Exchange operators earn money by charging for trading and clearing, selling market data, and providing related services such as connectivity and routing. The exact mix depends on what a company operates and how it reports fees, rebates, and pass-through charges—so a reported “trading” figure is not always the amount retained from executions alone.
Where exchange operators’ revenue comes from
An exchange group may own several trading venues, clearing operations, and data or technology businesses. Its revenue therefore reflects more than listing a stock or collecting one fee each time a trade occurs. The main streams are transaction and clearing charges, market-data services, and other venue-related services.
Trading and transaction fees
Venues charge participants for facilitating transactions, but the fee basis varies. CME Group says it assesses some fees per contract and others by notional value; activity, product mix, customer type, and average fee rates all affect the resulting revenue. Member and non-member rates can differ.
Reported categories may combine more than execution fees. CME’s “clearing and transaction fees” category includes charges related to trade matching, clearing, electronic-platform trading, portfolio reconciliation and compression, and risk mitigation. For 2025, CME reported $5,281.1 million in this category, out of $6,520.6 million in total revenue. These are CME’s figures for the year ended December 31, 2025, not an industry average. CME Group’s 2025 Form 10-K describes its revenue categories and fee model.
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Clearing and post-trade services
Clearing takes place after counterparties agree to a trade. Depending on the arrangement, clearing services can validate obligations, manage exposures, and help process transactions toward settlement. An exchange group that operates a clearing business may charge for these services, but clearing is not synonymous with matching or executing a trade.
The roles can be separate: CME’s filing describes cash-market matching that can result in a bilateral trade or use of a third-party clearing house. Its own principal revenue category combines transaction and clearing fees, and most of that fee revenue is recognized when a trade is successfully executed, with a smaller settlement-related component recognized over the contract’s short lifecycle. As a result, the company’s category should not be read as a standalone measure of clearing charges.
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Market data and information services
Exchange operators can sell information generated by their markets, including prices, quotes, order-book details, transactions, and historical data. They may distribute it directly or through third-party providers, with subscription or licensing terms that vary by product, customer, use, and distribution arrangement.
CME reported $803.1 million in market-data and information-services revenue for 2025. Its 2024 filing describes real-time, delayed, and end-of-day quotations, and says its basic real-time quote service charges a flat monthly fee for each screen or device displaying quotes. That specific arrangement does not establish a universal per-screen price for all customers or data products. CME Group’s 2024 Form 10-K describes that service. ICE’s 2025 filing also describes proprietary real-time and historical pricing, order-book, and transaction information as part of its exchange data services. ICE’s 2025 Form 10-K discusses its exchange and data services.
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Why the fee a customer pays may not equal revenue retained
Rebates and pass-through assessments can change the economics behind a reported trading figure. Nasdaq’s 2025 Form 10-K reports $1,847 million in cash-equity trading revenue, $1,307 million in transaction rebates, and $366 million in SEC Section 31 fees assessed to Nasdaq and passed through to customers. It reports cash-equity trading revenue net of transaction-based expenses at $515 million. These figures show why gross revenue, transaction expenses, and net revenue need to be distinguished rather than treated as interchangeable measures. Nasdaq’s 2025 Form 10-K provides the figures and accounting presentation.
Companies also differ in how they present rebates. Nasdaq shows transaction rebates and other transaction-based expenses separately from cash-equity trading revenue; ICE says its exchange transaction and clearing revenues are presented net of rebates. Check the filing’s accounting presentation before comparing operators: a number labeled “revenue” may not reflect the same gross or net basis across companies. ICE’s 2025 Form 10-K describes its presentation.
Other services contribute to the business
Trading, clearing, and data are important, but they do not exhaust an exchange group’s activities. Depending on the operator, revenue may also come from listings, technology, connectivity, routing, or other operational services. Cboe’s 2025 filing presents transaction and clearing, data-vantage, and routing-and-clearing categories; CME reports an “other” category; ICE discusses data and connectivity services tied to its venues. These differences in business scope are another reason total revenue alone may not make operators directly comparable. Cboe’s 2025 Form 10-K describes its reported categories.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to compare exchange operators’ revenue
Use filings for the same fiscal year and check what each company includes in its categories before drawing conclusions. A useful comparison covers:
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- Revenue mix: transaction and clearing, data, and other services.
- Fee drivers: contracts, notional value, transaction counts, product mix, activity levels, and customer rates.
- Gross versus net reporting: whether rebates, regulatory assessments, and pass-through costs are shown separately or netted against revenue.
- Business scope: the venues and services the company operates, including equities, derivatives, clearing, listings, technology, and data.
- Data distribution: whether sales are direct or through resellers, and which products and usage terms apply.
For context, CME reported $4,988.2 million in clearing and transaction fees, $710.2 million in market data and information services, $431.7 million in other revenue, and $6,130.1 million in total revenue for 2024. Its corresponding 2025 figures were $5,281.1 million, $803.1 million, $436.4 million, and $6,520.6 million. Both sets are CME Group figures in millions of dollars for the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2025; they illustrate one company’s revenue mix and movement, not an industry-wide pattern. CME Group’s 2025 Form 10-K reports both years.
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