Scalping Break-Even After Fees: How Many Basis Points Does a Scalp Need?
A scalp has no edge until it has paid for itself, and what it has to pay is the round-trip fee. On Bybit futures that is 0.11% with market orders on both legs — 11 basis points of price movement before a cent of profit — and 0.04% with resting limit orders. Here is the break-even math, a worked example at 30 scalps a day, and what a fee rebate does to the hurdle. To run your own size and fill mix, use the Bybit fee calculator.
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The short answer
A scalp breaks even when the price has moved exactly the round-trip fee in your favour — the fee on the entry plus the fee on the exit. Break-even move = round-trip fee. On Bybit futures, market orders both ways cost 0.055% + 0.055% = 0.11%: the trade must capture 11 basis points before it has earned a cent. With resting limit orders on both legs the round trip is 0.02% + 0.02% = 0.04%, or 4 bps. OKX and Bitget sit in the same band: 0.10% and 0.12% taker-taker, 0.04% maker-maker.
Those are the hurdles at the exchanges' published rates. A fee rebate lowers them without changing a single order: at 40% back the Bybit taker-taker hurdle drops to 6.6 bps, and at the top tier of up to 50% it is 5.5 bps — half the distance the price has to travel before a scalp is working for you rather than for the fee schedule.
The math, in one paragraph
Per side, your fee rate is maker × (1 − t) + taker × t, where t is the share of your fills that cross the spread as taker. The round trip is twice that — two legs, one fee each. The break-even move is the round trip itself, and with a rebate at rate r it becomes round trip × (1 − r). Everything else about a scalp — target, stop, hold time — sits on top of that number, which is why scalpers count in basis points rather than percentages: with 1 bp = 0.01%, the Bybit taker-taker round trip is 11 bps, the maker-maker round trip is 4 bps, and every fill mix in between lies on the straight line joining them. It is the same identity that drives the grid fee calculator, where the grid step plays the role of the scalp's target.
A worked example
Take a $20,000 position on Bybit futures, 30 scalps a day, entered with a resting limit order and closed at market — the most common scalping pattern, and a taker share of exactly 50%. Per side that is 0.02% × 0.5 + 0.055% × 0.5 = 0.0375%, so the round trip is 0.075%, or 7.5 bps. On $20,000 that is $15 per scalp before the trade has made anything. At 30 scalps a day it is $450 a day; over 20 trading days, $9,000 a month; annualised, about $108,000 — on roughly $24 million of monthly notional.
Now put the rebate in. At 40% back the same 30 scalps cost $9 each: $5,400 a month, about $64,800 a year, and the hurdle falls from 7.5 bps to 4.5 bps. At the top tier of up to 50% the cost is $7.50 a scalp: $4,500 a month, about $54,000 a year, and the hurdle is 3.75 bps. The trades are identical and the exchange charges the same rate — the only thing that changed is how much of the fee comes back the next morning.
What the round trip costs on each exchange
Round-trip fees on futures at the published schedules, and the effective round trip at the top rebate tier — up to 50% on Bybit, up to 40% on OKX and Bitget, tiered on monthly volume. The rebate does not change the rate the exchange charges; it returns part of it in USDT the next day, so the right-hand figures are what a scalp actually has to clear:
| Exchange | Top rebate tier | Taker + taker round trip | Maker + maker round trip |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bybit | up to 50% | 0.11% → 0.055% (11 → 5.5 bps) | 0.04% → 0.02% (4 → 2 bps) |
| OKX | up to 40% | 0.10% → 0.06% (10 → 6 bps) | 0.04% → 0.024% (4 → 2.4 bps) |
| Bitget | up to 40% | 0.12% → 0.072% (12 → 7.2 bps) | 0.04% → 0.024% (4 → 2.4 bps) |
Why taker share is the hidden variable
Most scalpers think of themselves as limit-order traders and quote the 4 bps figure. The fill log usually says otherwise. Entries rest on the book and fill as maker, but exits do not: a target that gets hit by a fast move is often lifted at market to be sure of the fill, a stop-loss is a market order by definition, and anything closed in a hurry crosses the spread. On Bybit the taker rate is 2.75× the maker rate, on OKX 2.5×, on Bitget 3× — so a strategy that is maker on entry and taker on exit is not paying 4 bps, it is paying 7.5 bps, nearly double.
The sensitivity is linear and worth memorising: on Bybit, every 10 percentage points of taker share adds 0.7 bps to the round trip. In the example above that is $1.40 per scalp, about $840 a month, roughly $10,000 a year — per ten points. All-maker fills would cost the example trader about $57,600 a year; all-taker fills, about $158,400. Before hunting for a better setup, look at where the exits are being filled — moving them from market to limit is worth about as much as the top rebate tier, and the two stack.
Fees are the input you control
You cannot control whether the next scalp works. You can control what each one costs to attempt, and for a strategy that trades 600 times a month that cost is the largest line in the ledger. Signing up with the code REBATLY links your new account to Rebatly's registered affiliate program: the exchange pays its usual affiliate commission, and Rebatly shares it back with you as a fee rebate — up to 50% on Bybit, up to 40% on OKX and Bitget, tiered on monthly volume, which a scalper reaches faster than almost anyone. It is calculated daily on the fees you actually paid and sent in USDT to your own exchange account the next day; there are no API keys, no passwords and no custody involved, only your public UID. Run your own size, scalp count and fill mix through the Bybit fee calculator, and check the same logic on a grid in the grid fee calculator. Rebatly is an independent affiliate funded from its commission; this is cost arithmetic, not financial advice.
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$10M+ rebates paid · Paid daily in USDT · No password or API keys, ever
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September 4, 2026 — published. Fee rates follow the exchange fee schedules as verified June 11, 2026.
FAQ
How many basis points does a scalp need to break even?
Exactly the round-trip fee. On Bybit futures that is 11 bps with market orders on both legs (0.055% × 2) and 4 bps with limit orders on both (0.02% × 2); OKX is 10 and 4 bps, Bitget 12 and 4 bps. With a rebate at rate r the hurdle is the round trip × (1 − r) — 5.5 bps taker-taker on Bybit at the top tier of up to 50%.
Which exchange is cheapest for scalping?
It depends on your fill mix. Maker rates are identical at 0.02%, so all-limit scalpers pay the same 4 bps everywhere and the rebate ceiling decides it: up to 50% on Bybit against up to 40% on OKX and Bitget. For market-order scalping OKX has the lowest published round trip (0.10% against Bybit's 0.11% and Bitget's 0.12%), but at the top rebate tier Bybit's effective round trip is the lowest of the three at 0.055%. Run your own mix through the calculators and the guides before choosing.
Do scalps qualify for the rebate, or is there a minimum hold time?
Every fee-bearing trade qualifies — maker and taker, however short the hold. The rebate is a share of the fee you paid, so a scalp that is open for twenty seconds earns exactly the same percentage back as a position held for a month.
Does the rebate change my fee rate at the exchange?
No. The exchange charges its published rate on every fill; the rebate is a separate USDT transfer to your own account the next day, so your effective cost falls while the exchange's own fee line is unchanged. There are no API keys or passwords involved — the link is your public UID — and you can check what has been credited in the Telegram bot at t.me/rebatlybot.
How and when is the rebate paid?
Calculated daily from the fees you actually paid and sent in USDT to your exchange account by internal transfer the next day, usually between 04:00 and 12:00 UTC. The minimum payout is 1 USDT; smaller days carry over and go out once the total reaches it.