pump.fun basics7 of 9
What is slippage?
Slippage is the gap between the price you're shown when you place a trade and the price you get when it goes through. Slippage tolerance is the most you'll accept: past it, the trade cancels itself and your SOL stays in your wallet.
- Tolerance
- 5%
- You're shown
- 12.47M
- Buy0.4 SOL
- Buy0.6 SOL
- You1 SOL
On pump.fun, where a coin's price can move several times a second, tolerance is the setting that decides whether your trade fills, fails or fills badly.
The Robinhood version
On Robinhood, a market order buys at whatever price is there when it fills. A limit order sets the worst price you'll accept, and doesn't fill if the market won't meet it. Slippage tolerance turns every crypto swap into a limit order with a short fuse: "fill me at up to 5% worse than the price I'm seeing, or not at all."
Why you pay more than the price on screen
Two things push up the price you pay:
- Your own trade. On a bonding curve or in a pool, every buy raises the price as it fills, so a big buy pays more on average than the price you saw. That's price impact, and your quote already includes it.
- Everyone else's trades. Your trade takes a moment to land on Solana. If other buyers land first, you start from a higher price. That's slippage: on a busy pump.fun coin, it's the part you can't see coming, and it's what your tolerance is for.
Try it: a buy on pump.fun's curve
The coin here is partway up pump.fun's curve, with 20 SOL in. Pick your buy and your tolerance, then add the buys that land before yours. Turn on the bot to see what a high tolerance invites.
The buys ahead of yours cost you 3.8% of your tokens. That's inside your 5%, so it filled.
Price impact vs. slippage
Price impact is your own footprint: how far your trade pushes the price as it fills. It depends on your size and how much the coin trades, and your quote shows it before you click. On a brand-new pump.fun coin, a 5 SOL buy pays about 16% over the starting price on average, with nobody else trading at all.
Slippage is what happens between your quote and your fill. On pump.fun, that's mostly other people's buys and sells landing first. Some apps fold the two together and call it all slippage; the simulator keeps them apart.
When slippage beats your tolerance
The trade fails. Nothing is bought or sold, and your SOL stays in your wallet. You still pay the Solana network fee for the attempt: 0.000005 SOL, plus any priority fee your app adds to land faster.
A failed trade on pump.fun usually means the coin moved faster than your tolerance. Raising it makes the next try more likely to fill, at a worse price. That's the trade-off, every time.
Sandwich bots
Your tolerance tells anyone watching how much worse a price you'll take. Bots can buy just ahead of you, pushing the price right to the edge of your limit, let your trade fill there, then sell straight after. That's a sandwich, and your tolerance is the size of the bite. Turn on the bot in the simulator and compare 5% with 25%.
What slippage tolerance to set
| Situation | Start at | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A calm coin, a small buy | 1–3% | Little moves between your quote and your fill. |
| A busy pump.fun coin | 5–10% | Other buys land in the same second as yours. |
| A coin in its first minutes | 10–20%, small buys only | It can move a lot in a second, so keep the amount small. |
| Selling | The same | On a sale, tolerance sets the fewest SOL you'll accept. |
The rule: start low, and raise it a step at a time only when trades fail. Treat a high tolerance as a price you're agreeing to pay, because with a bot watching, you may pay all of it.
Slippage isn't a fee
Slippage is the price moving, not a charge. A pump.fun trade also pays fees, whatever its slippage: 1.25% of the trade on the curve, and since October 17, 2026, a 0.45% platform fee on trades placed in pump.fun's own app. Then comes the Solana network fee, plus any priority fee. pump.fun collects its fees in the coin's trading pair; the network fee is always SOL.
The one buy nobody can get ahead of
A creator's own first buy, the dev buy, goes in the same transaction that creates the coin, whether you launch on pump.fun's site or ours. Nobody can buy a coin before it exists, so nothing can land ahead of a dev buy: the creator is the first buyer, at the curve's starting price. Here's how a launch with a dev buy works.
Your tolerance decides how well you buy. The CA decides whether you bought the right coin at all, and copycats count on people skipping it: here's how vamps work. And check who holds the supply: a few big wallets can sell on you, which is how rug pulls work. Launching your own? Get a CA that starts with your word.
Questions
What is slippage in crypto?
The gap between the price you're shown when you place a trade and the price you get when it fills. On pump.fun, it comes from other trades landing before yours. Your own trade's price impact is already in your quote.
What is slippage tolerance?
The most slippage you'll accept on a trade. If the price moves further than that before your trade fills, the trade cancels itself and your SOL stays in your wallet.
What slippage should I use on pump.fun?
Start low, around 1–3% for a calm coin, and raise it a step at a time only if trades fail. A busy coin in its first minutes can need 10% or more; keep those buys small.
Is slippage a fee?
No. It's the price moving between your quote and your fill. Fees are separate: 1.25% of each trade on pump.fun's curve, plus a 0.45% platform fee in pump.fun's own app.
What's the difference between price impact and slippage?
Price impact is how far your own trade moves the price, and your quote already shows it. Slippage is what other trades do between your quote and your fill.
Why did my trade fail with a slippage error?
The price moved further than your tolerance before your trade landed, so it canceled itself. Nothing was bought, and you paid only the network fee.
