Buy, sell, withdraw: only one of the three cares how small you are
Every formula below is written out so you can redo it. The rates used are the ones shown on the Binance spot fee page at the time of checking (September 2026): a regular user pays 0.100% maker and 0.100% taker, reduced by 25% when fees are paid in BNB, i.e. 0.075%. Your own rate is whatever your account's fee page says.
In this article
Three charges, three different behaviours
| Charge | How it is levied | As size falls, its share… |
|---|---|---|
| Buy fee | Percentage of trade value | stays the same |
| Sell fee | Percentage of trade value | stays the same |
| Withdrawal fee | Fixed quantity by coin and network | rises |
Collapsing these into one word is how people arrive at "fees are low, it does not matter". The first two genuinely do not care about size. The third is a fixed amount, and the smaller your balance the more of it that amount represents.
How far must the price move to break even
Considering trading fees alone.
Formula. With a one-way rate of f, a buy price of P and a sell price of P', breaking even requires
P' / P ≥ 1 / (1 − f)²
— because the rate is charged once each way and both have to be earned back.
Worked example one (no discount, f = 0.001):
- 1 / (1 − 0.001)² = 1 / 0.998001 ≈ 1.002003
- So the price must rise about 0.20% just to get you level.
Worked example two (paying fees in BNB, f = 0.00075):
- 1 / (1 − 0.00075)² = 1 / 0.99850056 ≈ 1.001502
- About 0.15% to break even.
Note that neither figure depends on how much you invested. A hundred and a hundred thousand need the same percentage move. "Small trades are bad value" is therefore not true of trading fees.
Concretely with 100 units of quote currency and f = 0.001, assuming the price does not move: the buy costs 100 × 0.001 = 0.1, the sell costs roughly 0.0999 on what is left, so a complete round trip is about 0.2 — 0.2% of the stake, matching the formula.
Withdrawal fees and small balances
Withdrawal fees are a fixed quantity that varies by coin and network and is adjusted from time to time, so this site quotes no figure — the withdrawal page shows the current one for the chain you pick.
The share, though, can be shown with an assumption. Suppose a network's fee works out at 1 unit of quote currency:
- withdrawing 50 → a 2% share
- withdrawing 200 → 0.5%
- withdrawing 1000 → 0.1%
The same charge, twenty times the difference. This is why frequent small withdrawals are poor value, and why "let it accumulate first" is standard advice.
(Those numbers are an illustration of the ratio, not any real network's fee. Use what your withdrawal page displays.)
Frequency matters more than size
Extend the break-even formula across repeated trades. After n round trips the cumulative movement you need is approximately
1 / (1 − f)^(2n) − 1
Worked example (f = 0.001):
| Round trips | Cumulative movement needed (approx.) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.20% |
| 5 | 1.01% |
| 10 | 2.02% |
| 30 | 6.19% |
None of those numbers is a loss. They are purely the amount the market has to move in your favour before you start gaining anything. Trade thirty round trips in a month and the market owes you more than six percent before you are level.
Checking that last line: (1/0.999)^60 ≈ 1.0619, so about 6.19%, as tabulated.
This is the reason to reduce frequency rather than increase size. Frequency is the one variable entirely under your control.
Three worked scenarios
All three assume a one-way rate of 0.1%, one buy and one sell, and a withdrawal fee assumed at 1 unit of quote currency.
Fifty in, bought and sold, no withdrawal
- Buy fee: 50 × 0.001 = 0.05
- Sell fee: about 0.05
- Total ≈ 0.1, or 0.2% of the stake
Perfectly acceptable — identical in percentage terms to a far larger trade.
Fifty in, then withdrawn on-chain
- Buy fee: 0.05
- Withdrawal (assumed): 1.00
- Total 1.05, or 2.1%
One fixed charge multiplies the share tenfold. This is what "small withdrawals are expensive" looks like.
Five hundred in, then withdrawn
- Buy fee: 0.5
- Withdrawal (assumed): 1.00
- Total 1.5, or 0.3%
Same fee, ten times the stake, one seventh of the share.
Conclusion: accumulate before withdrawing; if you are not withdrawing, size is not the thing to agonise over.
Two costs that are not called fees
The spread
There is always a gap between the best bid and the best ask. You buy at the ask and sell at the bid, so every round trip crosses it once. On liquid major pairs it is narrow; on obscure coins it can be wide enough to put you behind the moment you open.
This is part of why the advice here is to pick the most boring, most liquid pair for a first trade — not because it is more likely to rise, but because the gap is smallest.
Slippage
Market orders consume the book level by level; the larger the order and the thinner the book, the further your average drifts from the price you saw. It never appears as a line item, but it happened.
Neither is large on small trades, but like fees they occur every time. Set them beside the table above and the case for trading less becomes hard to argue with.
So what size makes sense
- Trading fees do not vary with size, so they impose no minimum.
- Withdrawal fees do impose one. If you plan to move the asset on-chain, the stake needs to be large enough for that fixed charge to be a share you accept.
- If you are not withdrawing, the size can be as small as the pair's minimum order value allows.
- Frequency is the first thing to cut, always.
To see your own numbers, the cost calculator takes stake, rate, round trips and withdrawal fee and returns the cumulative fee, the total share and the break-even movement — all computed in your browser, nothing uploaded.
How to choose the size itself is a separate question, worked from what you can afford to lose: how much for the first trade. How the rate is built up, and where a referral discount sits, is in the fee tiers article.
Every calculation above states its inputs and its formula, which makes them worked illustrations — not predictions, and not a promise of any return. Rates come from the Binance spot fee page, checked September 2026; the current numbers on your own fee and withdrawal pages take precedence over this article.