Solana Trading Bot Fees Compared: 1% per Trade vs One-Time
By Bathyr Devs · Published October 24, 2026
Most Solana trading bots charge about 1% of every buy and every sell. As of October 2026, Trojan, BONKbot, Photon, GMGN and Maestro list 1%, Axiom 0.75% to 0.95% net after cashback, and Banana Gun 0.5% on manual trades. PumpStriker is $350 once, with no per-trade fee taken by PumpStriker.
A percentage fee is cheap when you trade a little and expensive when you trade a lot, because it applies to both sides of every round trip. Below: the dated fee table with a source for every number, what referral codes and cashback really change, the costs every bot shares, and the break-even arithmetic against a one-time license.
Solana trading bot fees, as of October 2026
Every fee below links to the provider's own documentation or website, checked on October 24, 2026. Fees change, so check the live page before you trade.
| Bot | Platform fee | Cashback or discount | Subscription |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trojan | 1% per successful trade | Rank-based cashback paid in SOL | None; no charge to access |
| BONKbot | 1% on each successful swap | Fee rewards by volume when trading via Telemetry, per its docs | None; free to set up |
| Photon | 1% of the amount on every buy and sell, collected in SOL | None listed on its fee page | None listed |
| Axiom | 1% base; 0.95% down to 0.75% net with volume cashback | 10% off for users who sign up with a referral link | None listed |
| GMGN | 1% per transaction, "no additional charges" | None listed on its fee page | None |
| Banana Gun | 0.5% on manual trades, 1% on snipes | Rewards such as free trades and cashback | None; "nothing to subscribe to" |
| Maestro | 1% on every successful buy and sell | Cashback on fees paid | Optional Premium, $200 a month |
| PumpStriker | No per-trade fee taken by PumpStriker | Not applicable | None: $350 one-time, paid in USDC, USDT or SOL |
Notes on the table. Banana Gun's site does not list chain-specific rates. Maestro's docs do not say whether Premium removes the 1% fee, so assume it does not. BullX is left out on purpose: it paused trading in its current app on June 1, 2026, according to its own announcement as reported by Phemex News, and we could not verify a current fee. For one-on-one comparisons, see PumpStriker vs Photon, PumpStriker vs Trojan and PumpStriker vs Maestro.
Fees by bot
Short answers for the bots people search for most, from the same sources as the table, checked on October 24, 2026. The cost examples assume $10,000 of buys and sells in a month.
Axiom fees
Axiom charges a 1% base fee per trade. Volume cashback brings the net rate down to between 0.95% and 0.75%, and signing up with a referral link takes 10% off. $10,000 of trades costs about $75 to $95.
GMGN fees
GMGN takes 1% per transaction and says there are “no additional charges.” Its fee page lists no discount, so $10,000 of trades costs about $100.
Trojan fees
Trojan takes 1% of every successful trade and pays rank-based cashback in SOL. Access is free, and $10,000 of trades costs about $100 before cashback.
BONKbot fees
BONKbot takes 1% on each successful swap. Its docs describe fee rewards by volume when you trade through Telemetry; $10,000 of trades costs about $100 before rewards.
Photon fees
Photon takes 1% of the amount on every buy and sell, collected in SOL. Its fee page lists no cashback, so $10,000 of trades costs about $100.
Banana Gun fees
Banana Gun charges 0.5% on manual trades and 1% on snipes, with rewards such as free trades and cashback. $10,000 of manual trades costs about $50; the same in snipes costs about $100.
Maestro fees
Maestro takes 1% on every successful buy and sell, with cashback on fees paid. An optional Premium plan costs $200 a month, and its docs do not say whether Premium removes the 1% fee.
PumpStriker takes no per-trade fee: you pay $350 once and run it on your own machine. Network costs such as priority fees and Jito tips apply to every bot, including this one; the sections below explain them.
Referral codes and cashback: what actually lowers the rate
Two different mechanisms get mixed up in marketing, and only one of them lowers your rate on day one.
- Referral links mostly pay the referrer. When someone shares a link, they usually earn a share of the fees you pay. Of the providers above, only Axiom's docs state a discount for the person who signs up: 10% off trading fees.
- Cashback rewards volume. Trojan, BONKbot and Axiom tie cashback to rank or trading volume, and Maestro rebates a portion of the fees you have paid, so the effective rate falls for heavy traders. That is also when a percentage fee costs the most in absolute terms.
- "Discount codes" on affiliate pages are not documentation. If a third-party site promises a lower rate, confirm it inside the bot before you trade.
Even at Axiom's best documented tier of 0.75%, a round trip still costs 1.5% of the position before network costs. Cashback softens the curve; it does not change its shape.
