Lighter vs Hyperliquid: fees, funding, keys, which to use

Lighter and Hyperliquid are both non-custodial order-book exchanges for perpetual futures, both settle in USDC and both pay funding every hour. The main differences: Lighter charges no maker or taker fee on its default Standard account, while Hyperliquid charges 0.045% taker and 0.015% maker at base tier. Hyperliquid runs on its own layer-1 chain; Lighter settles to Ethereum with zero-knowledge proofs. Hyperliquid's trading keys expire after at most 180 days; Lighter's do not expire. Neither kind of key can withdraw. The sections below put the numbers side by side, from each venue's documentation.

The short version

Every row has a source in Sources, and the date at the top of the page says when we last checked.

Fees

Hyperliquid charges every fill. At base tier a taker pays 0.045% and a maker 0.015%. The rate falls with 14-day volume (spot volume counts double) and with staked HYPE, from 5% off at the lowest staking tier to 40% off at the highest.

Lighter's Standard account, the default, charges nothing on maker or taker fills for perps and spot. The cost is latency: Standard taker orders, cancels and edits wait about 300 milliseconds. A Premium account cuts taker latency to 140 milliseconds and removes the delay on cancels, and pays 0.028% taker and 0.004% maker, less with staked LIT. Details are in Lighter fees explained.

Base-tier perp fees on the venues Prow trades:

On a $10,000 order, one side of the trade costs:

A round trip costs twice that.

App fees come on top on both venues. An interface can add its own fee, and both venues make you approve it with your wallet first. Hyperliquid calls it a builder fee and caps it at 0.1% on perps. Lighter calls it an integrator fee, caps it at 0.1% on perps too, and only lets Plus and Premium accounts be charged at all. Prow's fee is 0% until Dec 31, 2026, then 0.025% per trade on Hyperliquid; on a Standard Lighter account the approval carries a 0% cap and Prow adds nothing. See Hyperliquid builder fees and Fees.

Funding

Both venues pay funding every hour, peer to peer between longs and shorts, and neither keeps a share. Both build the rate from a premium of the mark or impact price over an index, plus a fixed interest component of 0.01% per 8 hours.

The caps differ. Hyperliquid caps funding at 4% per hour. Lighter caps it at 4% per 8 hours, which is 0.5% per hour, and divides the hour's average premium by 8 so the payment is spread the way 8-hour venues do it. In a calm market the two land in the same place: about 0.00125% per hour, or around 11% a year, paid by longs to shorts. In a squeeze, Hyperliquid's rate can go eight times higher than Lighter's.

The same coin can pay different funding on each venue at the same moment. Funding rates lists both per hour, and Hyperliquid funding rates explained covers the formula and how to annualize it.

Deposits and withdrawals

Hyperliquid. The main route is USDC on Arbitrum through Hyperliquid's bridge, with a 5 USDC minimum that creates the account. Hyperliquid's site also lists deposits of USDC from other chains and of other assets. Withdrawals go back to the wallet that owns the account and cost a flat 1 USDC.

Lighter. Lighter's bridge gives each wallet its own deposit address and accepts USDC, USDT or ETH from Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, Optimism, Polygon, BNB Chain, HyperEVM and Monad, with Solana, Tron and Bitcoin addresses when offered. The first deposit, at least $5, creates the account. Withdrawals are made on Lighter's app and signed by the owning wallet.

Neither venue lets a trading key withdraw. In Prow, Deposit on the Hyperliquid row uses Circle's USDC bridge and Connect Lighter shows your own Lighter deposit address or sends USDC from your wallet. See Deposit funds and Withdraw.

Trading keys

Both venues let an app trade for you with a key that is not your wallet's private key.

• Hyperliquid calls it an API wallet or agent. Your main wallet signs one approval naming the agent's address, with no network fee. The agent can place and cancel orders and change leverage. It cannot withdraw, transfer or approve another agent. An approval lasts at most 180 days, and an account holds one unnamed agent plus a few named ones.
• Lighter gives each account 255 numbered API key slots, with slots 0 to 3 kept for Lighter's own apps. Your wallet signs a Register Lighter Account message to put a key in a slot. The key can trade, set leverage and margin and read your orders. It cannot withdraw or transfer, and it has no expiry: you remove it with another signature.

