To buy on Polymarket, you pick an outcome on a market page, choose Yes or No, and place either a market order, which fills at once at the lowest asking prices and pays a taker fee in most categories, or a limit order at your own price, which pays no fee if it waits on the order book and fills later. Each share costs between $0 and $1 and pays $1 if its side turns out right and $0 if not, so you can lose everything you put into a position.
US residents can't deposit or trade on polymarket.com; they use the separate Polymarket US app. Polymarket also blocks or limits trading in many other countries, and governments add blocks of their own. Check where Polymarket and Kalshi are available before you move any money.
Polymarket's Terms of Use prohibit using a VPN or similar tool to get around these restrictions, and doing so can also break local law. PolyKal doesn't help anyone get around them.
Each outcome of a Polymarket market trades as Yes and No shares priced between $0 and $1. When the market resolves under its written rules, every share on the correct side pays $1 and every share on the wrong side pays $0. Polymarket reads the price as the market's implied probability: a Yes share at 18¢ implies about an 18% chance, and if the event happens that share is worth $1, 82¢ more than it cost before fees. A market can also resolve 50-50 when its rules or, rarely, a UMA vote call for it; every share then pays $0.50.
So the price is what you pay per share and $1 is the most a share can pay. 100 shares bought at 40¢ cost 100 × $0.40 = $40.00 plus any fee, and pay $100 if right and $0 if wrong. Balances on polymarket.com are held in pUSD, a token backed 1:1 by USDC that polymarket.com has used since April 28, 2026; this page counts 1 pUSD as $1. You can sell before resolution at whatever buyers then bid (see how to sell on Polymarket); if you hold a losing position to the end, you lose everything you paid for it, fees included.
A market page lists each outcome with its current price. On an event with several possible answers, each row is its own Yes/No market with its own prices. The order book for the selected outcome sits on the page, with your open orders just below it and the market's rules, which decide how it resolves, beneath the book; read the rules before you buy.
You need a pUSD balance first (see how to deposit and withdraw on Polymarket). We couldn't confirm every label in the current order panel, so the steps describe what each control does; labels may differ slightly.
Who pays and how much: on polymarket.com only takers pay trading fees; makers, whose limit orders rest on the book and are filled later, pay nothing. The taker fee is shares × fee rate × price × (1 − price). It is largest at 50¢, shrinks towards 0¢ and $1, and is the same at a price and its mirror: at the 0.05 rate, 100 shares at 30¢ and 100 shares at 70¢ both pay 100 × 0.05 × 0.30 × 0.70 = $1.05. Fees are rounded to 5 decimal places, with 0.00001 the smallest fee charged.
Rates by category: 0.07 for crypto ($1.75 on 100 shares at 50¢); 0.05 for sports, economics, culture, weather and other markets ($1.25); 0.04 for finance, politics, mentions and tech ($1.00); and 0 for geopolitics. Rates change: sports rose from 0.03 to 0.05 on July 10, 2026. See Polymarket fees explained, run your own numbers in the fee calculator, and compare costs with Kalshi's on our Polymarket vs Kalshi comparison.
When and how it is charged: since the exchange upgrade of April 28, 2026, the fee is calculated when your order matches, not when you place it, and is charged in pUSD rather than being taken out of your shares, so it shows up in your trade history and you receive the full number of shares. Your balance must cover the cost plus the fee. Some third-party guides still describe the old method of taking the fee in shares.
Rebates and extra fees: Polymarket's docs say makers share a daily rebate pool equal to 25% of the taker fees collected in most categories, 20% in crypto and 15% in sports (the Help Center still says 20% for sports). A separate taker rebate program, launched May 28, 2026, has rebate rates from 3% to 50% depending on 30-day weighted volume, starting at $2,000. Both pay daily in pUSD with a $1 minimum. Orders placed through third-party apps can carry an extra builder fee of up to 1% for takers, on top of Polymarket's fee.
