KuCoin vs Kraken Fees

One important aspect that people compare between crypto exchanges is the fees. Read my full breakdown of KuCoin and Kraken fees to find out which is better.

Deposit Fees

KuCoin does not accept fiat deposits. To buy crypto with fiat currency, you pay at the time of purchase, without pre-funding your account. This fee varies from 3% - 5%, dependant on payment method. Read here to find out more information.

To deposit fiat currency into your Kraken account, there may be a fee, dependent on which currency and deposit method you use. For example, using FedWire (MVB Bank) to deposit USD is free, but depositing USD with FedWire (Synapse) costs $5. Click here to find out the deposit fees applicable to you.

Trading Fees

KuCoin's extremely low trading fees start at just 0.1%, with a 20% discount if you pay fees using KCS coin (Kucoin's token). This makes the trade fee only 0.08% per trade. If you are a large-volume trader, or you hold a large amount of KCS, you can reduce your fees even further, on a tiered structure. Click here to see detailed information regarding trading fee discounts.

If you want to buy crypto on KuCoin using fiat currency, the fee ranges from 3% - 5% based on your payment method and payment channel of choice. Even though the trading fee is very low, if you do not already own cryptocurrency to trade on the market, you need to pay a high fee to purchase your first coins. 

Kraken's spot trading fees start at 0.16% for makers and 0.26% for takers. You can reduce your trade fee if you have substantial trading volume, based on the table below.

If you want to use Kraken to buy or sell crypto with the Instant Buy/Sell feature, the fee is 1.5% per transaction.

Withdrawal Fees

On KuCoin, fiat withdrawals are NOT possible, which is one of the biggest criticisms of this exchange. You are only able to withdraw cryptocurrency, with a flat fee depending on which coin you are withdrawing. To see a full list of KuCoin's cryptocurrencies and their corresponding withdrawal fees, click here.

To withdraw fiat currency on Kraken, you may be charged a fee, based on your currency and method of withdrawal. Click here to see the fees for your withdrawal method and fiat currency.

Withdrawals of cryptocurrency from your Kraken account will incur a flat fee to cover the transaction costs. This fee varies depending on which coin you want to withdraw. A full list of coins and withdrawal fees can be found here.

KuCoin vs Kraken Deposit Methods

KuCoin and Kraken both offer a wide range of payment methods, to cater for users all over the world. 

KuCoin accepts SEPA, Skrill, PayPal, Apple Pay, Debit card, Credit card and Cryptocurrency.

Kraken accepts Bank transfer (ACH), Fedwire, SWIFT, Wire transfer, Apple Pay, Google Pay, SEPA, Debit/Credit card (excludes some countries, such as USA), Bank transfer (OSKO), PayID, FPS/BACS, CHAPS, SIC and Cryptocurrency.

KuCoin vs Kraken Features 

The features of a crypto exchange can often be a deciding factor on which platform to use, so let's take a look at some of the standout features of KuCoin and Kraken. Both of these exchanges have too many features to discuss in detail here, so I will only mention some that are of particular interest. To find out the full range of services of these crypto exchanges, check out my review of KuCoin (here) and Kraken (here).

KuCoin offers free trading bots on their platform that are easy to set up and can help you optimise your trading strategy. You can choose what rules your bot will follow to automatically trade for you, even when you are asleep with your phone and computer off. KuCoin displays the most successful bots from other users, and you can even copy their bots' parameters to achieve better results for yourself.

On KuCoin, you can grow your crypto investment while it sits on the exchange. One way to earn interest on your crypto is buying and holding KuCoin's own coin (KCS). When you hold 6 KCS or more in your account, you will automatically earn daily interest, estimated at 22% APR. 

You can also earn interest on crypto by lending it to other KuCoin users. You can choose which coin you want to lend (160 different coins supported) and the term (7, 14 or 28 days). Then you select the daily interest rate you wish to receive. A higher interest rate will give you higher returns, but lowers the chance someone will borrow from you if there are lower-rate options for them to choose.

If you want to borrow crypto instead, it is easy to do on KuCoin. Simply select the cryptocurrency you want to borrow, the amount, and the daily interest rate that you are happy with.

On Kraken, you can also earn interest on your crypto holdings, by staking. You can even stake fiat currencies (USD and EUR) which is not normally found on crypto exchanges. The rewards are paid twice a week and you can grow them further by compounding the future rewards. These are the staking options available on Kraken at the moment.

Kraken offers forex trading for crypto traders who want to delve into it without setting up a different account. Kraken offers low trading fees, a professional trading interface, and industry-low minimum orders of 10 units of base currency. You can trade 9 forex trading pairs, as shown below. 

Kraken offers excellent customer support, that is rare among large crypto exchanges. Usually you are faced with a bot that provides automatic answers and links to webpages. Kraken has done an excellent job by focusing on customer support, with 24/7 Live Chat with a real person. You can also choose to contact Kraken using phone or email ticket request.

KuCoin vs Kraken Security

KuCoin is a secure exchange, ensuring their users' funds are safe with micro-withdrawal wallets, industry-level multilayer encryption and dynamic multi-factor authentication. KuCoin also have dedicated internal risk control departments to oversee all transactions on a daily basis. However, no crypto exchange is impenetrable, regardless of their security measures, and in 2020 KuCoin was hacked, with $150 million stolen. KuCoin responded quickly, recovering a large portion of the stolen funds, and their insurance covered the unrecovered amount. None of KuCoin's users lost any money in this cybersecurity breach.

Kraken also has robust security measures to safeguard users' funds and personal information, storing 95% of digital assets offline in air-gapped geographically distributed cold storage, and servers secured in cages with 24/7 armed surveillance. Kraken is based in the USA so it is regulated by FinCEN, and it offers financial stability, with full reserves, healthy banking relationships and the highest standards of legal compliance.

Verdict - Kraken

KuCoin is one of the largest and most popular exchanges around the world, with over 11 million users, and Kraken is another big name, especially in the USA, so which one is the better of the two?

Kraken is the winner for beginners - not only does it have more deposit methods, lower fees when buying crypto, and stricter compliance and regulatory standards, the biggest advantage of Kraken over KuCoin is that you can withdraw your fiat currency from the exchange, which isn't supported on KuCoin.

KuCoin is the winner for experienced crypto traders, with plenty more features, and lower trading fees of only 0.08% (if you pay with KCS), but there are higher fees if you want to purchase crypto directly using fiat. If you want to use KuCoin to trade, I would recommend buying crypto on another exchange, such as Coinbase, Coinmama or Gemini and sending it to KuCoin. When you eventually want to convert your crypto to fiat, you can send it back to one of the other exchanges, which allows fiat withdrawals. Note that you will likely be charged a transaction fee to transfer crypto from one exchange to another. 

Still Researching?

If you wanted to find out more about these two exchanges, read my in-depth breakdowns of KuCoin (here) and Kraken (here). US residents may find this article on the best US crypto exchanges useful. I have included a quick comparison table that summarizes some key information below.