Aster Fees Explained: Perps, Spot, 1001x & ASTER Discounts (2026)

Trading fees decide how much of your edge actually reaches your wallet. On a perpetuals exchange where you might cycle in and out of positions dozens of times a day, a few basis points compound into real money. This guide breaks down every fee on Aster DEX in 2026 — perp maker and taker rates, spot rates, the unusual 1001x fee model, and the two stackable discounts that lower your effective cost. We use only verified figures, and because Aster revises its schedule often, we flag exactly where you should confirm the live numbers yourself.

The Aster fee schedule at a glance

Aster is a multi-chain decentralized perpetuals exchange with order-book perps, spot, and a one-click high-leverage mode. Each of those surfaces has its own fee structure. Here is the base-tier schedule as documented in 2026:

The headline takeaway: Aster's maker fee on perpetuals is zero. If you trade with resting limit orders that add liquidity to the book, you pay nothing on the perp side. That is aggressive even by DEX standards and it shapes the optimal way to trade here, which we cover in the fee-minimization section below.

Perpetual fees: maker vs taker

Perps are Aster's flagship product, covering crypto, stocks, and commodities — and the stock and commodity perps trade 24/7, settling in USDT. The fee model is the standard maker/taker split:

• Maker (0%) — You post a limit order that rests in the order book and waits to be filled. You are adding liquidity, so Aster charges nothing on USDT-margined pairs.
• Taker (0.04%) — You hit an existing order with a market order or a marketable limit, removing liquidity. You pay 0.04% of the position's notional value.

A worked example makes it concrete. Open a $10,000 notional BTC perp position as a taker and the fee is $10,000 × 0.0004 = $4. Open the same position as a maker — a limit order that rests and gets filled — and you pay $0. Round-trip that taker position (open and close, both as taker) and you've spent $8; round-trip it entirely as a maker and you've spent nothing on trading fees. Note that funding payments are separate from trading fees and still apply to any perp you hold across funding intervals.

If you margin with USD1 instead of USDT, the taker rate drops to 0.005%, though USDT remains the primary collateral most traders use. Whichever collateral you pick, the maker side stays at 0%.

Spot fees

Aster also runs an order-book spot market (for example, ASTERUSDT). Spot fees follow the same maker/taker logic but with slightly different numbers:

• Maker: 0.005% — Unlike perps, spot makers pay a small fee, but it's tiny: $0.50 on a $10,000 trade.
• Taker: 0.04% — The same 0.04% taker rate as perps, or $4 on a $10,000 trade.

Spot is where you'd buy and hold the ASTER token outright rather than gain leveraged exposure through a perp. Because there's no leverage, the absolute fees on a given dollar amount of exposure are higher than a leveraged perp position controlling the same notional — but you also carry no liquidation risk and pay no funding.

The 1001x fee model

Aster's 1001x mode — its fully on-chain, MEV-resistant, one-click leverage product on select pairs like BTC and ETH — uses a different fee model than the order book. Instead of a maker/taker split, it charges open and close fees on notional, and the structure changes at the highest leverage tiers:

• Standard 1001x tiers — roughly 0.08% to open + 0.08% to close, calculated on the position's notional value. On a $10,000 position that's about $8 in and $8 out.
• Very high leverage (≈500x–1001x) — no opening fee. Instead, Aster applies a dynamic closing fee on your realized PnL, with a stated minimum around 0.03%. The idea is that you're not charged to enter an extreme-leverage position; you pay on the way out, scaled to what you actually made.
• Network execution fee — because 1001x runs on-chain via the ALP pool on BNB Chain and Arbitrum, there's a small per-execution network cost: roughly $0.50 on BNB and $0.20 on Arbitrum.

Why the unusual structure? Extreme leverage means a tiny notional fee on a huge position size could swamp your margin. By waiving the open fee and charging a small dynamic fee on realized profit instead, Aster keeps the cost proportional to outcome rather than to the eye-watering notional that 1001x can produce.

Two stackable discounts that cut your fees

This is where Aster gets genuinely interesting for cost-conscious traders. There are two distinct discounts, and they apply to different parts of the fee flow — so you can run both at once.

