Crypto trading fees explained

The platform fee

This is the percentage a terminal takes from each swap. It is charged on the trade value, not on your profit, which means it applies twice on a round trip: once when you buy and once when you sell. A 1% fee therefore costs roughly 2% of position size across a complete trade.

Network and priority fees

Every transaction pays the chain. On Solana the base fee is negligible, but the priority fee — an optional tip that buys faster inclusion — rises sharply during launches and can turn a cent-level cost into several dollars. On EVM chains gas dominates and varies with congestion.

Slippage and price impact

Slippage is the difference between the quoted price and the fill price. On a deep pair it is a rounding error. On a token that launched twenty minutes ago it is the dominant cost of the trade, and no platform fee discount will compensate for it.

• Set the lowest slippage tolerance that still fills reliably.
• Split large orders rather than pushing one order through thin depth.
• Treat a required slippage above roughly 10% as a warning about liquidity, not a setting to raise.

Referral discounts, honestly

Some platforms document a fee reduction for users who arrive through a referral link. We publish that benefit only when the platform itself documents it on a public page, and we link the source. Where no benefit is documented, we say so rather than implying one exists.