A Repeatable Maker or Taker Execution Review Using Your Own Fill History

Most traders place an order, see it disappear from the open orders panel, and move on. They never look back at the fill record to ask a simple question: did this order add liquidity or take it? That distinction decides which side of the fee schedule applies, and it is the difference between a strategy that quietly bleeds cost and one you actually understand. In Kenya, where many traders fund accounts in KES and convert, small per-fill differences add up across dozens of trades a week, and the only way to see them is to build a routine around your own history rather than around your memory of what you clicked. This guide walks through a fixed, repeatable review you can run weekly on any exchange you use. The aim is not to predict prices or pick better trades. It is to close the gap between what you intended your order to do and what the exchange recorded it doing, then to write that down so the next decision is informed. You will need your fill or order history, the official fee page for your exchange, and the help centre article that explains how order types and fee tiers are defined. Treat every number you find as something to verify against the official page on the day you check, because schedules and tier rules change and this guide cannot know them for you.

Set up the review before you look at a single fill

Pick a fixed window and stick to it, for example every Sunday evening for the previous seven days. A fixed window stops you from cherry-picking the trades that felt good and skipping the ones that did not. Before opening any history panel, open the official fee page for your exchange in one tab and the help centre article on order types and fee tiers in another. You are looking for two things: the definition of what counts as a maker fill and what counts as a taker fill, and the current fee schedule that applies to your account tier. Write both down in your own words on a single line, dated, in a notes file. Do not copy the numbers into your head only, because you will need to compare against them later and you will not remember which version you read.

If your exchange shows a fee tier or VIP level in account settings, note the tier name you are currently on and the date you checked it. Tier rules often depend on recent volume or holdings, so the tier you see today may not be the tier that applied to a fill from ten days ago. That is not a reason to skip the exercise; it is a reason to record the date of every observation so you can tell later whether a difference came from your behaviour or from a rule change. Keep the notes file plain and short: date, source page checked, tier name, maker definition, taker definition.

Pull the fill history and classify each execution

Open the order history or trade history view and switch to the fills or executions tab if your exchange separates them. Set the date range to your fixed window and export or screenshot the list. For each fill, you want the timestamp, the pair, the side, the price, the quantity, and any column the exchange provides that labels the liquidity role. Some interfaces show a maker or taker tag directly; others show a fee amount per fill and expect you to infer the role from it. If the tag is missing, do not guess from the order type you originally submitted. A limit order can end up as a taker fill if it crosses the book on arrival, and a market order is normally a taker fill, but the record is the authority, not your intention.

Go row by row and mark each fill as maker, taker, or unclear. Keep the unclear rows in the list rather than deleting them; they are the most informative part of the exercise. If a row is unclear, check the help centre article for how that exchange labels fees and liquidity, and look for a fee column that you can compare against the two definitions you wrote down. If it is still unclear after that, flag it as a question for support rather than inventing an answer. The goal of this step is a complete, honest classification, not a flattering one.

Compare the recorded cost against the official schedule

Once every fill is classified, total the maker fills and the taker fills separately and compare the fee amounts the exchange actually charged against the schedule you recorded at the start. You are checking two things: whether the role you assigned matches the fee that was charged, and whether the rate applied matches the tier you believe you are on. A mismatch in the first check usually means your classification is wrong or the interface uses a different definition than you assumed. A mismatch in the second usually means your tier changed, a promotion ended, or a different fee category applies to that product.

Do not treat a mismatch as proof of an error by the exchange. Treat it as an open question with a specific next step: reread the relevant help centre article, then check whether the product is spot, margin, or a derivative, because fee schedules are often split by product line. If you trade derivatives, note that funding payments are separate from trading fees and should not be mixed into this total. Record the size of any unexplained difference and the date, so that if the same pattern repeats next week you have evidence rather than a feeling.

Turn the review into a short written decision

End the session by writing three lines: what share of your fills were taker, what the taker fills cost you relative to the maker fills, and one concrete change you will test next week. The change should be about execution behaviour, not about price direction. Examples include placing limit orders slightly away from the touch instead of crossing, splitting a large order into smaller resting orders, or avoiding market orders during thin periods. You are not promising a better outcome; you are setting up a testable comparison for the next review window.

Keep each week's note in the same file so the entries stack up. After a few weeks you will be able to see whether your execution mix is drifting toward taker fills, which is the pattern most traders miss because each individual fill feels insignificant. If a number in your notes conflicts with what the official page says today, the official page wins and you update the note with the date you corrected it. If you cannot resolve a discrepancy from the help centre, contact support with the specific fill identifiers, the timestamp, and the exact question, which is far more likely to get a useful answer than a general complaint.

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Scenario checkpoint

• Choose a fixed review window and open the official fee page and the order-type help article before looking at any fill.
• Write down the maker and taker definitions and your current fee tier, with the date you checked them.
• Export or screenshot the fill history for the window and classify every row as maker, taker, or unclear.
• Compare charged fees against the recorded schedule and flag any mismatch as an open question, not a conclusion.
• Note whether each fill came from spot or a derivative product, and keep funding separate from trading fees.
• Write one execution-behaviour change to test next week and keep the note in a single dated file.