Events with several possible answers, such as an election with many candidates, are built from separate Yes/No markets, one per outcome. When they are linked as a group (Polymarket calls this negative risk), exactly one market resolves Yes and every other one resolves No.
Buying Yes on an outcome is a position that it wins. Buying No on it is, in effect, a position that any of the others wins: Polymarket's docs say one No share in such a group can be converted into one Yes share in every other market of the group. Each row still has its own order book and prices.
Polymarket's docs say to trade only named outcomes. Some events contain placeholder outcomes that the website doesn't display until they are named, and if the correct answer isn't among the named outcomes, the market resolves to Other.
Filled shares appear as a position on your Portfolio page, and unfilled orders on its open-orders tab. For each position Polymarket tracks the average entry price, the current value (shares × current price) and the profit or loss (current value − cost); column labels may differ slightly.
A new position can show a small loss straight away: you paid the ask, while the position is valued at the current price, which is normally the midpoint, and the fee was charged separately. This is our reading of the documented price and fee rules, not a Polymarket statement. To exit before resolution, see how to sell on Polymarket; after resolution, each winning share can be redeemed for 1 pUSD.
The Polymarket US app is a separate, CFTC-regulated product for US residents, with its own accounts, dollar balances and fee schedule. To buy, you open a market, choose Yes or No, enter a dollar amount (or the maximum), review the order and swipe up to confirm; the position then appears in the Portfolio tab. The US docs say app orders are processed as marketable limit orders that never fill at a worse price than the one set, and any part that can't fill right away stays open as an order.
Whole contracts and fees: the app trades only whole contracts, so part of your amount can come back to your cash (see Example 3). Its taker fee is 0.0695 × contracts × price × (1 − price), at most $1.74 per 100 contracts at 50¢, deducted at execution and rounded to the cent on each fill (banker's rounding). Makers receive a rebate of 0.0125 × contracts × price × (1 − price), about $0.31 per 100 contracts at 50¢. Different fee curves apply to combos from September 24, 2026 and to table tennis from September 30, 2026, and a weekly maintenance window runs every Thursday from 6:00 to 8:00 AM ET.
The order books below are hypothetical. Fees use the official formula, with each fill charged at its own price, and the rates in force in September 2026; check current rates in Polymarket fees explained or the fee calculator.
On polymarket.com, open a market, pick the outcome, choose Yes or No, choose a market order (a dollar amount, filled at once at the ask) or a limit order (a number of shares at your price), check the total and confirm. You need a pUSD balance first, and US residents use the separate Polymarket US app instead.
Each market sets a minimum order size in shares, shown as 5 shares in Polymarket's examples. At 40¢ that is 5 × $0.40 = $2.00, plus a taker fee of 5 × 0.04 × 0.40 × 0.60 = $0.048 at the 0.04 rate; at 10¢ it is 5 × $0.10 = $0.50. Deposits have their own minimums, a few dollars on most networks (see Polymarket deposits and withdrawals).
Only when your order fills as a taker. Taker fee = shares × fee rate × price × (1 − price), with rates from 0 (geopolitics) to 0.07 (crypto) as of September 2026; buying 100 shares at 40¢ at the 0.04 rate costs 100 × 0.04 × 0.40 × 0.60 = $0.96 in fees. A limit order that waits on the book and fills later pays nothing. See Polymarket fees explained.
A market order is entered in dollars and fills at once against the asks on the book, at whatever prices are there, and pays the taker fee in most categories. A limit order is entered in shares at a maximum price; it fills only when a seller accepts that price, possibly in part, later or never, and pays no fee if it rests before filling.
Because no seller is asking your price or lower yet. The order waits on the book, may fill in pieces, and stays until it fills, expires (GTD) or you cancel it. In sports markets it is cancelled automatically when the game starts.
The shown price is the midpoint of the bid and ask (or the last trade if the spread is over 10¢), while a market buy pays the ask and, for larger amounts, higher asks too. A taker fee is then charged on top in most categories.
