Variational Omni Fees (2026): Zero Fees, Spread, Funding
Verified against Variational's fees, funding, TradFi, pre-IPO, swaps and liquidation pages on 2026-09-22.
Omni's fee page is the shortest in this category because there is no schedule: no maker or taker rate, no tiers, no token discount. The venue is a dealer, and a dealer is paid in spread. This page states what the docs say about that spread, the one flat charge that does exist, the funding mechanics for each instrument type, and what a liquidation costs.
Trading fees: none, by design
"There are no trading fees on Omni." The reason is structural: "Omni generates revenue by capturing the spread, not by charging users fees", because the Omni Liquidity Provider is the only market maker and "Omni doesn't need fees to generate revenue". The order form shows a "Spread" line, defined as "half of the difference between the bid and ask quotes for your inputted size", and a per-listing "base spread" in basis points is published on the public stats API for every market. The protocol then "takes a percentage of the spreads paid to OLP" — "currently, 20%" — into its treasury, a share the docs say is "still being tested and is subject to change". There is no published spread schedule: the number you pay is the quote you accept, and quotes "vary depending on market conditions, trade sizing, available liquidity, and OLP's current risk profile".
Deposit and withdrawal fee
"Omni charges a flat fee of $0.1 per deposit/withdraw to disincentivize spam and cover gas costs." Transfers are gasless on the user's side — "you do not need ETH" — and the 0.1 USDC "is deducted from" the deposit amount. Withdrawals go only "to the wallet connected to your account", up to the balance not reserved as maintenance margin.
Funding
For crypto perpetuals the docs give the formula in full: the funding rate is the average premium index plus a clamp of the interest rate minus that premium, bounded to ±0.05%, where "the interest rate is fixed at 0.00125% / hour, and the funding rate is capped at 2% per hour". The premium "is computed every 60s" from the impact bid and ask returned for an RFQ of "generally $7500", using only the base spread, and later samples carry more weight. The calculation window follows a waterfall:
| Rule | Funding window |
|---|---|
| Market exists on Bybit | Matches Bybit's window |
| Else, market exists on Binance | Matches Binance's window |
| Else | 1 hour |
In an 8-hour window "in hours 1-7, the hourly funding rate will be 0. In hour 8, the funding rate will be computed off the previous 8 hours of data". On the public stats API read on 2026-09-22, 304 markets ran a 4-hour window and 238 an 8-hour one. Positive funding means longs pay shorts. Each instrument type varies the rule:
| Instrument | Rate | Cap | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crypto perpetual | Average premium + clamp(0.00125%/h − premium, ±0.05%) | 2% per hour | Premium sampled every 60 s, later samples weighted more; impact notional $7,500 |
| TradFi perpetual (stocks, ETFs, commodities, indexes) | Same, with the interest rate set to 0% and the clamp scaled by 8 ÷ window hours | 2% per hour | Dividend funding: shorts pay longs around the ex-date, window drops to 1 hour, reduce-only from 18:00 ET |
| Pre-IPO perpetual | Fixed at 0.005% every 8 hours (0.015% daily) | — | No premium index exists until the IPO; contract then becomes a TradFi perp |
| Swap | Real financing cost: SOFR-based for USD indexes, rate differential for FX, metal lease for gold and silver, curve carry for other commodities | — | Once a day at 17:00 ET on weekdays; one payment per week is tripled to cover the weekend |
Swap funding rates are "derived from the actual financing terms Variational receives from its traditional-finance liquidity partners", are "generally asymmetric" between longs and shorts, and can flip sign — "longs earn funding in a commodity market in backwardation". Variational is not in this site's cross-venue funding screener; its stats API is CORS-open and carries a per-market rate, but the docs do not define that field's basis precisely enough to compare it with venues that do.
Liquidation penalty
- Penalty, not fee. "The platform-wide liquidation penalty on Omni is currently set to 0.5%": a liquidated short is bought back at "ask + 0.5%", a liquidated long sold at "bid - 0.5%". Liquidation is partial and triggers at 100% maintenance margin usage, measured on "a very fast EMA of the mark price".
- When the dealer is liquidated. If OLP breaches its margin, the trader's position is closed and the trader "gains the liquidation penalty" — Omni's version of auto-deleveraging.
- No insurance fund. The docs describe bilateral pools with no backstop: a counterparty that goes negative faster than liquidation leaves "bad debt". A "loss refund" pool appears in the Terms as a discretionary incentive and in the stats API; its balance was zero on 2026-09-22.
FAQ
If there are no fees, what does a trade cost?
The spread in OLP's quote, which the order form shows before you confirm, plus funding while the position is open and the 0.1 USDC transfer fee each way. On a liquid major the base spread is around a basis point on the API; on long-tail names it is many times that.
How does zero compare with the fee venues?
Lighter's Standard accounts and Paradex's retail accounts also post 0% on both sides, but on an order book where you can rest a maker order; Omni's zero comes with a dealer's spread on every fill. The fee comparison lists the schedules and the execution-cost tool puts fees against book depth for the venues with a public book.
Is the funding cap really 2% per hour?
That is the docs' figure for crypto perpetuals, "except in certain special circumstances where a manual override is necessary". It is not the loosest cap on this site: Pacifica's docs cap hourly funding at ±4%.
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