Why did I pay more than the price shown
The screen said one number. Your order filled at another. Four separate things took the difference.
Why did my crypto order fill at a worse price than the one displayed?
Four things sit between the price you saw and the price you got. The spread — the gap between the best bid and the best ask, which you cross when you buy at market. Slippage — your own order consuming the book and moving the price against you, which grows with your size. The taker fee, charged on entry and again on exit. And on leveraged positions, funding, charged three times a day. On a $1,000 market order these commonly total around 0.34%, meaning price must move that far before you have made anything.
The four charges, in the order they apply
The spread. At any moment there is a highest price someone will buy at and a lowest price someone will sell at. The difference is the spread. Buying at market means paying the ask, which is above the midpoint you saw quoted. On a liquid pair this is a few hundredths of a percent; on a thin altcoin it can be a full percent or more.
Slippage. The best ask exists for a limited quantity. If your order is larger than that quantity, it consumes the next level, and the next. Your average fill is worse than the first price, and the gap grows with size. This is the charge that surprises people most because nothing warns them it is coming.
The taker fee. Typically 0.05% to 0.1% per side, so 0.1% to 0.2% for a round trip. Charged whether the trade wins or loses.
Funding, on leveraged positions. Every eight hours, three times a day. Small per payment and substantial over a week.
Slippage is the one worth understanding properly
The other three are fixed costs you can look up. Slippage depends on you — specifically, on your size relative to the depth of the book at that moment.
An order book is a ladder. There might be 0.4 BTC available at $90,000, another 1.2 at $90,010, another 3 at $90,025. A small order fills entirely at the first level. A large one walks up the ladder and averages out somewhere worse.
This is why the same trade costs different amounts for different people, and why it costs more during volatility — market makers widen their quotes and pull depth exactly when everyone wants to trade.
Our Exit test panel walks the live order book with the size you actually intend and reports what you would receive. Running it before you size up is the difference between knowing your cost and discovering it. The full explanation is in our guide to slippage.
The fix that costs nothing: limit orders
A market order says "fill me now at whatever the price is." A limit order says "fill me at this price or better, and wait if necessary."
The limit order eliminates slippage entirely — you cannot fill worse than your limit — and it usually qualifies for the maker fee, which is roughly half the taker fee. On a round trip that is a saving of about 0.06% before counting the slippage you avoided.
The cost is that it might not fill. In a fast market, price can move away and leave your order sitting. For an entry that is usually acceptable. For an exit during a sharp move it may not be, which is the honest trade-off.
Our guide on limit against market orders covers when each is correct, and maker and taker fees explains the pricing behind it.
What this costs a frequent trader over a year
The arithmetic that changes behaviour. Take a 0.2% round trip cost, which is typical for market orders on a liquid pair before slippage.
Twenty round trips a month is 4% of your capital annually, gone before any profit or loss. Fifty a month is 10%. A hundred is 20% — meaning a strategy must return 20% a year simply to break even on costs.
Switching to limit orders roughly halves this. Reducing frequency halves it again. Neither requires being better at predicting anything, which is why these are the first two improvements worth making.
Our True cost panel combines funding with both fee sides for your actual position size and holding period, and states how far price must move just to break even. Most people find the number higher than their typical target, which is itself the useful finding. Our guide on the hidden costs of trading covers the rest.
When the difference is genuinely the exchange's fault
Rarely, but worth knowing the signature. If your order filled at a price that never appeared in the order book at all, that is an execution problem rather than slippage.
Check the trade history for that pair at the timestamp of your fill. If your fill price sits outside the range that actually traded, take a screenshot and open a ticket — this does happen during outages and exchanges do correct it.
The more common situation, unfortunately, is that the price did trade there for a fraction of a second and you simply did not see it. Our Exchange spread panel shows bitcoin across five venues at once, which distinguishes a genuine market move from one exchange behaving oddly.
Common questions
What is slippage in crypto trading?
The difference between the price you expected and the price you actually got, caused by your order consuming the available depth in the order book. It grows with your position size and with how thin the market is.
How do I avoid slippage?
Use limit orders, which cannot fill worse than your stated price. Trade during liquid hours. And check the book depth at your size first — our exit test panel does this against the live order book.
Why are crypto fees charged twice?
Once when you open and once when you close. A round trip at 0.1% per side costs 0.2% total, which is why frequency matters so much more than most traders assume.
What is the difference between maker and taker fees?
A maker order sits on the book adding liquidity and pays less. A taker order crosses the spread and removes liquidity, paying more. Using limit orders usually qualifies you for the maker rate.
Is the spread a fee?
Not formally, but it is a real cost. Buying at the ask and selling at the bid means losing the spread on every round trip regardless of what the price does.
How much do trading costs add up to over a year?
At 0.2% per round trip, twenty trades a month costs about 4% of capital annually. A hundred trades a month costs about 20%, before any profit or loss.