PredictIt Fees & Costs: The True Price of Political Trading

PredictIt has long marketed itself as a kind of stock market for politics, and the comparison still makes some sense. Users buy and sell contracts tied to political outcomes, prices move between $0 and $1, and winning contracts settle at $1.

The fee structure, however, works very differently from a traditional exchange.

PredictIt does not charge a conventional commission every time you buy or sell. Instead, its primary fee is a 10% charge on profits from winning trades. That makes the platform feel inexpensive while you are entering and managing positions, because you are not constantly seeing fees deducted from every transaction. The cost becomes much more noticeable once you actually make money.

One important change is that PredictIt no longer charges its old 5% withdrawal fee. ACH deposits are free, and withdrawals by ACH or check are also free. That materially improves the economics compared with PredictIt's older fee structure.

How Much Are PredictIt Fees?

PredictIt's current fee model is fairly simple.

The 10% profit fee is the number that matters most.

PredictIt does not take 10% of the total amount you withdraw or 10% of the entire value of a winning position. It applies the fee to the profit generated by the trade.

Suppose you buy 100 Yes contracts at 40 cents each. Your initial cost is $40. Later, you sell those contracts at 60 cents, making the position worth $60 and creating a $20 gross profit.

PredictIt takes 10% of that $20, which comes to $2. You are left with $58, giving you a net profit of $18 before considering spreads, taxes or any funding costs.

That is a meaningful improvement over the old PredictIt structure.

Previously, a trader withdrawing that $58 would also have paid a 5% withdrawal fee. That fee is gone, so PredictIt no longer takes an additional cut simply because you move your money back to your bank account.

PredictIt No Longer Charges a Withdrawal Fee

This is probably the most important update for anyone familiar with PredictIt's older pricing.

The platform used to charge 5% on withdrawals, which was particularly noticeable because the fee applied to the amount withdrawn rather than just the profit.

That is no longer the case.

ACH and check withdrawals are now free, while ACH deposits are also free. Credit card funding works differently. PredictIt currently advertises the next card deposit as free up to $1,000, with later card deposits charged at 3% to cover processing costs.

For users who leave money on the platform for long periods, that change may not feel dramatic. For anyone who regularly moves money in and out, however, removing the withdrawal fee makes PredictIt considerably more competitive than it used to be.

It also makes the fee structure easier to evaluate. The main platform cost is now the 10% profit charge rather than a combination of profit fees and withdrawal penalties.

The Bid-Ask Spread Still Matters

The published fee schedule does not tell the whole story.

Like other prediction markets, PredictIt has a bid-ask spread. That is the gap between what buyers are willing to pay and what sellers are asking.

Imagine buyers are offering 38 cents while sellers want 42 cents. If you buy immediately at 42 cents and then need to sell immediately, the best available buyer may only offer 38 cents.

You have effectively lost four cents per contract even though nothing about the underlying event has changed.

That matters most in smaller or less active markets. Major presidential or congressional contracts can attract enough activity to produce tighter spreads, while more obscure political markets may have much wider gaps.

So although PredictIt does not charge a traditional trading commission, there is still trading friction. The displayed contract price is only part of the story. The price at which your order actually fills can matter just as much.

PredictIt's Position Limit Has Changed

The old $850 investment cap is also outdated.

For years, PredictIt users were limited to investing $850 in any individual contract. That restriction came from the conditions attached to the platform's original CFTC no-action relief.

The CFTC changed that framework in July 2025.

The amended no-action letter tied PredictIt's per-contract investment limit to the federal individual campaign-contribution limit. At the time of the amendment, the CFTC identified that amount as $3,500, with future adjustments for inflation.

That gives traders considerably more room than the original $850 limit.

The same amendment removed the previous rule limiting individual markets to 5,000 traders. That restriction had become increasingly problematic in popular election markets because once the cap was reached, new users could no longer participate.

PredictIt is still not designed as an unlimited institutional trading venue, but its current framework is much less restrictive than the version many longtime users remember.

Why PredictIt Has Such an Unusual Regulatory Structure

PredictIt does not operate under exactly the same regulatory model as Kalshi.

The platform traces its legal structure back to a 2014 CFTC no-action letter that allowed Victoria University of Wellington to operate a small-scale event-contract market for educational and research purposes.

That arrangement is why PredictIt historically had unusual rules around participation, trader limits and position sizes. It was not originally built to function like a full-scale commercial derivatives exchange.

The regulatory situation became much more uncertain in 2022 when the CFTC attempted to withdraw the no-action relief. PredictIt and other plaintiffs challenged the decision, and the platform continued operating while the dispute worked its way through the courts.

The situation changed again in July 2025.

Rather than ending PredictIt's framework, the CFTC amended the original no-action letter and allowed operation of the market to transfer from Victoria University to the Prediction Market Research Consortium, or PMRC, a US-based not-for-profit organization.

The updated arrangement retained PredictIt's academic and research orientation while modernizing some of its old restrictions.

That means it is no longer accurate to describe PredictIt as simply hanging on under the exact same 2014 arrangement. The no-action structure is still central to the platform, but the rules surrounding it have changed materially.

PredictIt Is Still Primarily About Politics

PredictIt remains a much narrower platform than Kalshi or Polymarket.

