If you run a trading community, exchanges court you with one number — a headline "up to X%" of the fees your community's users generate. On paper it reads like a flat cut. In practice, the amount you keep is the output of a small pipeline, and most people never model the stages between the sticker rate and their actual payout.
Here are the three stages that decide your take-home.
Stage 1 — the ceiling is conditional
"Up to 40%" is a maximum, not a rate. It resolves upward only when your team's monthly volume clears higher bands. A partner tree doing $2M notional a month usually sits two bands below the top.
| 30d team volume (USDT) | Applied fee share |
|---|---|
| < 5,000,000 | ~20% |
| 5M – 20M | ~30% |
| 20M+ | up to the ceiling |
Stage 2 — the base the % applies to
The share is taken on net trading fees, after the venue's own maker/taker discounts and any VIP reductions your users already earn. A user on a 0.02% maker tier produces a far smaller fee base than the 0.10% sticker implies. A high headline % on a thin base often pays less than a modest % on a full one.
Stage 3 — timing and clawbacks
Payout lands on the venue's official backend, typically on a daily or rolling settlement, and reverses if a trade is later voided. None of the headline math is contractual — it's a model, not a promise.
A back-of-envelope calculation:
take_home = team_net_fees * applied_share
= (volume * effective_fee_rate) * band_share
# 10M USDT volume, 0.04% blended net fee, 30% band
= 10_000_000 * 0.0004 * 0.30
= 1,200 USDT / month
Swap in your own numbers and the headline usually lands 30–50% below what a naive reader assumes, because both the band and the fee base pull it down at the same time.
I keep the raw venue fee schedules I use for these models in a public repo — maker/taker tables by tier, updated as exchanges change them: https://github.com/jack0752168/crypto-exchange-fee-data
The full split modeling for OKX's partner-tree structure, and how the bands actually apply, is written up here: https://www.jacktrader.xyz/en/blog/okx-sub-broker-affiliate-program.html
Model your own base before you pick a venue on its headline. Not financial advice.
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