Short answer
- Lowest trading fee: Bullet charges no maker or taker fees; instead it keeps a 5% spread on hourly funding payments.
- Cheapest pool-based perps: Flash Trade at 0.02% to open and 0.02% to close on majors, plus a borrow fee while you hold.
- Order books at 0.035% taker: Bulk (0% maker) and Phoenix (0.005% maker). Pacifica is 0.04% taker, falling with volume.
- Largest pool and simplest UI: Jupiter Perps from Jupiter, 0.06% to open and close on SOL, ETH and BTC, plus price impact and borrow fees.
- Drift's successor: Velocity, a fork of Drift's program after Drift was paused, at 0.06% taker.
At a glance
| Exchange | Model | Taker fee per side | Round trip | Ongoing cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bullet | Order book on its own chain | 0% | 0% | 5% spread on funding |
| Flash Trade | Pool (FLP) | 0.02% on majors | 0.04% | Borrow fee by utilisation |
| Bulk | Order book | 0.035%, falling to 0.022% | 0.07% | Funding |
| Phoenix | Order book | 0.035% | 0.07% | Funding |
| Pacifica | Order book | 0.04%, falling to 0.03% | 0.08% | Funding |
| Jupiter Perps | Pool (JLP) | 0.06% plus price impact | 0.12%+ | Hourly borrow fee |
| Velocity | Order book, USDT-settled | 0.06%, falling to 0.02% | 0.12% | Funding |
| Adrena | Pool (ALP) | 0% open, 0.14% close | 0.14% | Borrow fee |
| Pokeliquid | App with session wallet | 0.5% of collateral on open | 0.5% of collateral | – |
Base-tier fees for a taker, from each exchange's own docs. Makers usually pay less or earn a rebate. Network fees apply on Solana-native exchanges.
Order books vs pools
Order book perps (Phoenix, Pacifica, Bulk, Velocity, Bullet) match buyers and sellers like a centralised exchange. You can place limit orders and earn maker rebates, and longs pay shorts (or the reverse) through funding every hour.
Pool perps (Jupiter, Flash Trade, Adrena) let you trade against a liquidity pool at an oracle price. There's no order book to fill against, so large trades don't slip the same way, but you pay an hourly borrow fee on the full position size and sometimes a price impact fee. Holding a pool position for days can cost more in borrow fees than in trading fees.
What a trade really costs
On a $10,000 position opened and closed as a taker: about $0 at Bullet, $4 at Flash Trade, $7 at Bulk or Phoenix, $8 at Pacifica, $12 at Jupiter or Velocity, and $14 at Adrena, before funding or borrow fees. Leverage multiplies the position size, so fees on a 20x trade are 20 times larger relative to your margin.
How to choose
- How long you hold. For quick trades, compare taker fees. For multi-day positions, funding or borrow fees matter more.
- Order types. Order books support limit orders and maker rebates. Pools are simpler but taker-only.
- Liquidity in your market. Thin markets slip on large orders. Check depth or the price impact preview.
- Custody. Most of these keep funds in your wallet or in on-chain margin accounts. Pokeliquid stores an encrypted copy of a session wallet key on its servers.
- Leverage kills. Most leveraged traders lose money. Use stop-losses and small size.
The exchanges
Bullet
An exchange on its own ZK-verifiable chain connected to Solana, with 24/7 markets in crypto, commodities, equities and indices. Zero maker and taker fees; a 5% spread on hourly funding (payers pay 105%, receivers get 95%). Audited.
Flash Trade
Pool-based perps on crypto, forex, metals, commodities and equities. 0.02% to open and 0.02% to close on majors and most other markets, plus a utilisation-based borrow fee and price impact fee.
Bulk
An order-book perps exchange in Growth Mode: 0 bps maker fees on every tier and taker fees from 3.5 bps down to 2.2 bps by 14-day volume, with no separate liquidation fee. Audited, with an API.
Phoenix
Ellipsis Labs' order-book exchange for perps on crypto, equities and commodities, up to 40x. 0.035% taker and 0.005% maker on matched notional, with referral discounts.
Pacifica
An order-book perps exchange with up to 50x leverage, a liquidation heatmap and vaults. 0.040% taker and 0.015% maker at the base tier, down to 0.030% and 0% above $100M monthly volume.
Jupiter Perps
Pool-based perps on SOL, ETH and BTC against the JLP pool. 0.06% base fee to open and close, a price impact fee that scales with size, and an hourly borrow fee from a utilisation curve.
Velocity
A new program forked from Drift v2 after Drift was paused; Drift accounts and balances did not carry over. Crypto and equity perps on one cross-margin account settled in USDT. 0.06% taker under $5M of 30-day volume, down to 0.02% above $200M, and a 0.25 bps maker rebate. Audited.
Adrena
Peer-to-pool perps with up to 100x leverage. No fee to open, 0.14% to close or liquidate, plus a borrow fee; no separate liquidation fee.
Pokeliquid
A simplified perps app that generates a browser session wallet and keeps an encrypted copy of its key on its servers for email recovery. Takes 0.5% of collateral when a position opens.
How we ranked
Exchanges are ordered by the round-trip taker fee on a base-tier account, using each exchange's own fee docs. Ties go alphabetically. Funding and borrow fees vary hour to hour and are described but not ranked. Checked in October 2026. Perpetual futures are high-risk; this isn't financial advice. Editorial policy.