FuturesAI Payback: What It Returns on $1,000 of Margin
Short answer: On a $1,000 margin at 10x leverage, one taker round trip is $20,000 of volume. At Gate’s listed 0.05% taker fee that costs $10, and the effective 0.015% on FuturesAI’s payback page brings it to $3. On Binance the same trip drops only from $10 to $9. Leverage multiplies both the fee and the saving.
A $1,000 account sounds small until you see how much volume 10x leverage pushes through it. That volume is what fees are charged on.
This is a worked calculation using the rates on FuturesAI’s payback page as I read them on November 4, 2026. It is arithmetic, not a forecast, and it says nothing about whether any trade will win.
Derivatives trading is risky. Leverage can lose your full principal. This is not investment advice.
What This Works Out
- Which rates does the calculation use?
- What does one round trip cost on $1,000 of margin?
- How does leverage change the fee as a share of margin?
- How far must price move just to cover the fee?
- Does payback matter more than a small account’s edge?
- Run your own margin in five lines
Which rates does the calculation use?
FuturesAI’s payback page lists a taker fee and an effective taker fee for each exchange, and the effective figure is stated to be the fee after both the exchange discount and the payback, as shown on the page on November 4, 2026.
When I checked the page, I found that the effective column differs a lot between exchanges. Here are the taker rates used below:
| Exchange | Payback | Listed taker | Effective taker |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gate | 70% | 0.05% | 0.015% |
| Bitget | 50% | 0.06% | 0.015% |
| Toobit | 55% | 0.06% | 0.027% |
| Bybit | 20% | 0.055% | 0.044% |
| OKX | 20% | 0.05% | 0.04% |
| Binance | 10% | 0.05% | 0.045% |
Taker means a market order, the fast and expensive kind. Maker rates are lower and are covered in our limit versus market guide, linked below.
What does one round trip cost on $1,000 of margin?
A round trip with $1,000 of margin at 10x leverage is $10,000 of notional on the way in and $10,000 on the way out, so $20,000 of taker volume, and the fee is the rate multiplied by that volume.
Gate at the listed 0.05%: $20,000 times 0.05% is $10.00. At the effective 0.015% it is $3.00. The gap of $7.00 is the saving, and it comes from the discount and the payback together, not from payback alone.
| Exchange | Listed fee | Effective fee | Saving | Saving as % of margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitget | $12.00 | $3.00 | $9.00 | 0.90% |
| Gate | $10.00 | $3.00 | $7.00 | 0.70% |
| Toobit | $12.00 | $5.40 | $6.60 | 0.66% |
| Bybit | $11.00 | $8.80 | $2.20 | 0.22% |
| OKX | $10.00 | $8.00 | $2.00 | 0.20% |
| Binance | $10.00 | $9.00 | $1.00 | 0.10% |
Per trip, these are small numbers. They stop being small when you repeat them.
How does leverage change the fee as a share of margin?
Leverage scales the fee as a share of margin in a straight line: on Gate’s effective 0.015% taker rate, a round trip costs 0.15% of margin at 5x, 0.30% at 10x and 0.60% at 20x.
The table fixes margin at $1,000 and compares Gate with Binance, the highest and lowest payback on the page.
| Leverage | Notional per side | Gate fee (eff.) | Binance fee (eff.) | Listed fee (both) | Binance fee as % of margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5x | $5,000 | $1.50 | $4.50 | $5.00 | 0.45% |
| 10x | $10,000 | $3.00 | $9.00 | $10.00 | 0.90% |
| 20x | $20,000 | $6.00 | $18.00 | $20.00 | 1.80% |
Read the last column twice. At 20x on Binance’s effective rate, a single market-order round trip already eats 1.8% of your margin before price moves at all.
Honestly, that is the number most beginners never see, because the exchange shows the fee in dollars on the notional, not as a share of your own money.
How far must price move just to cover the fee?
The price must move by the round-trip fee rate before a taker trade breaks even on fees alone, which is 0.03% at Gate’s effective rate and 0.09% at Binance’s effective rate, based on the figures FuturesAI lists.
The move is the same whatever the leverage. What changes is how much of your margin that move represents: at 10x, a 0.09% move is 0.9% of margin, and at 20x it is 1.8%.
- Gate effective: 0.015% in plus 0.015% out is 0.03% of price.
- Binance effective: 0.045% plus 0.045% is 0.09% of price.
- Listed fee on either: 0.05% plus 0.05% is 0.10% of price.
So payback lowers the hurdle. It does not clear it for you.
Does payback matter more than a small account’s edge?
For a small account, the entry price and position size decide the outcome far more than a few dollars of fee saving, because a 1% adverse move at 10x costs 10% of margin, which is $100 on $1,000.
I noticed that the saving column looks big next to the fee column and small next to that $100. Both facts matter. Cutting a $10 fee to $3 is real. It is not protection.
Our yearly payback by trading style post scales this to a full year, and the first 50 USDT withdrawal guide covers how long a payback balance takes to build.
Run your own margin in five lines
- Write your margin and leverage. Multiply to get notional per side.
- Double it for one round trip of volume.
- Multiply by the exchange’s effective taker rate from the live page.
- Divide the dollar fee by your margin to get the percent.
- Compare with the same sum at the listed rate, and note the gap.
If you mostly use limit orders, use the maker column instead. The link to the live page is below.
Tips
- Do the sum in percent of margin, not dollars. It makes leverage comparable across account sizes.
- Use the effective rate for the exchange you actually trade on, after checking your own fee tier.
- Recheck the live rates the day you open the account. Exchanges change fees.
Warnings
- Leverage can lose your full principal. A fee saving never offsets a bad position.
- Effective fees on the page combine a discount and payback. Do not credit payback alone with the full gap.
- This is arithmetic on listed rates, not a prediction. It is not investment advice.
FAQ
Is payback a profit when a trade loses money?
No. Payback only reduces the fee on a trade. A losing trade still loses the price move on top of the fee, so payback cannot turn a losing position into a gain.
Why does the table use margin instead of trading volume?
Margin is the money you actually put up. Showing the fee as a share of margin makes the leverage effect visible, because a 10x position pays fees on ten times the cash behind it.
Do the effective fees on the FuturesAI payback page change?
The page says the rates match each exchange’s detail page, and exchanges can change fees or promotions. Recheck the live page before you plan around any number in this example.
Sources
Rates checked on the live FuturesAI payback page as of November 4, 2026. General information only, not investment advice. Derivatives can lose the full principal.
๐ Related guides
