20¢	$1.12	5.6%
30¢	$1.47	4.9%
40¢	$1.68	4.2%
50¢	$1.75	3.5%
60¢	$1.68	2.8%
70¢	$1.47	2.1%
80¢	$1.12	1.4%
90¢	$0.63	0.7%

(Tiny orders round up a little harshly: a single 50¢ contract shows a 2¢ fee on the schedule, slightly above the formula's 1.75¢, because fractions round in the exchange's favor. At any normal size the formula is what you pay.)

Two things to notice, because they drive every cost decision you'll make on the platform.

The curve peaks at 50¢. A coin-flip contract carries the maximum fee, 1.75¢ per contract. As prices move toward either end, fees shrink fast; a 90¢ contract costs about a third as much to trade as a 50¢ one. The logic: the fee tracks the expected earnings on the contract, which are largest when the outcome is most uncertain.

Relative to the cash you put up, cheap contracts are the expensive ones. Look at the third column. The absolute fee on a 10¢ contract is tiny, but it is 6.3% of your 10¢ outlay. Buying longshots by the fistful is a higher-friction habit than the small fee numbers suggest. (Sportsbooks are still far worse to longshot bettors, but that comparison gets its own article: the real math on what you save.)

Maker vs taker: the three-quarters discount

Kalshi charges different rates depending on how your order fills, and this is the single biggest lever you control.

Takers cross the spread: they hit an existing offer with a market order (or a limit order priced to fill instantly). Takers pay the full formula above.

Makers post resting limit orders that wait on the book until someone else crosses to fill them. On the markets sports traders live in, game markets, championship futures, golf and tennis, maker orders pay exactly a quarter of the taker rate, a 0.0175 coefficient instead of 0.07: about 0.44¢ per contract at 50¢ instead of 1.75¢. One quirk worth knowing: maker fees only apply to series specifically listed on the fee schedule. The list covers essentially every major sports market, but on many markets outside it, maker orders are simply free. Either way, canceling an unfilled resting order costs nothing; fees only exist when trades execute.

Run the numbers on a realistic position and the discount stops looking academic. Say you trade 500 contracts at 50¢:

As a taker: 500 × 1.75¢ = $8.75 in fees.
As a maker: 500 × ~0.44¢ = $2.19.

Same position, same market, $6.56 difference, plus makers typically enter at a better price by definition, since they were the ones who set it. Patience gets paid twice. If limit orders are new territory, the mechanics live in bid vs ask and setting orders.

What else costs money (not much)

The trading fee is essentially the whole cost structure for a normal trader:

Settlement: when your contract resolves and pays out, no fee.
Deposits: ACH transfers are free. Debit card deposits carry a fee of up to 2%; crypto deposits can carry third-party processor fees, disclosed before you confirm.
Withdrawals: back to your bank via ACH, no fee. (Wire withdrawals are only supported for very large amounts.)
Doing nothing: no membership, inactivity, account, or data fees.

One category note: Kalshi's newer perpetual-style products carry their own volume-tiered fee table, separate from the event-contract formula. If you are trading game outcomes and season markets, the formula above is the one that applies to you.

Five habits that keep your fees small

Default to resting limit orders. The maker discount is 75%. Over a season of trading, this one habit is worth more than most people's handicapping edge.
Remember round trips cost twice. Exit a position before settlement and you pay a second fee on the sale. Factored honestly: an in-and-out trade of a 50¢ contract as a taker costs about 3.5¢ per contract in total fees, so the price needs to move at least that far before you've made your first honest cent.
Let winners settle when the outcome is decided. Selling a 97¢ contract to "lock it in" pays a fee to escape a position that resolves in hours anyway. Sometimes the exit is worth it; know that you're paying for reassurance.
Price your edge net of the curve. Trading around 50¢, an edge smaller than about 2¢ per side barely survives taker fees. The same edge at 80¢ keeps most of itself.
Check the schedule occasionally. Kalshi updates its fee schedule; the maker discount in particular is newer than the formula itself. This article carries a verification date for exactly that reason.

What to take away

One formula, peaking at 1.75¢ on a 50¢ contract, cut to a quarter when you post the order instead of chasing the fill. Kalshi's fees are small, visible, and controllable, three words that have never once described a sportsbook's vig. How those two cost structures compare over a year of real volume, in dollars, is the next article: sportsbook vig vs prediction market fees.

Educational information, not financial advice. Fee schedules change; verify current rates on the platform before trading. Prediction markets involve risk of loss, and their legal status varies by location and changes over time.