Volume bot pricing usually takes one of four shapes: a flat percent of volume, a charge per wallet or per order, fixed packages, or a deposit of trading capital plus a fee. To compare them fairly, fix one target volume and add up every SOL that leaves your wallet and does not come back. A flat 1% on a 250 SOL target, all costs included, is 2.5 SOL.
Four things to hold onto
- The headline rate matters less than what it includes: network fees, priority fees, tips, swap costs, rent and wallet funding.
- Convert every quote to SOL per 100 SOL of target volume, so different shapes become one comparable number.
- Deposit models carry a second cost that only shows at the end: the part of your capital that does not come back.
- A package is cheap per unit only when its size matches the volume you actually need.
What pricing shapes are common in the market?
Names vary, but each family answers two questions differently: what unit you pay for, and who pays the trading and network costs.
Flat percent of target volume
You pick a target volume and pay a fixed share of it. The math is one multiplication; the real question is whether the percent is all-inclusive or a service charge on top of costs billed separately. PumpCrest uses this shape: 1% of target volume with a 100 SOL minimum target, so the smallest fee is 1 SOL.
Per-wallet or per-order charges
The price scales with the number of wallets or orders rather than with SOL. That looks cheap for large orders and expensive for small ones, because the charge stays the same whether an order is 0.1 SOL or 1 SOL. These offers often bill network costs separately, so the final number is not known until the session ends.
Fixed packages
You buy a bundle: a set volume over a set time. Packages are easy to read at a glance, but they round your needs to the nearest tier. If you need 250 SOL and the tiers are 200 and 300, you either fall short or pay for 50 SOL you never planned.
Deposit plus fee
You send trading capital that the service cycles through buys and sells, plus a service fee, and what remains of the deposit comes back at the end. The true cost is the fee plus whatever the deposit lost to swap costs, slippage and network fees, and your capital sits with someone else for the whole session.
How do you compare quotes on total SOL out of pocket?
Use one formula for every offer: total cost = service fee + costs billed separately + capital not returned. Then divide by the target volume and multiply by 100 to get SOL per 100 SOL of volume. That second number lets you set a package beside a percent beside a per-wallet price without guessing.
Fix the session shape first. For the examples below the target is 250 SOL: 1,000 wallets at an average order of 0.25 SOL from a 0.10 to 0.40 SOL band, which works out to about 1,600 orders. If you are unsure how the band drives those figures, read about picking an order size band before collecting quotes.
Costs billed separately are real money even when each one looks tiny. On Solana every transaction pays a base fee, with priority fees as optional extras. Multiply by 1,600 orders plus the transfers that fund each wallet, then add tips and token account rent wherever a service passes them on.
A worked comparison at a 250 SOL target
Only the first row uses a real price. Every other row uses hypothetical example prices chosen to show how each shape behaves; they do not describe any specific provider.
| Model | Example price | Extra costs you carry | Total out of pocket | Per 100 SOL of volume |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flat percent, all-inclusive (this product) | 1% of target | None: trading and network costs are inside | 2.5 SOL | 1.0 SOL |
| Per wallet (hypothetical) | 0.002 SOL x 1,000 wallets = 2.0 SOL | Assumed 0.9 SOL of network costs and tips billed afterward | 2.9 SOL | 1.16 SOL |
| Per order (hypothetical) | 0.0012 SOL x 1,600 orders = 1.92 SOL | Assumed 0.9 SOL of network costs and tips billed afterward | 2.82 SOL | 1.13 SOL |
| Fixed package (hypothetical) | 300 SOL tier for 3.3 SOL | Pays for 50 SOL more than needed | 3.3 SOL | 1.32 SOL |
| Deposit plus fee (hypothetical) | 0.6% fee = 1.5 SOL, plus a 30 SOL deposit | Assumed 2.0 SOL of the deposit not returned | 3.5 SOL, with 30 SOL tied up | 1.4 SOL |
The pattern matters more than the exact figures. The low headline numbers in rows two and three grow once the costs billed afterward land. The package looks fair against its own tier, 3.3 SOL on 300 SOL is 1.1 SOL per 100, but costs more on the volume you needed. The deposit row has the smallest service fee and the widest uncertainty, because the 2.0 SOL loss is an assumption that only the final settlement confirms.
Where do extra costs tend to hide?
