How to avoid Coinbase Fees

Coinbase is known as the on-ramp to the world of cryptocurrencies. They provide an easy to use interface and lots of security to keep your funds safe. However, these great features come at a price. Luckily it is very easy to avoid the fees, or at least knock them down a lot. This guide will go over the fees and the quick way to avoid Coinbase fees.

The primary Coinbase fees come from buying, selling, and transferring cryptocurrency. The fees can vary based on the method you use to buy or sell. Transferring to another wallet or exchange will incur a fee, but transfers to GDAX are instant and free. Details on these methods are below.

Coinbase Fees for buying/selling:

There is also a spread on the cryptocurrency you are buying or selling. The spread is between 25 to 100 basis points (0.25% — 1%) higher than the market rate on GDAX. This is where using GDAX for your buy/sell orders can save you a lot.

GDAX Fees:

Example of money saved: A purchase of $1,000 in BTC would be charged $14.90 on Coinbase for using a bank account, or $39.90 for using a card. This does not include the spread, which could be up to another $10 on this $1,000 order. Placing the same order on GDAX would be $0 for a limit order and $2.50 for a market order.

Visual Example: Notice in the screenshots below, the Coinbase order for $1,000 of BTC is showing the price at $13,198.53 per BTC and a fee of $14.68 (1st screenshot). When I switched over to GDAX, the price of BTC was around $13,150 (2nd screenshot). This price difference is the spread that was mentioned earlier. The 3rd screenshot is a limit order to buy BTC to illustrate the fees being $0.00 on GDAX. If I had placed a market order the fee would still be 1.24% lower than Coinbase.

Notice the price is around $13,150, which is higher than what Coinbase had. Some may be due to the time it took to switch over to GDAX, but definitely not all of it.

Related posts:

The world is becoming smart, smarter than ever before. There are homes that know how to turn on the lights by judging their intensity and there are cars that can drive themselves. Isn’t it something…

There is no official police report, no official investigation report, no autopsy report, and no toxicology report that gives any information on how Sridevi died. If these reports exist, they have not…