You can cancel the unfilled part of an open order with the red x next to it, under the order book or on your Portfolio page's open-orders tab; filled shares stay yours. Polymarket's docs describe no edit function, so to change the price or size, cancel and place a new order.
A No share pays $1 if the outcome does not happen and $0 if it does. In a multi-outcome event, No on one outcome is in effect a position on all the others, and Polymarket's docs say it can be converted into one Yes share of every other outcome.
When the market resolves against you, your shares are worth $0 and you lose the whole amount you paid, including fees. Before resolution you can sell at the current bid, which may be below what you paid; see how to sell on Polymarket.
Not on polymarket.com. US residents use the separate Polymarket US app, which has identity checks, dollar balances, whole contracts only and its own taker fee of 0.0695 × contracts × price × (1 − price).
Every fact on this page comes from the sources below, checked on September 24, 2026. Fees, ticks, minimums, delays and order options change often, so the numbers are as of September 2026; we re-verify this page quarterly. Where Polymarket's own pages disagree, we say so in the text.
polymarket.com help center: What is Polymarket?, How Are Prices Calculated?, Limit Orders, Trading Fees, Maker Rebates Program, Does Polymarket Have Trading Limits?, Exchange Upgrade April 28, 2026, Geographic Restrictions, How to Resolve "Network Error", How Are Prediction Markets Resolved?, How to Sign-Up and How Do I Export My Key?
Polymarket developer docs: Polymarket 101, prices and order book, order book, order-book data, order lifecycle, placing orders, error codes, market channel (tick changes), matching engine, fees, maker rebates, taker rebates, builder fees, markets and events, negative risk, positions and tokens and changelog; Terms of Use (effective August 11, 2026); event-page FAQ on polymarket.com.
Polymarket US docs: Place a Trade, Order Types, Fractional Contracts, Fee Schedule, Trading Hours and Create an Account.
PolyKal is an independent research tool, not affiliated with Polymarket or Kalshi. This page explains how buying on Polymarket works; it is not financial, legal or tax advice, and not an invitation to open an account or trade.
To buy on Polymarket, you pick an outcome on a market page, choose Yes or No, and place either a market order, which fills at once at the lowest asking prices and pays a taker fee in most categories, or a limit order at your own price, which pays no fee if it waits on the order book and fills later. Each share costs between $0 and $1 and pays $1 if its side turns out right and $0 if not, so you can lose everything you put into a position.
US residents can't deposit or trade on polymarket.com; they use the separate Polymarket US app. Polymarket also blocks or limits trading in many other countries, and governments add blocks of their own. Check where Polymarket and Kalshi are available before you move any money.
Polymarket's Terms of Use prohibit using a VPN or similar tool to get around these restrictions, and doing so can also break local law. PolyKal doesn't help anyone get around them.
Each outcome of a Polymarket market trades as Yes and No shares priced between $0 and $1. When the market resolves under its written rules, every share on the correct side pays $1 and every share on the wrong side pays $0. Polymarket reads the price as the market's implied probability: a Yes share at 18¢ implies about an 18% chance, and if the event happens that share is worth $1, 82¢ more than it cost before fees. A market can also resolve 50-50 when its rules or, rarely, a UMA vote call for it; every share then pays $0.50.
So the price is what you pay per share and $1 is the most a share can pay. 100 shares bought at 40¢ cost 100 × $0.40 = $40.00 plus any fee, and pay $100 if right and $0 if wrong. Balances on polymarket.com are held in pUSD, a token backed 1:1 by USDC that polymarket.com has used since April 28, 2026; this page counts 1 pUSD as $1. You can sell before resolution at whatever buyers then bid (see how to sell on Polymarket); if you hold a losing position to the end, you lose everything you paid for it, fees included.
A market page lists each outcome with its current price. On an event with several possible answers, each row is its own Yes/No market with its own prices. The order book for the selected outcome sits on the page, with your open orders just below it and the market's rules, which decide how it resolves, beneath the book; read the rules before you buy.