Discount 1 — Pay your fees in ASTER (5% off)

Inside the Aster app there's a toggle to pay trading fees in the native ASTER token. Flip it on and you receive a 5% discount on perp and spot fees. It's a utility hook for the token: holding a small ASTER balance and using it to settle fees shaves 5% off your trading costs automatically. This is the same mechanic that funds Aster's broader token economy, where a June 2026 upgrade directs the vast majority of daily platform fees toward ASTER buybacks for veASTER stakers.

Discount 2 — Referral discount with code MMTz04 (5% off)

Aster's referral program pays a default 10% commission on referred users' trades, and the referrer can split that with the referee. Asterpedia's code MMTz04 uses a 5%/5% split, which means you, the referred user, receive a 5% fee discount when you sign up through it. To activate it, register on asterdex.com with the referral applied. The discount lasts 365 days and is credited in the fee asset.

Stacking them

Because one discount comes from how you pay (in ASTER) and the other comes from who referred you (the referral split), they're independent. An active trader who both signs up under MMTz04 and toggles on pay-in-ASTER captures both 5% reductions on eligible fees.

How to minimize your Aster fees

Putting it all together, here's a practical playbook for paying as little as possible:

1. Sign up with the referral code. Register on the Aster app with code MMTz04 to lock in the 5% referral discount for 365 days. Do this before your first trade — it can't be applied retroactively.
2. Toggle on pay-in-ASTER. Hold a small ASTER balance and enable the fee toggle for an additional 5% off perp and spot fees.
3. Trade as a maker whenever you can. On USDT-margined perps the maker fee is 0%. Posting resting limit orders instead of market-buying means you pay nothing on the perp leg. This is the single biggest lever on your fee bill.
4. Use limit orders on spot too. Spot makers pay 0.005% versus 0.04% for takers — an 8x difference. If you're not in a hurry to fill, set a limit.
5. Mind the 1001x close fee. On extreme-leverage positions the cost lands on the way out and scales with your PnL. Factor that into your exit, and remember the small on-chain network fee per execution.
6. Right-size your frequency. Even small per-trade fees compound across hundreds of round trips. Fewer, better-sized takers often beat constant churn.

Consider a trader running $10,000 notional perp positions purely as a taker, 20 round trips a day. Gross taker fees come to 20 × 2 × $4 = $160/day. Apply both 5% discounts and that drops to roughly $144/day — about $480 saved a month from two toggles. Now shift those entries to maker orders where possible and the perp trading fee approaches zero. The lesson: discounts help, but order type is the real fee lever on Aster.

How Aster's fees compare conceptually

We won't quote competitor numbers here — they move just as fast as Aster's — but it's worth understanding where Aster sits philosophically. A 0% maker fee on perpetuals is at the aggressive end of the market. Many order-book and on-chain perp venues charge something on both sides of the book; Aster's choice to charge makers nothing on USDT perps is a deliberate play to attract liquidity providers and tighten spreads.

The taker rate of 0.04% is competitive rather than category-leading, which is typical: exchanges subsidize makers (who provide liquidity) and recoup it from takers (who consume it). What sets Aster apart is the stack of structural cost reducers — the pay-in-ASTER discount and the referral split — layered on top of an already low base. For a fuller, feature-by-feature breakdown against the leading on-chain perp venue, see our Aster vs Hyperliquid comparison.

The other differentiator is the 1001x model. Charging a PnL-based closing fee at extreme leverage instead of a flat notional fee is unusual, and it reflects a product designed around very high leverage rather than retrofitted onto it. Whether that's cheaper for you depends entirely on your win rate and position sizing — which is exactly why you should read the live terms before using it.

Bottom line

Aster's fee story in 2026 is straightforward: zero maker fees on perps, a modest 0.04% taker, low spot rates, and an unconventional 1001x model that bills on PnL at the top leverage tiers. Layer on two independent 5% discounts — paying in ASTER and the MMTz04 referral — and an organized trader can run a very low-cost operation. If you're new to the platform, start with our getting-started trading guide and browse the wider Aster ecosystem to see how the token and fee mechanics fit together. And whatever you do, confirm the current numbers in the app before you trade — on Aster, the only constant about fees is that they keep being optimized.