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Swap fee comparison

What the trade really costs, on an exchange against onchain.

2Ways to make the same trade
1Flat cost that changes everything
$0To use
0Accounts needed
Loading live prices
$
%Taker fee on a centralized exchange
%Most pools charge 0.05 to 1 percent
$What one swap costs in gas right now
%What you lose to price impact on the way through
Cheaper option
On an exchangeFee only
OnchainPool fee, slippage and gas
You save
They break even atBelow this size, gas makes onchain worse

Everything here is worked out in your own browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere, stored, or logged, and there is nothing to sign up for.

The shape of it

One cost is a percentage, the other is mostly flat

An exchange charges you a percentage. Trade ten dollars and you pay cents; trade ten thousand and you pay tens of dollars. It scales with you.

Onchain, the pool fee is a percentage but the network fee is not. Gas costs roughly the same whether you are moving twenty dollars or twenty thousand. That single fact decides everything: small trades onchain are expensive because gas swamps them, and large trades onchain are cheap because gas stops mattering.

There is a size where the two meet, and the calculator finds it. Below it, an exchange wins on cost. Above it, onchain does, and you keep custody the whole way through.

Worth remembering

Cost is not the only axis. On an exchange the platform holds your coins and can freeze, delist or fail. Onchain you hold them and every mistake is yours. Cheaper is not automatically better.

Common questions

Where do I find the real gas cost?

Our gas tracker shows what a swap costs right now on Ethereum, Base and Arbitrum. On Solana it is a fraction of a cent and you can leave it near zero.

What slippage should I use?

On a deep pair, a tenth of a percent. On a thin one, several percent, and on a very thin one your trade is the price move. Check the liquidity before you assume this number is small.

Do exchanges have hidden costs too?

Withdrawal fees, spread on the order book, and the conversion if you are not already in the quote currency. The advertised taker fee is the floor, not the total.

Want a hand using these on your own position?

We go through it together on a call. Your holdings, your risk, your setup. You click everything and we never ask for keys.