BingX vs Binance: which is better in 2026?

Posted by the operator of RebateMax

I run a fee-rebate service for BingX. That is the disclosure, up front, because a comparison written by someone who earns on one side of it deserves to be read with that in mind. Binance is the largest exchange in the world and I am not going to pretend otherwise. What follows is the published numbers from both, the arithmetic, and the cases where I think Binance is the better choice.

Every rate below is copied from the exchange's own fee page on the date shown, not from a review site. Both pages are linked at the end so you can check them.

The two fee schedules, side by side

Standard tier, the rate you pay as a new account with no VIP status and no discount applied.

BingX rates as published July 2026 (see the fee explainer). Binance rates from its Fee Rate pages (Spot & Margin; USDⓈ-M Futures, USDT-margined column), read 2026-09-03.

Identical. Every cell. If you have read comparison posts that claim one of these venues is "cheaper" at the base tier, they were either comparing different tiers or not reading the tables.

So the base schedule cannot decide this for you. What decides it is the discount each venue offers below the base schedule, and how hard it is to get.

The discounts, which is where they actually differ

Binance's discount is paying fees in BNB. Hold BNB in your account, switch on "Use BNB to pay fees", and Binance takes 25% off spot fees and 10% off futures fees. Spot becomes 0.075% either side; perpetuals become 0.018% maker / 0.045% taker. The catch is that you have to hold BNB, which means carrying a position in Binance's own token whether or not you want one, and topping it up as fees drain it.

BingX's discount is the referral tier. Register through our link and BingX applies a lifetime 50% discount to your trading fees at the exchange level. Spot becomes 0.05% either side; perpetuals become 0.01% maker / 0.025% taker. Nothing to hold, no monthly reset, no portal. The mechanism is explained in full in how the referral program works: BingX pays us a commission on your fees and most of it goes back to you as the discount. You pay us nothing.

That is the whole comparison in one table:

On the taker side, which is most of an active futures trader's bill, the BingX referral rate is 0.025% against Binance's best non-VIP rate of 0.045%. That is 44% less, and it does not require holding anything.

What that looks like over a year

Fee = notional volume × rate, on each fill. The table assumes a 50/50 maker-taker mix, which is where most retail traders sit, plus a taker-only column for traders who never rest an order. Volume is notional, not margin: a $10,000 position at 10x leverage is $10,000 of volume.

Annual figures, perpetuals. Effective blended rates: standard 0.035%, Binance with BNB 0.0315%, BingX referral 0.0175% at 50/50; 0.05%, 0.045% and 0.025% taker-only. Funding, slippage and withdrawals are excluded, and for anyone holding leveraged positions overnight, funding will be the larger cost. The fee calculator runs the same formula on your own number.

The BNB discount saves a $200,000-a-month trader $84 a year. The referral discount saves the same trader $420. At $1,000,000 a month taker-only the gap is $5,400 against $3,000, a difference of $2,400 a year on the same trades.

The column I have a stake in is the last one. I have shown the arithmetic so you do not have to take my word for it.

What the VIP ladders do to this

Both exchanges discount for volume. This is where Binance pulls ahead if you are large, and where you should be honest with yourself about whether you are.

Binance's VIP 1 on futures needs $5,000,000 of 30-day futures volume and a 5 BNB balance, and it moves maker from 0.02% to 0.018% while taker stays at 0.05%. VIP 2 needs $10,000,000 and 25 BNB for 0.016% / 0.04%. The ladder runs to VIP 9 at 0% maker / 0.017% taker, which needs $25 billion a month. Even VIP 2 taker, 0.04%, is above the 0.025% the BingX referral gives from the first trade.

BingX runs its own eight-level ladder on rolling 30-day volume, and the referral discount sits on top of whatever tier you reach. It is structural rather than a threshold you defend each month.

The honest summary: if you trade tens of millions a month, both venues will negotiate with you and this post is not written for you. Below that, the referral discount on BingX beats every Binance tier you are realistically going to reach, and beats the BNB discount at every tier.

Where Binance is the better venue

Fees are one input. I would be lying by omission if I stopped there, and on the non-fee inputs Binance wins most of them.

Liquidity. Binance is the deepest venue in crypto by most public measures. I have not measured order-book depth on either venue myself, so I will not quote a number; open the book on the pair you actually trade, at the size you actually trade, and look at the spread. If you trade size on a thin pair, the slippage difference can be larger than the entire fee difference in this post, in Binance's favour.

Product range. Binance's fee page alone lists spot and margin, USDⓈ-M and COIN-M futures, TradFi futures, options, stocks, P2P and fiat. If you want everything under one login, Binance has the wider shelf. BingX's strengths are spot, perpetuals and copy trading.

Ecosystem. Launchpool, Earn, a card, an academy, the largest listing pipeline in the industry. None of this is trading-fee math, and it is a real reason people stay on Binance.

Security history. Binance's last major hot-wallet theft was in 2019 and it covered users from its own insurance fund. BingX lost hot-wallet funds in September 2024 and also committed to covering user losses in full; I wrote about it, including what it cost me, in Is BingX safe?. Neither incident touched user accounts directly. The same rule applies to both, and to every exchange: keep on the venue what you are actively trading, and nothing more.

Regulation and availability. Binance has had more regulatory trouble than any exchange in the industry, and has also made more progress toward licences in more jurisdictions than any other. Both venues restrict certain countries, and Binance in particular runs separate entities for some markets. Check your jurisdiction on both before opening an account.

Who should use which

Use Binance if you trade at a size where depth matters more than fees, you want options, stocks or other instruments BingX does not list, you already hold BNB and are happy to keep holding it, or you want one account for everything.

Use BingX if your trading is spot and perpetuals, you want copy trading, or you want the lowest fee bill available without holding a token or defending a volume tier. Through the referral, that bill is half the standard schedule, and 44% below Binance's BNB rate on the taker side.

Use both if you already do. Plenty of traders keep a Binance account for depth and range and a BingX account for cost, and route each trade to the venue that suits it. There is no loyalty prize for picking one.

The check that takes ten minutes

Do not take my table on trust. In whichever exchange you use today, export your last 30 days of trades, sum the fee column, and divide by total notional. That is your real effective rate. Compare it to the schedule above. If it is above 0.04% on perpetuals, you are paying more than you need to, on either venue.

Both fee pages, so you can verify every number here: BingX fee schedule, Binance spot fee rate and Binance USDⓈ-M futures fee rate.