Its markets are still centered heavily on politics and certain economic questions rather than sports, entertainment, weather or the broader range of event contracts now available elsewhere.

The CFTC's updated framework allows political questions involving areas such as elections, nominations, government appointments, court decisions, legislation, executive orders, regulations and certain international agreements.

That narrow focus is not necessarily a weakness.

For someone primarily interested in US elections or political events, PredictIt remains one of the most recognizable specialist platforms in the category. But users looking for a broader range of markets will generally find more variety elsewhere.

PredictIt vs Kalshi Fees

Kalshi uses a very different pricing model.

Kalshi operates as a CFTC-designated contract market and primarily makes money through transaction fees rather than taking a percentage of the user's profit.

Those fees vary depending on contract price and trade structure, so there is no simple flat number that applies to every transaction.

Kalshi also does not charge a settlement fee or an ACH withdrawal fee under its current schedule.

That sounds immediately cheaper than PredictIt's 10% profit fee, but the comparison is not always that simple.

An active trader on Kalshi may pay transaction fees repeatedly while entering and exiting positions, while someone on PredictIt who makes only a handful of trades only faces the 10% charge when a position actually generates profit.

The spread matters on both platforms as well.

That is why the fairest comparison is not simply “10% versus 2%” or something similar. The real question is how much each platform costs for the way you actually trade.

PredictIt vs Polymarket Fees

Polymarket also uses a different model.

Under Polymarket's current fee structure, makers generally do not pay trading fees, while takers can pay fees on several categories including politics, sports, finance, economics, culture and technology.

Some geopolitical and world-event markets remain fee-free.

Polymarket also does not use PredictIt's model of taking a fixed percentage of your trading profits.

That can make Polymarket look much cheaper, particularly for traders who provide liquidity with maker orders, but the complete picture still depends on execution.

Users may encounter spreads, blockchain-related costs or charges from outside services used to move money into and out of the platform. So describing Polymarket as simply “free” would be just as misleading as describing PredictIt as universally expensive.

The two platforms simply monetize activity differently.

Which Platform Has the Lowest Fees?

There is no universal answer.

PredictIt is straightforward. There is no conventional per-trade commission, ACH deposits and withdrawals are free, and the main charge is 10% of profitable trades.

Kalshi charges transaction fees but does not skim profits.

Polymarket can charge taker fees while allowing maker orders to trade without platform fees in many markets.

Your trading style therefore matters enormously.

Someone who buys a political contract and holds it for several months may experience PredictIt's fee structure very differently from someone trying to move in and out of short-term positions several times per day.

Likewise, an active trader on Kalshi or Polymarket has to consider how often transaction fees, spreads and execution costs accumulate.

For that reason, total trading cost is a much more useful comparison than the headline fee percentage.

For a deeper side-by-side look at the two US-focused platforms, see our Kalshi vs PredictIt comparison.

Is PredictIt Expensive?

PredictIt remains unusual because successful trades are directly charged a percentage of profit.

If you make $100 in trading profit, PredictIt keeps $10.

That can make small pricing edges less attractive. If you believe a contract is only slightly mispriced, the profit fee needs to be included in the calculation before you enter the trade.

At the same time, the platform is noticeably less expensive than it used to be.

The old withdrawal fee is gone. The investment cap is much higher. The 5,000-trader restriction has been removed.

So while PredictIt's 10% profit charge remains significant, the overall fee structure in 2026 is much more reasonable than the one that existed under the older rules.

It is still entirely possible for Kalshi or Polymarket to be cheaper for certain trading strategies, particularly active strategies built around small pricing differences. But it is no longer accurate to describe PredictIt as charging 10% of profits, another 5% on withdrawals and limiting users to $850 per contract.

That version of PredictIt no longer exists.

Who Is PredictIt Best For?

PredictIt still makes the most sense for someone primarily interested in political prediction markets.

The platform is focused, relatively easy to understand and has a long history around US elections, nominations and government-related questions.

Its fee structure also has the benefit of being simple. You do not have to calculate a transaction fee every time an order fills. If a trade generates a profit, PredictIt takes 10% of that profit.

For occasional users, that simplicity can be appealing.

The fee becomes more important for traders trying to capture very small pricing differences. If the expected edge is only a few cents, losing 10% of the eventual profit can materially change whether the trade is worthwhile.

Spreads in thinner markets can add another layer of cost.

So PredictIt is not really about being the cheapest prediction market. Its appeal is that it remains a focused, familiar venue for political markets with a straightforward interface and simple fee structure.

The Bottom Line

PredictIt's fee structure has improved significantly.

The old 5% withdrawal charge is gone, ACH deposits are free and the platform still does not charge a conventional trading commission. The primary platform cost is now the 10% fee on profits, together with normal market friction such as bid-ask spreads.

Its regulatory limits have also changed. The old $850 cap has been replaced by a higher investment limit tied to federal campaign-contribution limits, while the previous 5,000-trader ceiling has been eliminated.

That makes many older descriptions of PredictIt outdated.

The 10% profit fee can still make the platform expensive for active traders or strategies built around very small edges. Kalshi and Polymarket may offer better economics in some situations.

But PredictIt in 2026 is a considerably more competitive product than the version that charged a profit fee, a withdrawal fee and imposed a very low position limit.

For a deeper look at the regulatory side, see our guide to PredictIt legality, CFTC status and US access.