# DEX trading fees explained: how do DEX trading fees work?

> DEX trading fees come in layers: the pool fee, the app's trading fee and Solana's network fee. Here is how each one works, and where ripr shows it.

- URL: https://ripr.trade/blog/dex-trading-fees-explained
- Publisher: ripr (https://ripr.trade)
- Author: ripr Editorial Team
- Published: 2026-11-14
- Category: Guides

On a decentralized exchange, the fee on one swap is not a single charge. The pool you trade against keeps a share of the swap, the app you place the trade in charges its own trading fee, and Solana charges a network fee for the transaction itself. On ripr, buying or selling a coin that is still on its bonding curve costs 1% of the amount you enter, and about 1.25% in total once that coin graduates into a pool.

Here is how DEX trading fees work, layer by layer, and where ripr puts each number in front of you before you confirm.

## How do DEX trading fees work?

DEX trading fees work in layers, because a single swap pays more than one party. A decentralized exchange, or DEX, is a market where swaps are settled by a program on a blockchain instead of by a company matching orders in its own book.

Three charges make up almost every swap.

| Layer | Who sets it | How it is charged |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Pool fee | The venue that runs the pool | A share of each swap |
| Trading fee | The app you trade in | A share of the amount you enter |
| Network fee | The Solana network | A small flat amount per transaction |

*Table 1. The three layers of a DEX trading fee*

A fourth item shows up on a first buy and is not a fee at all: a refundable deposit that opens the account your new coin will live in. The sections below take the layers one at a time, in the order you meet them in the app.

## The pool fee: what a DEX venue charges on every swap

The pool fee is the share a venue keeps from each swap, and it goes to whoever supplied that pool's liquidity. It is set in the pool itself, so every swap against that pool pays the same share, whichever app the trade arrives from. The Solana venues behind those pools commonly charge around 0.25% to 0.30%, and because a venue sets its own tier, that tier can change.

Which pool fee applies is decided by the coin's market, not by you. ripr can trade coins across thirteen families of Solana venues, its own bonding curve among them, and whether a particular coin is tradable depends on its pool.

The pool takes its share from every swap, which is why how often you trade matters as much as the rate does. One coin that had been trading for about half a day had already taken roughly 63,000 swaps from about 3,700 wallets — around seventeen trades each, and every one of them paid the pool's share.

## The 1% trading fee when you buy or sell on ripr

The trading fee on ripr's own bonding curve is 1% of the amount you enter, whether you are buying or selling. The help centre page on [what fees are charged during trading](https://ripr.trade/support/what-fees-are-charged-during-trading) gives the same total for both Buy and Sell transactions, split 0.25% to creator fees and 0.75% to platform fees, with Solana network fees charged separately at transaction time.

That 0.25% is the coin creator's share of the fee. While a coin trades on the curve, its creator earns 0.25% of the volume traded on it, claimable in SOL.

A bonding curve prices a coin from a formula instead of from a pool of two assets, so there is no liquidity provider to pay yet. Once a coin graduates from the curve and starts trading in a pool, the pool's own fee joins in: buying or selling a graduated ripr coin works out at about 1.25% of the trade.

## The Solana network fee, and the refundable deposit on your first buy

Every swap on a DEX is also a blockchain transaction, and Solana charges its own fee to process it. It is a tiny amount of SOL, charged per transaction rather than as a share of your amount, so it costs much the same whether you trade $5 or $500. ripr prepares each trade with Solana's base network fee and no priority fee.

Two habits follow from that. Keep a little SOL spare in the wallet you trade from, because the help centre page on [why a swap fails](https://ripr.trade/support/why-did-my-swap-fail) lists low SOL for fees among the usual reasons. And a sell is a transaction too, so you need a little SOL to sell a coin, not only to buy one.

The first time you buy a coin, your wallet opens a token account for it with a refundable deposit of about 0.0015 SOL. That comes back when the account is closed, and ripr can close empty token accounts and return their deposits in SOL. A full sell can close the coin's account for you.

## Where ripr shows a trade's fees before you confirm

On ripr's iOS and Android apps, the fee lines for a trade sit in the trade sheet before anything is signed: the network fee, any router fee and the refundable account deposit. Give them a read on your first buy.

The help centre describes the same moment in its page on [what a swap is](https://ripr.trade/support/what-is-a-swap): you select the amount, review the estimate and fees, then confirm in your wallet. Before your wallet signs, ripr checks the prepared transaction on your device against the amount, slippage and fee limits you set, and refuses it if anything differs. That check is about the transaction matching what you chose, not about the coin itself.

A percentage is not the whole cost of a swap either. The price a pool gives you depends on how deep it is: one coin less than half an hour old was trading against a single pool holding roughly $13,000 in all, and in a market that thin your order size moves the price far more than any fee rate does.

The help centre page on [how your buy size and sell size affect the price](https://ripr.trade/support/how-do-my-buy-size-and-sell-size-affect-price) puts the habit plainly: watch quote impact before confirming, and if your expected output drops sharply when you type a bigger amount, the order is too large for the market as it stands. Auto slippage, on by default, sets your maximum from how much the coin moved in the last five minutes, between 3% and 15%.

## Frequently asked questions

### Do I pay a DEX fee if my swap fails?

A trading fee is charged on a completed swap, so a swap that fails is not a trade. ripr's help centre page on what a swap is notes that when a swap fails no completed trade is recorded, though network fee behaviour can vary with the transaction's state. Its page on why a swap fails lists low SOL for fees, an invalid amount, price moving past your slippage and network load as the usual causes.

### Is the trading fee taken from my SOL or from the coin?

On ripr's bonding curve the 1% fee comes out of the amount you enter, so a 1 SOL buy spends 1 SOL in total and the fee is taken out of that amount rather than added to it. Solana's network fee is separate and always paid in SOL, which is why a small SOL balance is worth keeping.

### Does using a referral link on ripr cost me more?

No. Referral and streamer commissions on ripr are paid out of ripr's share of the trading fee rather than being charged to the trader, and they apply to volume traded on its bonding curves. Arriving through someone's link does not change the rate you pay.

### Can I check what a swap actually cost me?

Yes. ripr's help centre page on [what a swap is](https://ripr.trade/support/what-is-a-swap) says your holdings and transaction history update after a swap succeeds, and because every swap is a Solana transaction, you can look it up by its signature on [explorer.solana.com](https://explorer.solana.com/) and read the network fee it paid.

## Your fee check before the next swap

DEX trading fees are easy to live with once you can name them: the pool's fee, the trading fee in the app you use and Solana's network fee, plus a refundable deposit the first time you hold a coin. On ripr that comes to 1% of the amount you enter on a curve coin, about 1.25% once it graduates, and the iOS and Android trade sheet lists the fee lines before you sign.

Start small on a coin you have actually read about, keep a little SOL spare for network fees, and check the figures on your own next trade. Our guides to [how to buy a Solana meme coin on ripr](https://ripr.trade/blog/how-to-buy-a-solana-meme-coin) and [how to sell a Solana meme coin on ripr](https://ripr.trade/blog/how-to-sell-a-solana-meme-coin) walk through both sides, and you can look up any coin in the app by name, ticker or full contract address.

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*Last verified 3 November 2026. This article is published by ripr, which builds an app for trading Solana coins. Nothing here is financial advice.*