# Best Axiom Trade Settings: Slippage, Priority Fees and MEV Modes

> Four settings decide what an Axiom trade actually costs. What each value does, the failure mode at both extremes, and how to check what you really paid.

Source: https://axiompedia.com/guides/trading/best-axiom-trade-settings

Four settings on Axiom decide what a trade costs you, and three of them persist from your last trade. That combination is why traders lose money on mechanics rather than on judgment: a slippage tolerance sized for a launch that happened an hour ago is still sitting there when you buy something liquid.

**What this page is, and is not.** This covers what each setting does to execution and cost, with the failure mode at both extremes. The specific ranges are practitioner heuristics and Axiom's own documented defaults, clearly marked as such. They are **not** the output of a controlled test series, and we do not present them as measured. Nothing here is trading advice, and no part of it is a recommendation to buy anything: it is entirely about the mechanics of how an order executes and what it costs.

There is no universally correct slippage number, and any page giving you one is wrong. Slippage is a ratio between your size and the pool's depth, so the correct value changes per token. What generalizes is the failure mode at each end: too tight burns gas on failed transactions, too loose pre-authorizes a bad fill.

## The settings that actually change what you pay

 Four, in descending order of how much they move your cost:

| Setting | What it controls | Default | Persists? |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Slippage tolerance** | Maximum price movement you accept between submit and fill | User-set | Yes |
| **MEV protection mode** | Whether your transaction can be sandwiched | Off, Reduced, or Secure | Yes |
| **Priority fee** | Validator payment for inclusion in the block | 0.001 SOL | Yes |
| **Jito tip** | Bid into Jito's MEV bundle auction | 0.001 SOL | Yes |

*Defaults from [Axiom's official documentation](https://docs.axiom.trade), read August 2026.*

Everything else in the terminal, Quick Buy preset sizes included, changes how much you buy rather than what buying costs. The exception worth flagging: a Quick Buy preset firing an amount you did not intend is the single most expensive mistake available in the interface, and it is a settings problem too.

## Slippage tolerance: what each value does

Slippage tolerance is a ceiling, not a target. You are saying: fill this if the price has not moved more than X against me, otherwise abandon it.

**The failure mode when it is too tight.** The pool moves more than your ceiling between submission and execution, so the transaction reverts. On Solana that still consumes network gas and any priority fee attached, so you pay a small amount for nothing. Ten failures chasing a moving launch is real money and no position. This is the failure people notice, because it announces itself.

**The failure mode when it is too loose.** The trade fills, at a price much worse than you were shown. Worse, a very high tolerance is an explicit pre-authorization of exactly the price movement a sandwich attacker needs: they buy ahead of you, your order fills into the price they moved, they sell. High slippage does not cause sandwiching, but it widens the profitable window, which is why it pairs badly with MEV protection left off. This is the failure people do not notice, because the trade succeeded.

**Practitioner ranges, offered as reasoning rather than as measurement:**

- A **deep, established token** typically fills within roughly **1 to 3%**. There is enough liquidity that a normal position does not move the price much.
- A **fresh launch on a thin pool** often needs **10 to 20% or more** to fill at all, because your own order moves the price meaningfully.

Those brackets are wide on purpose. The underlying variable is your size against the pool's depth, and neither number is a property of Axiom. A $200 trade and a $20,000 trade on the same token need different tolerances, which is why copying a figure from anyone, including this page, is weaker than looking at the liquidity column in [Pulse](/guides/trading/axiom-pulse-explained) before you set it.

## Priority fee and tip: when raising them is worth it

Both default to **0.001 SOL** and both buy speed by different routes.  The priority fee pays the validator directly for position within the block.  The Jito tip bids into Jito's MEV bundle auction, which is also the mechanism behind Axiom's Reduced MEV mode.

**Raising them is worth it when you are in a genuine race:** a migration firing, a launch everyone is buying at once, congested blocks. In those conditions the default may simply not land, and a transaction that does not land costs you the fee anyway.

**Raising them is wasted when there is no race.** On an established token during a quiet market, a higher tip buys you inclusion you were going to get regardless. It is a small waste per trade that compounds across a lot of trades.

The asymmetry worth internalizing: **an under-tipped transaction in a race fails and costs you the tip; an over-tipped transaction in a quiet market succeeds and costs you the difference.** One of those outcomes is recoverable by retrying and one is simply gone. That argues for erring high in a race and low otherwise, which is the opposite of leaving one value set permanently.

## MEV protection: the setting most people leave wrong

Three modes: **Off**, **Reduced** (routes through Jito), and **Secure** (whitelisted validators only, slower).

Axiom's own documentation recommends Secure. The evidence for taking that seriously: an October 2025 study found Axiom users made up roughly **70% of Solana sandwich-attack victims** over the prior year. That figure partly reflects Axiom's sheer share of Solana terminal volume rather than a platform weakness, but it also reflects a lot of traders leaving protection off to win races.

The honest tradeoff, stated as a tradeoff rather than a recommendation: **Secure costs you speed, and speed is the entire point on a migration snipe.** Protection you cannot afford on the trades where it matters most is a real limitation, not a solved problem. What is not in tension is everything else: on an established token, or any buy where you are not racing, Secure costs you a slightly slower fill and nothing else.

One detail that halves the decision: **MEV protection only matters on buys.** There is nothing to front-run on a sell. Our [MEV modes guide](/guides/trading/axiom-mev-protection-modes-explained) covers the mechanics of each mode in full.

## Settings for different conditions

The practical upshot of everything above, as two configurations rather than one.