- Priority fees and tips billed "at cost" after the session, with no cap stated in advance.
- Token account rent for each new wallet, sometimes returned, sometimes kept.
- Wallet funding transfers, which are transactions of their own before any trade runs.
- Swap costs on every trade, which in deposit models come out of your capital rather than the quote.
- Add-ons such as comments, favorites or follows, priced per unit on top of the base fee.
With PumpCrest, the fee already covers base fees, priority fees, Jito tips, swap fees on every trade, token account rent, session wallet funding, comments and favorites. The one paid add-on is creator follows, which raises the fee by 40% x density. On the 250 SOL example, follows at 50% density add 20%, so 2.5 SOL becomes 3.0 SOL; at 100% density it becomes 3.5 SOL. The creator follows guide covers when that extra is worth paying.
Which questions should you ask before paying?
- Is the fee charged on target volume or on volume delivered, and how is delivered volume measured?
- Which costs are inside the quote, and which are billed afterward or taken from a deposit?
- Do I have to send trading capital? If so, who holds it during the session, and when does the remainder return?
- Is there a minimum target, a subscription or a per-wallet charge on top?
- What happens to the fee if I stop or change the session after it starts?
- Will you ever ask for a seed phrase, a private key or a wallet connection?
For the last question the only acceptable answer is no; a service that needs your keys is asking for far more than a fee, and the non-custodial guide lists the requests to refuse. For the fifth, read the terms before paying. Here, a running session is stopped or changed by messaging support, orders that already settled stay on-chain, and the fee is not refundable once the session has started.
How does a flat percent scale with session size?
A flat rate keeps the per-100 figure constant: at 1%, 250 SOL costs 2.5 SOL and 1,000 SOL costs 10 SOL. Wallet count does not change the fee directly; it changes the target, because target volume is wallets x average order.
That matters when you set a flat rate beside a per-wallet offer. Doubling wallets from 1,000 to 2,000 at the same 0.25 SOL average doubles the target to 500 SOL and the fee to 5 SOL. Keeping 1,000 wallets and raising the band to 0.20 to 0.60 SOL, an average of 0.40 SOL, gives a 400 SOL target and a 4 SOL fee with no extra wallets at all.
Ask for every quote as a single SOL figure for a stated target, wallet count and length. If a provider cannot give one number, the missing part is usually the costs billed afterward.
Questions and answers
Is a lower percent always cheaper?
No. A lower percent that excludes network fees, tips and swap costs can end up higher than an all-inclusive rate once those costs land. Check the base as well: a percent of delivered volume and a percent of target volume can produce different bills for the same session. Compare the total SOL that leaves your wallet for the same target.
Why do some services ask for trading capital?
In a deposit model the service trades with your funds instead of its own, so your capital buys and sells the token and the remainder returns at the end. That lowers the visible fee but moves the trading costs, and the exposure, onto your deposit. In a fee-only model you send the fee and nothing else, so there is no capital to recover.
How do packages compare when my target falls between tiers?
Price both neighbors. Using hypothetical tiers, if 200 SOL costs 2.4 SOL and 300 SOL costs 3.3 SOL, a 250 SOL plan either drops 50 SOL of volume or pays 3.3 SOL, which is 1.32 SOL per 100 SOL of what you needed. A flat percent avoids the rounding because the fee follows the exact target you set.
Are comments and favorites charged extra?
Not here. Auto-comments at 5% to 90% of orders and auto-favorites at 10% to 100% of wallets sit inside the flat fee. Creator follows is the only paid add-on. Elsewhere, social extras are a common spot for per-unit charges, so ask whether each one is priced separately before you add up totals.
What does the minimum target mean for a small launch?
The minimum target is 100 SOL, so the smallest fee is 1 SOL. A session of 500 wallets on a 0.10 to 0.30 SOL band averages 0.20 SOL per order, which lands exactly on 100 SOL. If your plan comes out smaller, add wallets or lift the band slightly rather than expecting a lower fee.
Get one SOL number for your session
Set wallets, band and length in the console and the fee appears as a single figure, with every trading and network cost already inside. No capital to send, only the fee.
We build the PumpCrest console and write these guides from the operator side: what a session spends, what settles on-chain and what a visitor sees on the board. Corrections are welcome at support@pumpcrest.com.