Prediction Market Fees Compared: What a Trade Costs

On a 50-cent contract, the cheapest regulated taker fee we found is about 1.5% of your stake, on Polymarket's international sports markets. The most expensive is about 4%, on Robinhood and FanDuel Predicts. Kalshi sits at 3.5%. Most prediction market fees are not a flat commission. They depend on the contract's price, and they are highest at 50 cents, which is where close sports games trade.

Two other things change the bill: whether you take a price or post one, and whether you mostly buy favourites. In some cases each of those matters more than which venue you pick.

Which prediction market has the lowest fees?

There is no single answer, because the order depends on price and order type. The table below holds both fixed: 100 contracts bought at 50 cents as a taker. That is a $50 position at the most expensive point on most fee curves.

We use 100 contracts instead of one because most venues round fees to the cent, and rounding distorts single-contract comparisons. Kalshi, Polymarket US and Robinhood publish their own examples on the same basis.

Derived from each platform's published schedule: Kalshi's fee schedule PDF (last updated 5 February 2026), Polymarket US documentation (effective 1 July 2026), Polymarket's international documentation, Robinhood Derivatives' fee schedule and event contracts help pages (effective 1 June 2026), ForecastEx's CFTC-filed schedule and Crypto.com's help centre. Schedules change; check the venue before trading.

Notes on the table:

• Robinhood's $2.00 is a $1.00 commission plus a $1.00 exchange fee. The exchange fee applies on the way in and again on the way out.
• "Same as taker" means the venue charges per contract no matter who started the trade. Maker discounts are an exchange feature, not a universal one.
• Polymarket global and Polymarket US are separate venues with different legal footing. A fee on one tells you nothing about the other.

How prediction market fees work

Most venues use a coefficient multiplied by price × (1 − price). That number is largest at 50 cents and falls toward zero at either end of the 1-to-99-cent range. The idea is that fees track uncertainty: a coin flip costs the most to trade, and a near-settled contract costs very little.

On Kalshi, for example, the taker coefficient is 0.07. At 50 cents that gives 0.07 × 0.5 × 0.5 = 1.75 cents per contract. At 90 cents it gives 0.07 × 0.9 × 0.1 = 0.63 cents.

Be careful how you read that figure. Kalshi's 1.75 cents is 1.75% of the $1 a contract pays out, but it is 3.5% of the 50 cents you actually spent. Comparisons that quote "percent of payout" and "percent of stake" side by side are not comparing the same thing.

Polymarket's international exchange sets the coefficient by category: 7% on crypto, 4% on politics, 3% on sports and zero on geopolitical markets. It also charges no withdrawal fee.

What 100 contracts cost at 50 cents versus 90 cents

Price changes the order. Here is the same 100-contract taker buy at two prices, for the venues whose schedules let us calculate both:

Calculated from the published formulas listed under the first table. Robinhood's $1.00 exchange fee per 100 contracts applies on top in both rows.

Close games sit near the expensive peak. Heavy favourites and longshots are cheaper on formula-based venues, but not on FanDuel.

Maker or taker: the order type that changes the bill

You are a taker when you buy at the price already showing. You are a maker when you post your own price and wait for someone to trade against it.

• Polymarket US pays makers 31 cents per 100 contracts when a resting order is filled. Takers with more than $250,000 in monthly volume also earn rebates, scaling from 10% up to 50% above $10 million.
• Kalshi's maker fee is zero by default. A named list of roughly 85 series does carry a maker fee, including every major US league game market and the main economic releases. Sports traders should check that list before assuming making is free.
• Robinhood, FanDuel and ForecastEx charge both sides the same.

On Polymarket US, the gap between paying $1.50 as a taker and earning $0.31 as a maker is wider than the gap between the cheapest and most expensive venues in the first table. Making is not right for everyone, though. A resting order can sit unfilled while the price moves away, and many bettors would rather pay the fee than miss the trade.

Does Robinhood Gold lower prediction market fees?

Only at some prices. Since 1 June, Robinhood's commission has been 10% of price × (1 − price), cut to 5% with Gold. That looks like half price.

The same schedule caps commission at one cent per contract. At 50 cents the uncapped rates would be $2.50 per 100 without Gold and $1.25 with it. Both are cut to $1.00.

The working out: Gold's 5% rate hits the cap whenever price × (1 − price) is above 0.2, which is everywhere from about 28 to 72 cents. Across that band Gold and non-Gold commissions are identical. Outside it, Gold helps. At 90 cents it is 45 cents per 100 against 90 cents. If you mostly trade close games, Gold does nothing for your fees.

Why FanDuel Predicts costs most on favourites

FanDuel Predicts charges 2% of your potential payout, taken at checkout. The same 2% applies if you cash out early.

That fee is not linked to uncertainty, so it does not shrink at the ends of the range. It stays at $2.00 per 100 contracts whether the contract costs 50 cents or 95. At 50 cents that is only slightly above Kalshi's $1.75. At 90 cents it is roughly three times Kalshi's 63 cents.

For someone who mostly backs favourites, this one structural difference can outweigh everything else in the comparison.

Which venues don't publish a clear fee?

Several venues make the number hard to find:

• Coinbase shows fees only on the order confirmation screen.
• Novig describes itself as commission-free without giving detail.
• DraftKings DKeX names a $0.01 fee on every contract bought or sold, but the exchange fee charged on top sits behind a login.
• ProphetX publishes a fee of 2% of net gains, with parlays free, in a schedule dated 10 June 2026. Its marketing still says free to play.
• Crypto.com gives three different answers. Its help-centre table shows a taker range of $0.01 to $0.0175 per contract, the worked examples on the same page apply a flat $0.0175, and its learn page says a flat $0.02. We can't give a reliable figure.

Where a rate isn't published, the confirmation screen is the place to check before you commit. The missing disclosure is itself worth weighing.

Can you make money on prediction markets after fees?

Some traders do, but fees make it harder for the group as a whole. Before fees, a prediction market is a transfer between traders: every dollar one side wins, the other side loses. Fees come out of that pool, so traders collectively finish behind by the total fees paid.

Fees are also not the only cost:

• The spread. Buying at the ask and later selling at the bid costs the gap between them, and on thin markets that gap can be larger than any fee in the tables above.
• Round trips. Exiting before settlement usually means paying a fee twice, and on Robinhood the exchange fee too.
• Liquidity. A low fee on a market where nobody is trading the other side of your contract saves nothing.

For occasional traders, a range of 1.5% to 4% on a $50 position barely matters. For anyone working thin margins, such as arbitrage between sportsbooks and prediction markets, fees and spread often decide whether the edge survives at all. A sensible order of checks is liquidity, then fees, then whether you can legally trade on that venue. Our prediction market platforms page lists registration status venue by venue, and every CFTC-regulated venue covers who holds which licence.

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