The Complete Guide to Coinbase Fees (and How to Avoid Them)

The Complete Guide to Coinbase Fees (and How to Avoid Them)

There are so many new subs to this forum and a lot of them are Coinbase users. Yeah Coinbase has a cool graph that shows you your portfolio. It’s also very easy to use for a beginner.

Now there is nothing wrong with Coinbase (except, of course, the mind boggling fees) but I haven’t seen any post addressing how to use Coinbase without paying crazy fees or at least the best strategy to pay as little fees as possible. So here we go.

Quick (or not so quick) overview of fees:

Buying Fixed Fees

• If the total transaction amount is less than or equal to $10, the fee is $0.99
• If the total transaction amount is more than $10 but less than or equal to $25, the fee is $1.49
• If the total transaction amount is more than $25 but less than or equal to $50, the fee is $1.99
• If the total transaction amount is more than $50 but less than or equal to $200, the fee is $2.99

TLDR $10 or less $0.99 fee $10.01-$25 $1.49 fee $25.01-$50 $1.99 fee $50.01-$200 $2.99 fee

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

Buying Variable Fees:

US Bank Account 1.49% Coinbase USD Wallet 1.49% Debit Card or PayPal 3.99%

BUT WAIT THERES EVEN MORE!!

Coinbase charges a spread of about one-half of one percent (0.50%) for cryptocurrency purchases and cryptocurrency sales. However, the actual spread may be higher or lower due to market fluctuations in the price of cryptocurrency on Coinbase Pro between the time we quote a price and the time when the order executes.

This means if you buy bitcoin and the market price is $50,000, they will charge you the purchase price of $50,000 plus half a percent. So you’ll be getting less bitcoin than you should be, by half of a percent. They do this is case there is a crazy spike in price between the time you confirm and the transaction actually goes through.

CONVERSIONS

For conversions from one coin to the other, you’ll be charged a spread fee which is equal to or less than 2%.

Real life example

You buy $10 in crypto After fees you have $8.96

You buy $25 in crypto After fees you have $23.39

You buy $50 in crypto After fees you have $47.77

You buy $200 in crypto After fees you have $196.02

You buy $1000 in crypto After fees you have $980.39

Now you also have to pay these fees when you are selling. So here is what we have if you bought and sold at same price:

You buy $10 in crypto After fees you have $8.96 After selling $7.97 Over 20% lost

You buy $25 in crypto After fees you have $23.39 After selling $21.90 Over 12% lost

You buy $50 in crypto After fees you have $47.77 After selling $45.78 Over 8% lost

You buy $200 in crypto After fees you have $196.02 After selling $193.03 Over 3.5% lost

You buy $1000 in crypto After fees you have $980.39 After selling $965.78 Over 3.4% lost

Now how do we not get killed on fees?

1. Use Coinbase Pro if possible. Fees are capped at 0.5% no matter how much you buy. You can transfer between Coinbase and Coinbase pro free of charge.
2. If you’re going to buy anything, buy at least $200 worth of it. Do NOT buy small amounts of something on here. If your DCA, instead of doing $50 every week, do $200 every four weeks.
3. Do not day trade. It’s hard to make money day trading when you’re automatically down 5% just from fees.
4. Use bank account to buy coins, not debit card.
5. Only buy when market is going up. If you buy when it’s going down you will end up paying even more due to their spread fee (yes I know, hard to know when it’s going to go up).
6. Use Coinbase if you’re planning on holding coins for a long time.

I really just recommend you to use Binance.us or kraken. If you buy $100 worth of bitcoin, your fees are only $0.05 on Binance!!!

Hope this helped. Let me know if I missed anything!

TLDR; If you really have to use Coinbase, only purchase $200 or more at a given time. Don’t day trade, and hold for long periods of time. If you can use a different exchange like Binance, switch over.