**A quiet market, an established token.** Slippage low, in the 1 to 3% region. MEV protection on Secure, since you lose nothing. Priority fee and tip at or near the 0.001 SOL default, because you are not competing.

**A launch or migration.** Slippage high enough to actually fill, which on a thin pool means well into double digits. Priority fee and tip raised, because the default may not land. MEV mode is the genuine judgment call: Secure is slower and may cost you the fill, Off is fastest and most exposed, Reduced sits between. This is where the pre-authorized-movement problem bites hardest, since high slippage and no protection is the worst combination available.

The dangerous case is not either configuration. It is the **launch configuration left applied to a quiet-market trade**: double-digit slippage and MEV off, on a liquid token, because that is how the last trade was set. The trade fills, nothing looks wrong, and you paid for movement you never needed to accept. Check the settings against the token in front of you.

## How to verify what a trade actually cost

Do this once properly and the settings stop being abstract.

Open the position in **Portfolio** and compare the fill against the quote you accepted. Then attribute the difference across the four costs:

1. **Axiom's platform fee.** 1% gross, to 0.75% net at the top cashback tier. Predictable.
2. **The AMM's own fee.** On PumpSwap, 1.25% down to 0.30% by market cap. Not Axiom's, and not quoted by anyone.
3. **Network gas plus any tip.** Small, and paid even on failure.
4. **Realized slippage.** The remainder, and on a thin pool usually the largest item.

*Source: [Solscan](https://solscan.io) — used under fair use for educational purposes*

 If the fill looks wrong or a transaction seems stuck, look it up on Solscan before concluding the platform is broken. It tells you whether the transaction landed, failed, or never broadcast, which separates a settings problem from a congestion event from an actual fault. When it is a fault, [common Axiom problems and fixes](/troubleshooting/axiom-trade-not-working-common-fixes) covers the ones with known causes.

For the full cost stack across terminals, the [Solana terminal fee index](/guides/fees/solana-terminal-fee-index) breaks a $500 swap into all four components, and [Axiom fees explained](/guides/fees/axiom-fees-explained) covers Axiom's own layer including the cashback ladder.

## What we would need to give you tested numbers

Stated plainly because this page's honesty is worth more than a confident-sounding table.

Turning the ranges above into tested values means running identical swaps at varying slippage tolerances and tip levels on the same token within the same window, recording fill quality and failure rate at each setting, and repeating it across pool depths. That requires real capital at risk across many executions, and until it is done, anyone publishing "the optimal Axiom slippage setting" as a single number is reasoning from the same mechanics described here and presenting it as measurement.

What generalizes without testing is the reasoning: the failure modes at each extreme, the asymmetry between an under-tipped race and an over-tipped quiet trade, and the fact that settings persist. That is enough to stop losing money on mechanics, which is the actual goal.

## Related reading

The [terminal walkthrough](/guides/getting-started/how-to-trade-on-axiom) shows where each of these settings sits in the order ticket. [Pulse explained](/guides/trading/axiom-pulse-explained) covers the liquidity and holder-concentration filters that tell you what pool depth you are dealing with before you set a tolerance.

## FAQ

### What slippage should I set on Axiom Trade?

It depends entirely on the pool's depth relative to your position size, so there is no single correct number. As a practitioner range rather than a tested figure, a deep established token typically fills within roughly 1 to 3 percent, while a fresh launch on a thin pool often needs 10 to 20 percent or more to fill at all. Size the tolerance to the pool in front of you. If a transaction fails repeatedly at the same setting, the tolerance is too tight for what you are buying.

### What happens if slippage is set too high on Axiom?

You authorize the trade to fill at a much worse price than quoted, and on a thin pool it will. Very high tolerance also widens the window a sandwich attack can profit from, because you have pre-approved the price movement an attacker needs. The trade succeeds and costs you more than it should, which is why an unusually high tolerance is not a safe default.

### What happens if slippage is set too low?

The transaction fails. On Solana a failed transaction still consumes network gas and any priority fee you attached, so it costs a small amount and produces no position. Repeated failures on the same token are the clearest signal your tolerance does not match the pool's depth.

### What is the difference between a priority fee and a Jito tip on Axiom?

Both default to 0.001 SOL and both buy faster inclusion, through different mechanisms. A priority fee pays the Solana validator directly to prioritize your transaction within the block. A Jito tip pays into Jito's MEV bundle auction, which is also the mechanism behind Axiom's Reduced MEV protection mode. They are not interchangeable and raising one does not substitute for the other.

### Should I use Secure MEV protection on Axiom?

Axiom's own documentation recommends Secure, and an October 2025 study found Axiom users made up roughly 70 percent of Solana sandwich-attack victims over the prior year, largely from traders leaving protection off for speed. Secure routes through whitelisted validators and is slower, so the honest tradeoff is that it costs you fills on genuine races and protects you everywhere else. MEV protection only matters on buys, since there is nothing to front-run on a sell.

### Do Axiom's settings persist between trades?

Yes, and this causes real losses. Slippage, MEV mode, priority fee and Quick Buy presets all carry over from your last trade, so a tolerance set for a fresh launch stays applied when you next buy something liquid. Check the settings against the token in front of you rather than against the one you traded an hour ago.

### How do I check what an Axiom trade actually cost me?

Open the position in Portfolio and compare the fill against the quote you accepted, then break the difference into the four costs: Axiom's platform fee, the AMM's own fee, network gas plus any tip, and realized slippage. If the fill looks wrong, look the transaction up on Solscan, which will tell you whether it landed, failed, or never broadcast.