Crypto break-even calculator: fees, slippage and gas
Enter your trade and the calculator returns your total cost and the exact price you need to reach before you're in profit. It starts with the worked example below filled in; change any field and the result updates.
Share the link to send someone your exact inputs. Values stay in the address bar only; nothing is stored.
What each calculator input means
Every field is one layer of friction between the price you see and the price you keep. Most traders count the bot fee and forget the rest.
- Entry price (USD): the quoted price per token when you buy.
- Position size (USD): how much you're putting in. Gas is converted into a percentage of this.
- Entry and exit slippage (%): slippage is the gap between the quoted price and your actual fill. On a fast-moving token it can hit 2 to 15% in each direction, so a round trip can cost 4 to 30% before fees or gas.
- Trading fees (%): DEX pool fee plus the bot's cut, for example a 1% Telegram bot fee.
- Gas and flat fees (USD): network fees and any fixed charges for the whole round trip.
Three kinds of slippage do the most damage: negative slippage (you pay more than the quote), MEV sandwich slippage (a bot front-runs your transaction and pockets the spread) and low-liquidity slippage (thin pools on new tokens, where even small buys move the price).
During the PEPE launch, traders reported 8 to 12% slippage on both entry and exit. A token that pumped 50% still left most buyers flat or negative.
Worked example: break-even on a $2,000 trade
A $2,000 position at $0.50 a token with 3% slippage each way, a 1% fee and $60 of gas costs 10% in total, so the break-even price is $0.55. That's the default the calculator loads with.
| Cost layer | Amount | Share of position |
|---|---|---|
| Entry slippage | $60 | 3% |
| Exit slippage | $60 | 3% |
| Bot fee | $20 | 1% |
| Gas | $60 | 3% |
| Total | $200 | 10% |
The formula has two parts. First, add entry slippage, exit slippage, fees and gas as a percentage of the position: total cost % = slippage in + slippage out + fees + (gas ÷ position size × 100). Second, multiply: break-even price = entry price × (1 + total cost % ÷ 100).
So the token has to pump 10% before you are even flat. Buy at $1.00 with 10% total costs and break-even is $1.10. Run the numbers before you click buy, not after you are underwater.
How fees and slippage add up on DEX and bot trades
On DEX and bot trades, total costs routinely reach 8 to 15% per round trip, and the advertised fee is the smallest part. A typical Telegram bot trade pays the 1% bot fee, 3 to 5% entry slippage, 3 to 5% exit slippage, and gas that can reach $50 to $150 on Ethereum at busy times.
On a $1,000 position that stacks up to 12 to 16% before the token moves a cent your way.
| Venue | Typical costs |
|---|---|
| Centralized exchange (CEX) | 0.02 to 0.25% per side, minimal slippage on liquid pairs |
| DEX swap | 0.1 to 0.3% pool fee, plus gas, plus 2 to 10% slippage |
| Telegram bot | 0.5 to 1% fee, plus gas, plus premium slippage: often 5 to 20% combined |
| Gas | $5 to $200 on Ethereum, near zero on Solana, with sudden spikes during congestion |
A CEX looks expensive at 0.1 to 0.25% until you see the full DEX picture. A $500 trade costs $2.50 on a CEX. Routed through a DEX during congestion, the same trade can cost $125 in gas and slippage, a quarter of the position.
For tokens listed on both, a CEX is usually cheaper below $5,000, and almost always below $2,000 unless speed or token availability forces the DEX. Above that size, DEX slippage shrinks as a percentage while the CEX fee stays flat, so the crossover moves with size and gas.
The DEX still wins in three cases: tokens that only trade on-chain, trades where self-custody is non-negotiable, and moves you'd miss entirely waiting on a CEX.
Why a high win rate can still lose money
Scalpers target 5 to 20% gains while carrying 8 to 10% round-trip costs, so the math is tight before they start. A win nets roughly 5 to 7%; a loss, with exit slippage compounding it, often costs 18 to 25%.
- Net profit per winning scalp: 5 to 7% after 8% costs on a 15% target.
- Actual loss per losing scalp: 18 to 25% including exit costs.
- Win rate needed just to break even: about 65%, consistently, a bar fewer than 5% of retail traders sustain for more than a few weeks.
- When it gets worse: during the volatile moments scalpers target most.
Timing is the deeper problem. The best-looking setups appear during launches and breaking news, exactly when slippage and gas peak. Chase a 15% pump with 12% combined costs and you net 3% on a win while a loss costs 27%. Get that wrong a few times and you're rekt, wiped out, however good the analysis was.
Is a 1% trading bot fee worth it?
The 1% bot fee is never the main cost on a bot trade; slippage and gas dwarf it. What a bot sells is speed, and speed only pays when the upside can absorb the whole cost stack.
Paying 6% in total costs to catch a 340% pump is an excellent trade. Paying 6% to chase a 12% move is a structural loser. Match the tool to the trade.
- Use a bot for: launches needing a Block 0 entry, migration sniping when a token completes its bonding curve, and news-driven pumps where you're targeting 50% or more.
- Skip the bot for: patient swing entries, DCA accumulation and positions where your slippage tolerance is low. A limit order avoids entry slippage entirely.
- MEV protection: top bots route through Jito on Solana or private RPCs on EVM chains, cutting sandwich slippage by 30 to 60%.
- Cashback: bots such as Maestro and Trojan return 10 to 45% of fees, pushing the effective fee below 1% for active traders.
Want to compare bot fees and cashback side by side? Our roundup of the best Telegram sniper bots lists them, and the Ethereum comparison covers where gas hurts most.
Hidden trading costs and how your strategy changes them
Gas spikes, MEV sandwiches and failed transactions can double or triple a trade's cost without warning. You plan at $15 gas, click buy, the transaction waits in the mempool, and it lands at $120 gas with double the slippage you set.
- Gas spikes: Ethereum gas can jump from $15 to $120 in under 2 minutes during breaking news.
- MEV sandwich attacks: bots spot your pending transaction, bracket it and take your slippage as profit.
- Failed transactions: you pay gas for a transaction that reverts, then pay again on the retry.
- Approval costs: first-time token approvals on EVM chains add $10 to $50 in gas that most calculators ignore.
The trap is psychological. New launches, a breaking Coinbase listing, a major protocol announcement: these feel like the best moments to trade, and that's exactly when gas is highest, liquidity thinnest and MEV bots busiest. Pure FOMO conditions. The worst slippage arrives with the best-looking setups.
Trading frequency is the biggest variable. A scalper doing 5 round trips a day at 8% each needs 40% in gains daily just to break even. A swing trader making 2 trades a month at the same cost needs 16% a month. Position traders holding for weeks or months dilute costs to almost nothing.
| Strategy | Target gain | Round-trip cost | Typical net result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scalping | 5 to 20% | 8 to 12% | Costs routinely exceed the gain; often negative |
| Day trading | 15 to 50% | 6 to 10% | Thin margin; marginal unless execution is tight |
| Swing trading | 50 to 200% | 4 to 8% | Costs are a small fraction; strong |
| Position trading | 100% or more | 2 to 5% | Lowest relative cost; excellent when the thesis plays out |
One sizing rule most traders skip: gas should never exceed 2% of your position. Put $200 into a trade with $10 gas and you've paid 5% before slippage or bot fees. Increase the size or skip the trade; many accounts blow up from sizes that make costs mathematically unsurvivable, not from bad picks.
Automating your buys with DCA spreads entries without paying launch-time premiums, and the Pump.fun comparison shows the real cost of launch trading.
