Bots
Bot Costs
What each bot trade costs, and the move it needs to break even.
Every bot trade pays fees on the way in and again on the way out. A token has to rise before a round trip breaks even.
What each trade pays
| Cost | How much |
|---|---|
| Trenchers bot fee | 0.95% of each buy and each sell |
| pump.fun fee | 1% of each buy and each sell on its bonding curve |
| Network base fee | 0.000005 SOL per transaction |
| Priority fee | Your Priority fee setting. Live trades pay at least 0.00001 SOL. |
| Jito tip | About 0.0002 SOL per live trade, whatever you set |
Paper bots simulate all of these, so paper PnL already includes them.
Break-even by trade size
The fixed costs weigh most on small trades. This is the rise a token needs before a full round trip comes out level:
| Buy size | Rise needed to break even |
|---|---|
| 0.01 SOL | about 8.5% |
| 0.05 SOL | about 4.9% |
| 5 SOL | about 4.0% |
These assume a priority fee of 0 and the minimum tip. At large sizes only the percentage fees are left, about 4% for the round trip. The bot's Risk & execution tab shows the figure for your own size under What a live trade costs.
Start small
Prove a strategy in paper first, then go live with a small size. It needs a bigger rise to break even, but it limits what you can lose while you see how the bot trades for real. Raise the size once its live results hold up.