Delta Exchange charges: what one trade really costs

How Delta charges an option trade

Delta charges an option on its notional, the value of the Bitcoin or Ether behind it, not on the premium. Notional is lots times lot size times the index price: 100 lots of a Bitcoin option is 0.1 BTC, which at $80,000 is $8,000. During Delta's "Options Carnival" offer the rate is 0.01%, maker or taker, so the fee is $0.80 before GST: ₹80 with it, at Delta's fixed ₹85 a dollar.

Sell that option at $800 and you collect $80 of premium, ₹6,800. The fee takes about 1.2% of it. If the option expires worthless you pay nothing more. Buy it back and you pay the fee again, on the notional at that moment.

An option that expires in the money is settled at 5:30 PM IST and pays a settlement fee of 0.01% of notional, under the same cap. One that expires worthless pays none. That makes it cheap to let a far out-of-the-money short option run to expiry.

The 0.01% rate is an offer. Delta's standard options rate, shown struck through on its fees page, is 0.03% with a 10% cap: ₹241 on the same trade. Offers end, so check the rate before you plan a month around it.

How Delta's option fee works, step by step.

When the premium cap takes over

Delta never charges an option more than 3.5% of its premium. The cap matters on cheap options. With Bitcoin at $80,000, any option priced under about $229, roughly 0.29% of Bitcoin's price, pays the cap instead of the 0.01% rate.

Take a far out-of-the-money Bitcoin option at $100. On 100 lots the premium is $10, so the fee is 3.5% of that, $0.35: ₹35 with GST instead of ₹80. Delta's own fee example works the same way.

Two things follow. Cheap options are not free to trade: with GST, the fee is still 4.13% of what you collect. And Delta's referral terms give no discount on a fee charged at the cap, so a referral code saves nothing on those trades.

Futures: maker, taker and the Scalper Offer

Futures pay 0.05% of notional for a market order, which takes liquidity from the book, and 0.02% for a limit order that rests on it. On 100 lots of Bitcoin, $8,000 of notional, that is ₹401 or ₹160 a side with GST. In and out with market orders costs ₹802; with limit orders, ₹321.

Delta's Scalper Offer drops the fee on the closing leg when you open and close a Bitcoin or Ether future within 30 minutes, or any other future within 15. A quick in-and-out trade then costs ₹401, half the usual. It is an offer with its own terms, so check it is still running.

Perpetual futures also carry funding: a regular payment between traders holding long and short positions that keeps the perpetual's price near the index. It is not a fee to Delta, and you may pay it or receive it. On a position held for days it can add up to more than the trading fees, so check the rate before you hold.

What the funding rate is, and how to read it.

GST, TDS, and what is free

GST of 18% is charged on the fee, not on the value of your trade. On the option above it adds ₹12 to a ₹68 fee.

Delta charges nothing to deposit or withdraw rupees, and deposits have been free since 23 March 2024. Withdrawals go to your own bank account, from ₹500 up to ₹10,00,000 a request.

There is no TDS on futures and options: Delta deducts 1% only on the sell value of spot trades, so your whole margin keeps working. That does not settle your tax. How a profit on crypto F&O is taxed is a separate, open question.

One fee to avoid altogether: if Delta liquidates a position, it charges a liquidation fee on the notional, plus GST, on top of the loss. Keep margin well above the maintenance level.

How crypto F&O profit is taxed in India.

The cost nobody lists: the spread

A fee table shows what the exchange charges. It does not show the spread: the gap between the best price to buy and the best price to sell. A market order crosses it, so it pays part of that gap on every trade.

We measured it on the market orders Algoclear's engine filled on Delta Exchange India over 90 days. On Bitcoin options three to seven days from expiry, a market order filled a median 1.3% of the option's price away from the mid. On the $800 option above, that is about ₹88: more than the ₹80 fee.

It moves with time and coin. On expiry day the median rose to 4.0%, about ₹272 on the same option, as order books thin before 5:30 PM IST. Ether options were thinner at every expiry: a median 3.0% three to seven days out. The cheapest habits are plain ones: trade Bitcoin options a few days from expiry, and use limit orders when you are not in a hurry.

How Delta's fees compare

On the rate card, CoinDCX is the only one of the three that matches Delta. Its options fee is 0.01% of notional, total with GST capped at 4% of premium, and its futures cost 0.05% and 0.02%, the same as Delta's. The caps are a hair apart, since Delta's 3.5% plus GST comes to 4.13%. CoinDCX also runs an options offer (fees refunded to zero on up to 1 million USDT of notional, while the offer runs), a real saving for a small trader.

CoinSwitch charges more on both. Its options cost from 0.015% of notional; no premium cap stated. Its futures cost 0.065% for a market order and 0.024% for a limit order, and its options page says TDS is charged on trading. Binance matches Delta on futures, but its options cost 0.024% of notional, capped at 10% of premium, plus 0.015% to exercise: 2.4 times Delta's rate. It settles in USDT, with no rupee deposit route of its own.

Fees are half the bill; the spread is the other half, and spreads stay narrow where traders are. Delta Exchange India traded $8.41 billion of futures and options in 24 hours on 5 November 2026, the most any rupee crypto exchange in India publishes. Its Bitcoin and Ether options traded $3.66 billion against Binance's $1.66 billion in the same window. CoinDCX and CoinSwitch publish no volume of their own.

Head to head: vs CoinDCX, vs CoinSwitch, vs Binance.

How we worked these out

Rates come from Delta's fees page and help centre, read on 5 November 2026. The examples use Bitcoin at $80,000, close to its price that day, Delta's fixed ₹85 a dollar and 18% GST, rounded to the rupee. The option prices are round numbers chosen to show each rule, not quotes.

Spread costs come from Algoclear's own fills on Delta Exchange India, measured the same way for every order. Algoclear is a Delta referral partner, which this page says up front; Delta did not see or approve it.