Which crypto exchange is cheapest? It depends on the coin

Ask which crypto exchange is cheapest and the useful answer is another question: cheapest for which coin? Each exchange is its own market, with its own order book for every coin it lists, so the lowest price for Bitcoin can be on one exchange while the lowest for Solana is on another, and either can change within the minute. The spot index ranks the exchanges you have on for every coin at once, live, so you can check the coin you're actually trading.

Why is no exchange cheapest for every coin?

• Every order book is its own market. Each has its own buyers, sellers and market makers. An exchange can be the busiest market for one coin and a quiet one for the next.
• Prices never stop moving. Traders who buy where a coin is cheap and sell where it's dear keep prices close, but not equal, and the cheapest exchange changes as orders come and go. Why prices differ goes into the reasons.
• Not every exchange prices in dollars. Many price in USDC or USDT, which trade a little either side of a dollar. The site converts them at Kraken's live rates, so every exchange compares like for like.
• Buying and selling are different questions. The cheapest place to buy is the exchange with the lowest ask; the best place to sell is the one with the highest bid, and it's often somewhere else.

How the spot index ranks exchanges

On the spot index, choose Buying or Selling. Buying compares each exchange's best ask, the lowest price anyone is selling at there; Selling compares best bids. Then, for each coin:

• "best" marks the cheapest exchange, and any within half a basis point of it.
• The other exchanges show how many basis points they're behind. A basis point is 0.01%, so 10 bps on a $10,000 order is $10.
• The gap is the worst exchange against the best. Under about 5 bps it hardly matters where you trade; over 20 it's worth a look. Sorted by gap, the widest come first.

Under the table, Cheapest most often names the exchange with the lowest price on the most coins right now, and on how many. Even that exchange is best on only part of the list; the rest are spread across the others. It's a leaderboard. The row that counts is your coin's.

How to find the cheapest exchange for your coin

1. Open the spot index and choose Buying or Selling.
2. Find your coin with the search at the top of the page.
3. Read its row: which exchange is best, how far behind the others are, and how wide the gap is.
4. Sort by an exchange's column to see where that exchange is best. Each column sorts dearest first; click it again, or follow a link such as Kraken's, best first, for the coins where it's cheapest.
5. Switch on more exchanges, on-chain ones included. The index compares only the exchanges you have on, and each one you add can only match or beat the best price you see now.

The cheapest price isn't always the cheapest trade

The best ask is what a small order pays. A bigger order works down the book past it, level by level, so how much each exchange has for sale near the best price decides what the whole order costs. Each exchange also charges its own fee, which falls as your 30-day volume grows.

An example, with made-up figures, of how depth can turn the ranking round:

Example figures, not market data. A has the better price, but only B can fill the whole order at its best ask.

The Trade simulator on each coin's page does this with the live books. Enter your amount and it walks every book you have on, adds each exchange's fee at your own tier if you switch fees on, and ranks the exchanges by what the order really costs. Bitcoin's is a good place to start, and what depth means for a big order explains why the ranking can change with the amount.

When the cheapest exchange isn't one you can use

Some exchanges don't serve every country, and some of their markets aren't open to everyone. The index compares the prices exchanges publish, so it can show a best price you can't trade at. Check what each exchange offers where you live, and switch off the ones you can't use: the ranking is then one you can act on.

What about perpetuals?

On perpetuals the running cost is funding, not the price you open at. The perpetuals index shows each exchange's funding as a yearly rate, and the summary under it names the exchange that's cheapest to hold a long, or best paid to hold a short, on the most coins. Funding rates, side by side explains how to read them.

Not financial advice. Prices move while you read them.