A site says it pays 50% back on your trading fees. Is that even real?
Any page that promises a percentage of your trading fees back should be checkable against two public facts: what the exchange's own affiliate program actually pays an affiliate, and what cap the exchange puts on the automatic discount an affiliate can hand a referred user. If a claim cannot be traced to those two numbers, it is not verifiable, no matter how it is worded.

Where the money actually comes from
A rebate service is an affiliate of the exchange, paid a commission out of the trading fees you already generate, the same way any referrer is paid. It does not create a discount out of nowhere and it does not need access to your funds to pay you: it only needs your account UID, the public identifier the exchange uses to attribute your trading to that affiliate.
The one number every exchange publishes itself
OKX and Binance each cap, in their own affiliate program rules, how much of that commission an affiliate can redirect to a referred user as an automatic discount:
| Exchange | Automatic discount cap, exchange's own rule |
|---|---|
| OKX | Published in OKX's own Affiliate FAQ |
| Binance | Published in Binance's own Referral Program announcement |
Read directly from okx.com/en-us/help/affiliate-faq and binance.com/en/support/articles/360043011652, 2026-09-12. Anything a rebate service pays above that cap is paid separately, out of its own commission, not routed through the exchange's automatic discount mechanism.
What to check before you register anywhere
ReturnFee's own numbers, for comparison
| Exchange | Total back to you |
|---|---|
| OKX | 60% |
| Bitget | 55% |
| MEXC | 50% |
| Binance | 45% |
The exchange's own share is its automatic discount. See the rates page or read the full rebate terms.