The practical difference is renewal. A Hyperliquid key has to be re-approved within 180 days; a Lighter key stays until you revoke it, so revoking keys you no longer use matters more. Prow makes both kinds on your device, shows the key or slot in Settings, then Venues, and revokes with one signature. See How trading keys work and Hyperliquid agent wallets.

Orders, margin and liquidation

Both support market, limit, post-only, stop market, stop limit and reduce-only orders, with cross and isolated margin and triggers on the mark price. The differences:

• Trailing stops exist on Hyperliquid, not on Lighter.
• TP/SL on a new order are attached to the order on Hyperliquid. On Lighter they go out with the entry as one group, follow the size that fills, and one cancels the other. Lighter does not allow TP/SL on a stop entry.
• Leverage and margin mode are set together per market on Lighter, and a few Lighter markets are isolated only. Hyperliquid defaults to cross and also marks some assets strict isolated.
• Liquidation. Hyperliquid liquidates when account value falls below maintenance margin, set at half the initial margin at max leverage. Lighter has three margin levels: below the initial requirement you can only reduce risk, below maintenance it closes positions one at a time at a break-even price, and below close-out its insurance fund takes the positions over. Lighter takes up to a 1% liquidation fee when a liquidation fill beats the break-even price.

See Order types and Liquidation.

Which one should you use?

Rules of thumb, not advice:

• You place market orders and trade a few times a day. Lighter's Standard account costs you nothing in fees and the 300 millisecond delay will not show. Check the depth for your size first: a thin book costs more in slippage than Hyperliquid's 0.045%.
• You make markets or trade on speed. Hyperliquid's 0.015% maker fee with volume and staking discounts, or Lighter's Premium account at 0.004% maker and 140 milliseconds, are the comparison to run.
• You hold through volatile funding. Lighter's 0.5% per hour cap bounds what a position can pay in an hour; Hyperliquid's cap is 4% per hour.
• You need a specific coin. Each venue lists markets the other does not. Perp markets by venue shows which venue lists what, with leverage and open interest.
• You want both. Prow trades Hyperliquid, Aster and Lighter from one app, with a trading key per venue on your device that cannot withdraw. The market page shows each venue's price, fee, funding per hour and leverage side by side, and Portfolio lists positions on all of them. See Venues.

Frequently asked questions

Is Lighter cheaper than Hyperliquid?

In venue fees, yes: a Lighter Standard account pays 0% maker and 0% taker, against 0.045% taker and 0.015% maker at Hyperliquid's base tier. Slippage, funding and any app fee are separate and can go either way, so compare the fill for your size, not just the rate.

Do Lighter and Hyperliquid both pay funding every hour?

Yes. Both pay hourly, peer to peer. Hyperliquid caps the rate at 4% per hour; Lighter caps it at 4% per 8 hours, or 0.5% per hour.

Can I trade Lighter and Hyperliquid from one account?

Not from one venue account: each venue holds its own USDC balance under your wallet. You can trade both from one app. Prow connects a trading key to each venue and shows both in one ticket and one portfolio, without holding your funds.

Which has more leverage, Lighter or Hyperliquid?

Both set the maximum per market. On BTC, Lighter allows up to 50x and Hyperliquid up to 40x. Smaller markets have lower limits on both, and higher leverage puts the liquidation price closer to your entry.

Sources

Checked October 10, 2026:

• Lighter docs: Trading fees, Account types, Funding, Contract specifications, Order types and matching, Liquidations and LLP, API keys, Partner attribution, Technical architecture
• Hyperliquid docs: Fees, Funding, Margining, Order types, How to start trading, Builder codes, API wallets
• Prow docs: Connect Lighter, Connect Hyperliquid, How trading keys work
• Prow data: Perp DEX fees compared, Perp markets by venue, Funding rates