You need a pUSD balance first (see how to deposit and withdraw on Polymarket). We couldn't confirm every label in the current order panel, so the steps describe what each control does; labels may differ slightly.
Who pays and how much: on polymarket.com only takers pay trading fees; makers, whose limit orders rest on the book and are filled later, pay nothing. The taker fee is shares × fee rate × price × (1 − price). It is largest at 50¢, shrinks towards 0¢ and $1, and is the same at a price and its mirror: at the 0.05 rate, 100 shares at 30¢ and 100 shares at 70¢ both pay 100 × 0.05 × 0.30 × 0.70 = $1.05. Fees are rounded to 5 decimal places, with 0.00001 the smallest fee charged.
Rates by category: 0.07 for crypto ($1.75 on 100 shares at 50¢); 0.05 for sports, economics, culture, weather and other markets ($1.25); 0.04 for finance, politics, mentions and tech ($1.00); and 0 for geopolitics. Rates change: sports rose from 0.03 to 0.05 on July 10, 2026. See Polymarket fees explained, run your own numbers in the fee calculator, and compare costs with Kalshi's on our Polymarket vs Kalshi comparison.
When and how it is charged: since the exchange upgrade of April 28, 2026, the fee is calculated when your order matches, not when you place it, and is charged in pUSD rather than being taken out of your shares, so it shows up in your trade history and you receive the full number of shares. Your balance must cover the cost plus the fee. Some third-party guides still describe the old method of taking the fee in shares.
Rebates and extra fees: Polymarket's docs say makers share a daily rebate pool equal to 25% of the taker fees collected in most categories, 20% in crypto and 15% in sports (the Help Center still says 20% for sports). A separate taker rebate program, launched May 28, 2026, has rebate rates from 3% to 50% depending on 30-day weighted volume, starting at $2,000. Both pay daily in pUSD with a $1 minimum. Orders placed through third-party apps can carry an extra builder fee of up to 1% for takers, on top of Polymarket's fee.
Events with several possible answers, such as an election with many candidates, are built from separate Yes/No markets, one per outcome. When they are linked as a group (Polymarket calls this negative risk), exactly one market resolves Yes and every other one resolves No.
Buying Yes on an outcome is a position that it wins. Buying No on it is, in effect, a position that any of the others wins: Polymarket's docs say one No share in such a group can be converted into one Yes share in every other market of the group. Each row still has its own order book and prices.
Polymarket's docs say to trade only named outcomes. Some events contain placeholder outcomes that the website doesn't display until they are named, and if the correct answer isn't among the named outcomes, the market resolves to Other.
Filled shares appear as a position on your Portfolio page, and unfilled orders on its open-orders tab. For each position Polymarket tracks the average entry price, the current value (shares × current price) and the profit or loss (current value − cost); column labels may differ slightly.
A new position can show a small loss straight away: you paid the ask, while the position is valued at the current price, which is normally the midpoint, and the fee was charged separately. This is our reading of the documented price and fee rules, not a Polymarket statement. To exit before resolution, see how to sell on Polymarket; after resolution, each winning share can be redeemed for 1 pUSD.
The Polymarket US app is a separate, CFTC-regulated product for US residents, with its own accounts, dollar balances and fee schedule. To buy, you open a market, choose Yes or No, enter a dollar amount (or the maximum), review the order and swipe up to confirm; the position then appears in the Portfolio tab. The US docs say app orders are processed as marketable limit orders that never fill at a worse price than the one set, and any part that can't fill right away stays open as an order.
Whole contracts and fees: the app trades only whole contracts, so part of your amount can come back to your cash (see Example 3). Its taker fee is 0.0695 × contracts × price × (1 − price), at most $1.74 per 100 contracts at 50¢, deducted at execution and rounded to the cent on each fill (banker's rounding). Makers receive a rebate of 0.0125 × contracts × price × (1 − price), about $0.31 per 100 contracts at 50¢. Different fee curves apply to combos from September 24, 2026 and to table tennis from September 30, 2026, and a weekly maintenance window runs every Thursday from 6:00 to 8:00 AM ET.
