Novig maker-free taker-fee design

Novig is using fees as a market design tool, not just a revenue line. By keeping maker orders and standard pregame straight trades free, it makes the most common screen on the app look cheaper than a sportsbook and gives users a reason to post prices instead of only hitting existing ones. It then monetizes the harder markets, live trading, futures, and combinations, where pricing is more complex and immediate liquidity matters more.1 2 3 4

• The core workflow is exchange style. A user can either post a price and wait, which helps build the order book, or take the best available price for an instant fill. That maker and taker split is why zero maker fees matter, because empty books make peer to peer markets feel worse than sportsbooks.1 3
• Novig markets itself on pregame no vig pricing versus sportsbook lines around -110. On its Minnesota page, it shows active fills clustering around -101 and -102, which only works if the basic pregame trade is cheap enough that users do not feel a fee drag on every bet.3 4
• This is different from two close comparables. Polymarket built liquidity with zero fees, then later added category specific trading fees, while Kalshi has monetized event contracts at roughly a 1% effective take rate. Novig sits between them, preserving a free front door while charging on market types that look more like high service execution.5 6 7

Over time, this kind of schedule points toward a split market. Pregame straight bets become the acquisition product that teaches users to trade on an order book, while live, futures, and combo markets become the monetization layer once liquidity deepens. If Novig can keep pregame prices visibly better than sportsbooks, it can add fees elsewhere without breaking the core value proposition.1 3 5 7