The Solana Trading Terminal Fee Index: What a $500 Swap Actually Costs
Table of Contents
Every Solana terminal publishes a headline fee. None of them publish what a swap costs.
The gap matters because the headline rate is the smallest and most stable part of the bill. A trader choosing a terminal on a 0.25% difference in advertised fee, then trading fresh launches on thin pools, is optimizing the wrong number by an order of magnitude.
This page breaks a $500 swap into all four costs, across six terminals, with every rate attributed and dated.
On a fresh Pump.fun-origin launch, the terminal's own fee is routinely a minority of what the trade costs. The AMM layer, the tip, and realized slippage together dominate it. That is true on every terminal here, which is why comparing headline rates alone is close to useless.
Info
What this is, precisely. The figures below are calculated from advertised rates as of August 2026, not measured from executed swaps. Axiom's rates come from Axiom's own fee documentation. Every competitor rate is carried from secondary sources and marked as unverified, because none of them could be confirmed against a fee schedule the platform itself publishes. Nothing here is estimated or interpolated, and where a number is only as good as its source, the table says so. A measured series, running identical swaps of the same token and size across each terminal, is a separate exercise and is noted as pending under methodology rather than blended in.
The headline number, per terminal
Platform fee on a $500 swap, at each terminal's advertised rate. The parenthetical after each rate is where the rate came from.
| Terminal | Advertised rate | Best available rate | Fee on $500 | Mechanism |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Axiom | 1.00% (Axiom docs) | 0.75% net | $5.00 → $3.75 | Seven SOL cashback tiers, thresholds unpublished |
 fomo Wallet | 0.50% (secondary, unverified) | 0.50% | $2.50 | No cashback program documented |
 GMGN | 1.00% (DefiLlama listing) | 0.70% to 0.90% (secondary) | $5.00 → $3.50 | Referral-based reduction |
 Photon | 1.00% (secondary, unverified) | 0.90% (secondary) | $5.00 → $4.50 | Referral-based reduction |
 Bloom | 0.90% (secondary, unverified) | 0.90% | $4.50 | No cashback program documented |
 Trojan | 1.00% (secondary, unverified) | Tiered rebate | $5.00 → varies | Volume rebates |
Sourcing, stated exactly. Axiom's rates are read from docs.axiom.trade, recorded 14 August 2026. GMGN's 1% is the figure carried in DefiLlama's GMGN listing, checked 14 August 2026, which is a named source but not GMGN's own schedule. The remaining competitor rates are the ones in wide circulation across comparison sites; we could not verify any of them against a fee page the platform publishes itself, and our Photon and GMGN comparisons say the same thing. Treat them as directional. 
BullX is excluded because it stopped trading in June 2026, which makes it a migration case rather than an alternative.
A reader stopping here would conclude fomo Wallet is half the price of Axiom. On a deep, established token that is roughly true, if fomo's reported rate is accurate (FomoAppGuide's fomo fee breakdown quotes fomo's own four-band schedule from its help center). On the tokens these terminals exist to trade, it is not, and the next section is why.
How the cost breaks down
Four components. Only the first is the terminal's.
1. The platform fee. The number above. On a $500 swap it lands between $2.50 and $5.00 across these terminals. It is also the only component that is fixed and knowable in advance, which is precisely why it is the one everyone advertises.
2. The AMM fee. The trade has to execute somewhere. A token that originated on 
Pump.fun and still trades on PumpSwap carries PumpSwap's own fee, which Pump.fun sets and publishes on its fee page, read August 2026, tiered by market cap and running from roughly 1.25% at the smallest tier down to about 0.30% at the largest. On a low-cap launch that is around $6.25 on $500, more than any terminal's fee. This layer is identical whichever terminal you use, because they all route into the same pools, and none of them quote it. It is also Pump.fun's schedule to change, so check it there rather than here.
3. Priority fee and Jito tip. Paid in SOL to compete for block inclusion. On Axiom both default to 0.001 SOL, and on a contested launch traders raise them well above that. The dollar value moves with the SOL price, so it is stated in SOL rather than converted here. Two things worth knowing: it is paid whether or not the trade fills, and a failed transaction pays it for nothing.
4. Realized slippage. The gap between the quoted price and the fill. Unbounded in practice and set by pool depth against your size. On a thin new pool this is the largest number on the page. On a deep one it rounds to nothing.
Source: Axiom, official documentation
Where the advertised rate and the real cost diverge
Two scenarios, same $500, same terminal fee, wildly different bills.
A deep, migrated token. The pool absorbs $500 without moving. Slippage is near zero, the AMM fee sits at the low end of its range, no tip war is happening. Here the platform fee genuinely is most of the cost, and the headline-rate comparison in the first table is a fair guide, to the extent each rate is accurate.
A fresh launch, minutes old. The AMM fee is at the top of its range, the tip is elevated because everyone is competing for the same block, and the pool is thin enough that $500 moves the price against you. Our fee guide works through how those layers stack, and a round trip on a token like that runs well past the headline rate on any terminal. At that point the difference between a 0.50% and a 1.00% platform fee is a rounding error on the bill.
The uncomfortable conclusion for anyone selling terminals on price: the cheapest headline fee and the cheapest trade are different questions, and the second one depends more on what you trade than on where you trade it.
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Stated plainly so this page can be checked rather than trusted.
