# Hyperliquid Builder Fees Explained - What Third-Party Apps Charge to Route Your Orders > Phantom, MetaMask, Oku and 100+ apps route orders into Hyperliquid and take a cut. Here is what a builder fee is, what it costs you, and how to check what you are paying. *Source: https://hyperliquidguide.com/guides/trading/hyperliquid-builder-fees-explained* ## Someone Else's Interface, Hyperliquid's Order Book More than 100 teams now route orders into Hyperliquid without running an exchange. You can open a perp from inside [Phantom](/guides/getting-started/connect-phantom-to-hyperliquid), from [MetaMask](/guides/getting-started/connect-metamask-to-hyperliquid), from a bridge aggregator, or from an AI chat app on your phone. The order goes to the same HyperCore order book either way. The fill is identical. The difference is the fee. Every one of those apps is attaching a **builder code** to your order, and that code takes a cut. > **Key takeaway:** A builder fee is an app-level surcharge on top of Hyperliquid's own trading fees. It is capped at 0.1% for perps and 1% for spot, requires your explicit approval, and goes entirely to the app that routed the order. Trading directly at app.hyperliquid.xyz means you pay no builder fee. > **Warning:** The phrase "builder code" means two different things on Hyperliquid. This article covers **order-routing** builder codes, the ones that tag orders and collect fees. The other kind is [HIP-3](/ecosystem/hip-3-builder-codes), where a deployer stakes 500,000 HYPE to launch entirely new markets. They share a name and almost nothing else. --- ## How the Mechanism Works The design is deliberately narrow. A builder cannot silently skim from you, and it cannot charge whatever it wants. **1. You approve the builder.** Before any app can charge you, you sign an `ApproveBuilderFee` action with your main wallet, not an API or agent wallet. The prompt names the builder address and the maximum fee it may charge. This is the moment to actually read the number. **2. The app tags each order.** Once approved, the app attaches a builder parameter to every order it sends: the builder's address plus a fee expressed in tenths of a basis point. If the app tags a higher fee than you approved, the order is rejected. **3. The fee comes out of the quote asset.** Builder fees are collected in USDC on perps and in the collateral asset on spot. On spot markets the fee only applies to the selling side, so buying is untouched. **4. Builders claim through the referral flow.** Accrued builder fees are withdrawn through the same rewards process as referral earnings, and every fill is published in a daily CSV per builder address, which is why the revenue leaderboards below are public rather than self-reported. | Rule | Limit | |---|---| | Max perp builder fee | 0.1% | | Max spot builder fee | 1% (sell side only) | | Approvals per user | 10 active builders | | Builder account minimum | 100 USDC in perps account value | | Signature required | Main wallet, not agent wallet | > **Note:** The 100 USDC minimum and the main-wallet signature requirement exist to stop throwaway addresses from spamming approval prompts. Neither costs a legitimate app anything meaningful. --- ## What It Actually Costs You This is the part most traders never check. Hyperliquid's base [perp fees](/guides/fees/fees-explained) are 0.045% taker and 0.015% maker. A 0.05% builder fee, which is what Phantom charges, more than doubles the cost of a taker fill. | Route | Taker fee on a $10,000 perp trade | |---|---| | Direct on Hyperliquid, base tier | $4.50 | | Direct with the 4% referral discount | $4.32 | | Through a 0.05% builder | $9.50 | | Through a builder at the 0.1% cap | $14.50 | Over a single trade that is lunch money. Over $1 million of monthly volume at 0.05%, the builder fee alone is $500 a month, and it does nothing to move you up Hyperliquid's [VIP fee tiers](/guides/fees/fee-tiers) because it is not protocol volume revenue. > **Tip:** The rule of thumb: route through whatever app is most convenient while you are learning or trading small. Once your monthly volume gets into six figures, trade directly at [app.hyperliquid.xyz](https://app.hyperliquid.xyz/join/Concept211) and keep the basis points. **Skip the Middleman Fee** — Trade directly on Hyperliquid with no builder surcharge, and stack a 4% lifetime discount on top of the base rate. [Join Hyperliquid - Save 4%](https://app.hyperliquid.xyz/join/Concept211) --- ## Who Is Actually Earning This Builder codes turned out to be one of Hyperliquid's more successful distribution decisions. The top ten builders have cleared more than $63.5 million in cumulative revenue, and over 100 teams have integrated. | Builder | Cumulative revenue | |---|---| | Phantom | $20.6M | | BasedOneX | $15.1M | | PVP | $8.0M | MetaMask, Insilico, Infinex, Axiom, Tread.Fi, Dreamcash, and Mass round out the top ten. Phantom is the instructive case. It processed $37 billion in perpetual volume in under a year without building an exchange, a matching engine, or a liquidity program. It shipped a trading tab into a wallet 137,000 people already had open, charged them 0.05%, and averaged about $150 of revenue per user. --- ## Recent Integrations Worth Knowing About ### Oku [Oku](https://oku.trade) added Hyperliquid perps in July 2026. Its angle is funding: you can enter a position with assets sitting on Bitcoin, Solana, Ethereum, or 30-plus other chains, because Oku is a bridge and swap aggregator first and a perps frontend second. It routes through more than 20 DeFi tools including LiFi, Relay, CoW Swap, 0x, Kyber, and 1inch, and offers up to 50x on crypto, stocks, ETFs, commodities, and indices. ![Oku trading interface showing swap routing across chains alongside the Perps tab that connects to Hyperliquid](/images/trading/shared/oku-perps-interface.webp) If you hold most of your capital outside the Hyperliquid ecosystem, this removes the [bridging step](/guides/getting-started/bridge-to-hyperliquid) that usually comes first. ### Talis [Talis](https://talis.trade) is an AI trading app that went live on iOS in July 2026. You describe a position in plain language and it builds and tracks the strategy, executing non-custodially against Hyperliquid. It bundles a strategy builder, a market assistant for scenario work, and performance tracking on the strategies you save. ![Talis AI trading app homepage: describe a trade in words and it executes on Hyperliquid](/images/trading/shared/talis-homepage.webp) It is a genuinely different interface model from an order book, and worth a look if you already think about positions in sentences rather than in limit prices. Our [mobile trading guide](/guides/getting-started/hyperliquid-mobile-trading) covers the more conventional iOS and Android options. ### Not All Integrations Are Builder Codes Worth repeating, because it is the most common mix-up: [trade.xyz](/guides/trading/hyperliquid-xyz-explained) is not a builder-code integration. It is a HIP-3 deployer that stakes HYPE and runs its own markets, which is why you find [CXMT](/ecosystem/trade-cxmt-pre-ipo-hyperliquid), [SpaceX](/ecosystem/trade-spacex-pre-ipo-hyperliquid), and [commodity perps](/guides/trading/commodities-trading-guide) there and nowhere else. Builder codes route into existing books. HIP-3 creates new ones. --- ## How to Check and Revoke Your Approvals Approvals persist. Trading somewhere else does not cancel them, and most people have no idea how many they have accumulated.