How does Polymarket make money? Fees, rebates and investors

Polymarket is not a bookmaker. Its documentation says users trade “directly with other users, not against the house” through a peer-to-peer order book (Polymarket 101), so it cannot profit from users losing. Its income is the fee charged when a trade matches. On top of that, it has raised large sums from investors — money that funds the company but is not revenue.

On the international site, Polymarket charges a taker fee on most categories; makers — whose resting orders get filled — pay nothing. The fee is C × feeRate × p × (1 − p), where C is the number of shares and p the price, so it is largest at 50¢ and shrinks towards 1¢ and 99¢ (docs.polymarket.com/trading/fees).

The rate depends on the category, as published on 1 October 2026: 0.07 for crypto; 0.05 for sports, economics, culture, weather and other markets; 0.04 for politics, finance, tech and mentions. Geopolitics and world-events markets are fee-free, and Polymarket states it does not profit from trading on them. Buying 100 shares at 50¢ costs $1.75 in fees on a crypto market and $1.00 on a political one. Polymarket charges nothing to deposit or withdraw, though the exchange or on-ramp you use may.

Not all of it stays with Polymarket. A share of taker fees is paid back daily to the makers whose orders were filled — 20% in crypto, 15% in sports and 25% in the other fee-enabled categories, a split Polymarket says it may change at its discretion (Maker Rebates Program). Since 28 May 2026 a tiered Taker Rebate Program also returns part of the fee to high-volume takers (Taker Rebate Program), and separate liquidity rewards pay makers for quoting close to the midpoint.

Apps built on Polymarket can add their own “builder fee”, up to 1% for takers, which stacks on top of Polymarket’s fee and goes to the app, not to Polymarket (Builder Fees). If you trade through a third-party front end, check what it adds.

US residents cannot use polymarket.com; they trade on Polymarket US, run by QCX LLC, a CFTC-designated exchange. Polymarket bought QCX and its clearing house in July 2025, in a deal reported at $112 million (Finance Magnates).

Its fee schedule is its own. From 25 September 2026 the taker fee is 0.0695 × C × p × (1 − p) — $1.74 per 100 contracts at 50¢ — and makers receive a rebate of 0.0125 on the same curve, $0.31 at 50¢. Takers above $250,000 of monthly volume get 10–50% back. Combos (multi-leg trades) have a steeper curve whose coefficient rises from 0.04 to 0.06 on 1 October 2026 (docs.polymarket.us/fees). The two sites are compared in Polymarket vs Polymarket US.

Polymarket also lists perpetual contracts — leveraged positions on indexes, commodities, crypto and equities that do not expire. They carry a conventional exchange fee on notional value: 0.04% for takers and 0.0125% for makers at the entry tier, falling with 30-day volume to a maker rebate at the top (Perps fees). These are leveraged products and outside what this site reviews.

The largest outside backer is Intercontinental Exchange, owner of the New York Stock Exchange. On 7 October 2025 ICE announced an investment of up to $2 billion at a pre-money valuation of about $8 billion, and said it would become a global distributor of Polymarket’s event-driven data to its institutional clients (ICE, 7 October 2025). It invested $1 billion that October and a further $600 million in cash on 27 March 2026, plus purchases of up to $40 million of existing holders’ shares, completing its commitment (ICE, 27 March 2026).

Investment is capital, not income: it pays for the US exchange, the rebates and the staff, and is no evidence that trading is profitable. The data partnership is a revenue line in principle, but neither company has disclosed its terms.

Polymarket is a private company and publishes no revenue, profit or fee totals. Because the international exchange settles on the Polygon blockchain, fees can be estimated from on-chain data, and third parties publish such estimates — but they differ in method, they miss Polymarket US and the perpetuals, and they do not subtract rebates. We do not print a revenue figure we cannot source to the company.

For a trader the relevant number is the fee on your own order: as a taker buying at 50¢ on polymarket.com it is 2–3.5% of what you pay, depending on category, and a larger share of the cost on cheap contracts; as a maker it is zero, with a rebate on top. Compare that with other venues using fees and the true cost of a trade and Kalshi vs Polymarket, and check that an edge survives the fee with the expected value calculator. The full Polymarket review covers the rest — liquidity, resolution and who can use it.