Same partner tier, 8x the payout: the fee base is what you should model

Two operators can sit on the exact same partner tier at an exchange and collect payouts that differ by 8x. The percentage is identical. The base it multiplies is not.

This trips up a lot of people who evaluate a partner program by reading the headline number and stopping there. The number is a share of fees actually paid by the traders attributed to you — not a share of their volume, and not a function of how many of them there are.

The base is fees, not volume

Futures fees on the major venues run roughly 0.02% maker / 0.05% taker at entry tier. Spot is flatter, around 0.10% both sides. So the same notional produces wildly different fee dollars depending on how it was traded.

Worked at a 30% futures share:

Trader profile	Monthly notional	Maker share	Blended rate	Fees paid	Your split
Spot swing trader	$250,000	n/a (0.10%)	0.1000%	$250	$75
Futures scalper	$2,000,000	30%	0.0410%	$820	$246
Futures grid bot	$8,000,000	85%	0.0245%	$1,960	$588

The grid bot operator sends 32x the notional of the spot trader and pays only 7.8x the fees — maker-heavy flow is cheap per dollar moved. But it still pays out nearly 8x more, because volume scales faster than the maker discount shrinks the rate.

MAKER, TAKER = 0.0002, 0.0005

def monthly_split(notional, maker_share, share=0.30):
    blended = maker_share * MAKER + (1 - maker_share) * TAKER
    return notional * blended * share

print(round(monthly_split(8_000_000, 0.85), 2))   # 588.0
print(round(monthly_split(2_000_000, 0.30), 2))   # 246.0

Why this changes what you optimize

If you publish content, your growth lever is headcount — more readers, more clicks, more sign-ups. Each one is a small, mostly-spot, high-churn base.

If you run a bot community or a signals group, headcount is almost irrelevant. One member running a grid strategy at $8M monthly notional is worth roughly eight casual spot traders, and they don't churn the same way — an automated strategy keeps trading while its operator is asleep or bored.

So the fee table isn't a marketing detail. It's the thing that tells you which audience to go get. A creator reads the table to estimate income. An operator reads it to decide what kind of member to recruit, and the answer is usually "fewer, with API keys."

Full breakdown of the tier structure and what it resolves to: Binance affiliate commission table. Raw fee schedules I keep versioned here: crypto-exchange-fee-data.

Three caveats worth stating plainly

1. Headline rates are ceilings, not entitlements. Published tiers are "up to" figures gated on volume and account tests. Assume the entry tier until a backend says otherwise.
2. Attribution windows are the silent failure mode. A trader who registers through one path and funds weeks later may not bind to you at all. Check the binding rule before you model anything.
3. Fee tiers move underneath you. As a member climbs VIP levels their own fees drop, which shrinks the base your split multiplies. Growth in member sophistication can flatten your payout curve.

Model the base, not the percentage. The percentage is the easy part and it's the part everyone quotes.

Independent write-up, not affiliated with or endorsed by any exchange. Rates and tier rules change — verify current terms at the source. Not financial advice.