Kalshi fees, measured against the tape.

The per-contract taker fee is 0.07 times price times one minus price, with the order total rounded up to the next cent. Price is in dollars: at 50 cents the fee is 0.07 x 0.50 x 0.50, which is 1.75 cents. The curve is a parabola, peaking exactly at 50 cents and falling symmetrically toward both ends.

Makers pay 25 percent of the taker fee: about 0.44 cents at the 50 cent peak against the taker's 1.75. The discount is the exchange pricing patience. A trader who posts at 53 and waits pays roughly a quarter of what a trader who crosses to 54 pays, on top of getting the better price.

Take a market quoted 52 bid, 54 ask, and a taker who buys 100 YES at 54 cents. The fee is 0.07 x 0.54 x 0.46, about 1.74 cents per contract, $1.74 on the order. All-in cost is 55.74 cents per contract, so the position breaks even only if the true probability exceeds 55.7 percent, a full 2.7 points above the 53 cent midpoint. Roughly half that gap is the fee and half is the crossed half-spread, and both are paid before the trader's opinion earns anything.

Measured from Kalshi's public tape by WhaleScanr, July 2026: over 7 trailing days the exchange printed 54.9 million trades for $2.7 billion in taker dollars. Of those dollars, 23.9 percent executed in the 40 to 60 cent band, where the fee sits at or near its 1.75 cent peak. Nearly a quarter of the money trades exactly where trading is most expensive. The fee schedule is public; where the dollars sit is what the tape adds. .

The fee matters relative to the edge a trader believes they hold, and the ratio moves sharply with price. A 3 point edge at 50 cents pays 1.75 cents of fee, 58 percent of the edge, before any spread cost. The same 3 point edge at 90 cents pays 0.63 cents, about 21 percent. This is a description of costs, not a recommendation about where to trade.