The order books below are hypothetical. Fees use the official formula, with each fill charged at its own price, and the rates in force in September 2026; check current rates in Polymarket fees explained or the fee calculator.
On polymarket.com, open a market, pick the outcome, choose Yes or No, choose a market order (a dollar amount, filled at once at the ask) or a limit order (a number of shares at your price), check the total and confirm. You need a pUSD balance first, and US residents use the separate Polymarket US app instead.
Each market sets a minimum order size in shares, shown as 5 shares in Polymarket's examples. At 40¢ that is 5 × $0.40 = $2.00, plus a taker fee of 5 × 0.04 × 0.40 × 0.60 = $0.048 at the 0.04 rate; at 10¢ it is 5 × $0.10 = $0.50. Deposits have their own minimums, a few dollars on most networks (see Polymarket deposits and withdrawals).
Only when your order fills as a taker. Taker fee = shares × fee rate × price × (1 − price), with rates from 0 (geopolitics) to 0.07 (crypto) as of September 2026; buying 100 shares at 40¢ at the 0.04 rate costs 100 × 0.04 × 0.40 × 0.60 = $0.96 in fees. A limit order that waits on the book and fills later pays nothing. See Polymarket fees explained.
A market order is entered in dollars and fills at once against the asks on the book, at whatever prices are there, and pays the taker fee in most categories. A limit order is entered in shares at a maximum price; it fills only when a seller accepts that price, possibly in part, later or never, and pays no fee if it rests before filling.
Because no seller is asking your price or lower yet. The order waits on the book, may fill in pieces, and stays until it fills, expires (GTD) or you cancel it. In sports markets it is cancelled automatically when the game starts.
The shown price is the midpoint of the bid and ask (or the last trade if the spread is over 10¢), while a market buy pays the ask and, for larger amounts, higher asks too. A taker fee is then charged on top in most categories.
You can cancel the unfilled part of an open order with the red x next to it, under the order book or on your Portfolio page's open-orders tab; filled shares stay yours. Polymarket's docs describe no edit function, so to change the price or size, cancel and place a new order.
A No share pays $1 if the outcome does not happen and $0 if it does. In a multi-outcome event, No on one outcome is in effect a position on all the others, and Polymarket's docs say it can be converted into one Yes share of every other outcome.
When the market resolves against you, your shares are worth $0 and you lose the whole amount you paid, including fees. Before resolution you can sell at the current bid, which may be below what you paid; see how to sell on Polymarket.
Not on polymarket.com. US residents use the separate Polymarket US app, which has identity checks, dollar balances, whole contracts only and its own taker fee of 0.0695 × contracts × price × (1 − price).
Every fact on this page comes from the sources below, checked on September 24, 2026. Fees, ticks, minimums, delays and order options change often, so the numbers are as of September 2026; we re-verify this page quarterly. Where Polymarket's own pages disagree, we say so in the text.
polymarket.com help center: What is Polymarket?, How Are Prices Calculated?, Limit Orders, Trading Fees, Maker Rebates Program, Does Polymarket Have Trading Limits?, Exchange Upgrade April 28, 2026, Geographic Restrictions, How to Resolve "Network Error", How Are Prediction Markets Resolved?, How to Sign-Up and How Do I Export My Key?
Polymarket developer docs: Polymarket 101, prices and order book, order book, order-book data, order lifecycle, placing orders, error codes, market channel (tick changes), matching engine, fees, maker rebates, taker rebates, builder fees, markets and events, negative risk, positions and tokens and changelog; Terms of Use (effective August 11, 2026); event-page FAQ on polymarket.com.
Polymarket US docs: Place a Trade, Order Types, Fractional Contracts, Fee Schedule, Trading Hours and Create an Account.
PolyKal is an independent research tool, not affiliated with Polymarket or Kalshi. This page explains how buying on Polymarket works; it is not financial, legal or tax advice, and not an invitation to open an account or trade.