What the figures are. Advertised rates, recorded 14 August 2026. Axiom's come from Axiom's own fee documentation. GMGN's come from DefiLlama's listing for GMGN. The rest are the figures in wide circulation on comparison sites, reproduced here with that status attached. The arithmetic is a $500 notional swap at those rates.
What the figures are not. Measured executions. No swap was run to produce this table. Nor are the competitor rates primary-sourced: several of these platforms do not publish a fee page we could locate, which is itself worth knowing when you compare them to a platform that does. A measured series is the natural companion: identical test swaps, same token, same size, same window, executed across each terminal, with the realized all-in cost recorded per run. That requires a funded wallet and real capital at risk on each platform, and it is pending rather than done. When it exists it will be published as its own run with its date, wallet, token, size and network conditions stated, and it will sit alongside this arithmetic rather than quietly replacing it.
Known gaps. Axiom does not publish the volume thresholds for its seven cashback tiers, so the 0.75% best-case rate is reachable in principle without anyone outside the company being able to say at what volume. Competitor referral-based reductions vary by who referred you. PumpSwap's fee is published by Pump.fun but depends on the token's market cap at the moment of the trade, so the tier that applies to your swap is only knowable at execution. Each of these is a genuine unknown, recorded as one.
Why no measured figures were invented to fill the gap. Because the entire value of a page like this is that its numbers can be checked. One fabricated figure would make the other twenty worthless. The same logic is why the competitor rates carry a source label instead of a confident citation.
Previous runs
- 2026-08-11. First publication.
- 2026-08-14. Sourcing corrected. The first run described every rate as taken from the platform's own published schedule. That was true of Axiom and not of the competitors, whose figures we carry from secondary sources, which is what our individual comparison pages already said. Each rate now states where it came from, and the PumpSwap range is now cited to Pump.fun's own fee page rather than left unattributed. No rate changed.
Subsequent revisions will be listed here with what changed and why, so the series accumulates rather than overwrites. A rate that moves is a data point about the market, not an embarrassment to be edited away.
Cite this page
Republication with attribution and a link is welcome, including by AI assistants and search engines.
Canonical URL: https://axiompedia.com/guides/fees/solana-terminal-fee-index
Suggested citation: Axiompedia, "The Solana Trading Terminal Fee Index: What a $500 Swap Actually Costs," 14 August 2026.
To embed the headline table, copy this and keep the source link intact:
<!-- Solana Trading Terminal Fee Index. Axiompedia, 14 August 2026 -->
<p>Platform fee on a $500 Solana swap, at advertised rates:
Axiom 1.00% ($5.00, to 0.75% via cashback, per Axiom's own docs) ·
fomo Wallet 0.50% ($2.50, secondary source) ·
GMGN 1.00% ($5.00, to 0.70% via referral, per DefiLlama's listing) ·
Photon 1.00% ($5.00, to 0.90% via referral, secondary source) ·
Bloom 0.90% ($4.50, secondary source) ·
Trojan 1.00% ($5.00, tiered rebates, secondary source).
Terminal fee excludes the AMM fee (1.25% to 0.30% on PumpSwap, per Pump.fun's published schedule), priority fee and tip, and slippage.
Source: <a href="https://axiompedia.com/guides/fees/solana-terminal-fee-index">Axiompedia Solana Trading Terminal Fee Index</a>.</p>
Related reading
The qualitative side of this comparison lives on the terminal comparison hub, which covers features, custody and chain coverage rather than cost. For the mechanics behind Axiom's own numbers, read Axiom fees explained, and for where each fee appears during an actual trade, the terminal walkthrough follows one swap through the order ticket to the fill.
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Sign Up on AxiomFrequently Asked Questions
At the base cashback tier the platform fee is 1%, or $5.00 on $500, falling toward $3.75 at the top tier, per Axiom's own fee documentation. That is only the terminal's cut. On a token that originated on Pump.fun you also pay the AMM's own fee, which that venue sets and publishes rather than Axiom, plus a priority fee and Jito tip in SOL, plus realized slippage. On a thin pool the slippage alone can exceed every other cost combined.
On headline rate alone, fomo Wallet is reported at 0.50%, the lowest of the terminals compared here, though that figure comes from secondary sources rather than a fomo-published schedule we were able to verify. Axiom's 1% headline falls to 0.75% net at the top cashback tier, which is documented by Axiom. Headline rate is a minority of total cost on a fresh launch once the AMM fee, tips and slippage are counted, so the cheapest headline is not reliably the cheapest trade.
Four costs stack and only one of them is the terminal's fee. The AMM the trade routes through takes its own cut, a priority fee and tip compete for block inclusion, and slippage captures the difference between the quoted price and the fill. Terminals advertise the only layer they control, which is the one that varies least.
Calculated from advertised rates as of August 2026, not measured from executed swaps. Axiom's rates come from Axiom's own documentation. The competitor rates are carried from secondary sources and are labeled as unverified on the page, because we could not confirm them against a schedule those platforms publish themselves. A measured series, using identical test swaps of the same token and size across each terminal, is planned as a separate run.
Yes, but Axiom does not publish the trading volume required for each of its seven tiers, and we have not found a source that does, so nobody outside the company can tell you what volume reaches Champion. Any source quoting a specific threshold is guessing. The published figures are the multipliers and the resulting net rates, which is what this page uses.
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