Costs every bot shares
A bot's own fee sits on top of costs that apply no matter which tool sends the transaction, including a one-time license.
| Cost | How it works | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Base network fee | 5,000 lamports per signature; half is burned and half goes to the validator | Solana fee docs |
| Priority fee | Compute-unit price times the compute-unit limit, paid entirely to the validator. Bots raise it when a launch is busy. | Solana fee docs |
| Jito tip | Optional tip for bundles, with a minimum of 1,000 lamports, redistributed to validators and their stakers. Too low and the bundle can lose the auction. | Jito docs |
| Venue fee | The bonding curve or pool charges its own trading fee. GMGN's fee page, for example, notes that pump.fun charges a fee of its own on top. | GMGN fees and settings |
| Token account rent | About 0.002 SOL charged once when a new token account is opened; Trojan's FAQ says it is refundable after you sell | Trojan FAQ |
| Slippage and price impact | Not a fee, but on thin memecoin pools often larger than every fee above combined | Your own fills |
Self-hosted bots add one cost hosted bots hide: your own RPC access. As of October 2026, Helius's free plan includes 1M credits a month, 10 requests per second and 1 sendTransaction per second (Helius pricing). PumpStriker runs on a free-tier Helius key, and its best-practices guide warns that running non-stop on free-tier RPCs can drain the entire request quota within about a week, so schedule your sessions or plan for a paid tier.
Break-even math: 1% per trade vs $350 once
At 1%, $350 equals the fees on $35,000 of trading volume, because $35,000 × 1% = $350. Volume counts both sides of a trade: a $500 buy followed by a $500 sell is $1,000 of volume and $10 in fees.
| Size per side | Volume per round trip | Fees at 1% | Round trips to reach $350 |
|---|---|---|---|
| $100 | $200 | $2 | 175 |
| $250 | $500 | $5 | 70 |
| $500 | $1,000 | $10 | 35 |
| $1,000 | $2,000 | $20 | 17.5 |
| $2,500 | $5,000 | $50 | 7 |
At other rates the same arithmetic gives about $46,700 of volume at 0.75% and $70,000 at 0.5%. The table assumes each sell is the same size as its buy; losing trades sell for less, which lowers sell-side volume. Network, priority and venue fees are left out because you pay them with either setup.
💡 This is arithmetic, not a promise. A lower fee does not make a trade profitable, and if you trade less than the break-even volume, a 1% bot costs you less in fees than a one-time license.
Fees are also not the whole comparison. With PumpStriker, what you pay for is the scoring engine; the execution bot is open source and free to audit. Hosted bots charge for convenience and execution, and many are instant to start. Pick on the whole package, not on the percentage alone.
Is there a Solana trading bot without a subscription?
Yes, and most hosted bots qualify: they charge per trade instead of per month, and Maestro's Premium is optional. "No subscription" does not mean free, though. A per-trade fee scales with every trade you make, forever.
PumpStriker is a self-hosted Solana memecoin trading bot with neither a subscription nor a per-trade fee taken by PumpStriker. It costs $350 once, paid in USDC, USDT or SOL on Solana, with lifetime updates. The rest of the stack is free: a Telegram bot token from BotFather and a free-tier Helius key. If the software does not run on your machine after the 30-minute onboarding, the 48-hour refund policy covers it; it does not cover trading outcomes.
The honest catch: you install and run it yourself, a VPS is worth it if you want it up around the clock, and free RPC tiers have limits. If you would rather start with no upfront cost at all, the trade-offs are laid out in is there a free Solana memecoin signal bot.
Frequently asked questions
What fees do Solana trading bots charge?
Most charge a platform fee of about 1% on every buy and every sell. As of October 2026, Trojan, BONKbot, Photon, GMGN and Maestro list 1%; Axiom's net fee runs from 0.95% down to 0.75% with volume cashback; Banana Gun lists 0.5% on manual trades and 1% on snipes. Network fees come on top.
Is there a Solana trading bot without a subscription?
Most hosted bots have no subscription and charge per trade instead; Maestro's $200 a month Premium is optional. PumpStriker has neither: it is a $350 one-time license with no per-trade fee taken by PumpStriker, and you run it on your own machine.
When is a one-time bot cheaper than a 1% fee?
At 1%, $350 equals the fees on $35,000 of trading volume, counting both buys and sells. That is about 35 round trips of $500 in and $500 out. Trade less than that and a 1% bot costs less in fees; trade more and the flat price costs less. It is arithmetic, not a profit promise.
Do I still pay priority fees and Jito tips with a one-time bot?
Yes. Solana's base fee, priority fees, optional Jito tips, venue fees and slippage apply no matter which bot sends the transaction. A one-time license only removes the bot's own cut.
Do referral codes lower bot fees?
Sometimes. Axiom's docs give users who sign up with a referral link a 10% discount. Most other referral programs pay the person who shared the link a share of your fees. Check the rate inside the bot, not on an affiliate page.
This is not financial advice. Fees were checked on October 24, 2026 and can change at any time; confirm them with each provider. Memecoins are extremely high risk, and a cheaper fee does not make a trade profitable. Always do your own research (DYOR).