The Boston Options Exchange announced Friday it will drop a pricing scheme for some options contracts after it failed to draw business.

The move follows a similar fee shake-up in June that has attracted more trade in options on exchange-traded funds, according to a senior executive at the exchange.

The Boston Options Exchange, or BOX, will eliminate so-called "make or take" pricing on options that trade in penny increments, pending approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Under this pricing scheme, exchange customers who remove liquidity from markets in penny-priced options pay a fee, whereas customers providing liquidity earn rebates.

The maker-taker model for options, also employed by NYSE Euronext (NYX) and Nasdaq OMX (NDAQ), is geared toward high-speed electronic participants that move in and out of markets rapidly.

In July, the all-electronic BOX market dropped taker fees on three ETFs in a bid to boost volume - the SPDR Trust Series I (SPY), the PowerShares QQQ Trust (QQQQ) and the iShares Russell 2000 Index Fund (IWM). As a result BOX has seen a slight increase in market share across those products. More important, according to BOX Vice Chairman William Easley, the fee shake-up has brought new participants to BOX's markets, including more private investors.

"It's simply a business decision," Easley said of the Friday announcement in an interview. He characterized the maker-taker pricing model as an "experiment" that didn't pay off for BOX.

BOX implemented maker-taker pricing about two years ago, and while Easley said it increased trader participation in BOX's most actively traded markets, it didn't improve liquidity in lesser-traded classes of options.

Starting in September, BOX's public customers won't have to pay a trading fee on the 57 classes of penny-priced options, whereas all other customers will pay 20 cents per contract.

Easley said the new fee structure won't hurt BOX's revenue. "We don't have to gain much market share to make it worthwhile."

For August, BOX's overall share of the U.S. options market has been about 4.5%, slightly higher than in July.

-By Jacob Bunge, Dow Jones Newswires; (312) 750 4117; jacob.bunge@dowjones.com