Slippage tolerance is the maximum difference you'll accept between the price you were quoted and the price you actually get. Set it too low and volatile swaps abort; set it too high and you can be filled at a materially worse price. This guide gives working defaults and the reasoning, so you can adjust them intelligently.
When you confirm a swap, the route is executed against live pool reserves that may have moved since your quote. The program computes your minimum acceptable output from your slippage setting; if the fill would come in below it, the whole transaction reverts. An aborted swap costs you a network fee measured in fractions of a cent and nothing else — it is protection, not failure.
| Token type | Slippage | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Majors & stables (SOL, USDC, JUP…) | 0.1–0.5% | Deep pools barely move between quote and fill. |
| Established memecoins (BONK, WIF…) | 0.5–1% | Liquid but volatile; 1% absorbs normal jitter. |
| Small caps / new listings | 2–5% | Thin pools move on every trade, including yours. |
| Launch-hour degen plays | 5–10%, small size | Prices gap block to block; size down instead of cranking tolerance up. |
For majors it's generous; for a fresh memecoin it's usually too tight and you'll see repeated "slippage exceeded" aborts. The rule: if your swap aborts twice at a setting, the pool is more volatile than your tolerance — raise it one band or cut your order size. Order size is the underrated lever: halving the trade roughly halves your price impact, which often fixes the abort without loosening protection.
They're different numbers. Price impact is the price move your own order causes against pool depth — visible in the quote before you send. Slippage tolerance covers what happens between quote and fill. High price impact with low slippage still fills (you accepted the impact in the quote); low impact with tight slippage can still abort if the pool moves. Check both, and check the token's pool depth on its page or via a risk check before sizing.
Loose slippage on a public route is an invitation for sandwich bots: they buy ahead of you, let your generous tolerance absorb the worse price, and sell back after. Verixia sends through MEV-protected delivery, which removes the easy version of that attack — but tolerance discipline is still your first defense. Never run 10% slippage on a large order just to make an abort go away.
Solana swap troubleshooting covers stuck, pending and failed swaps end to end. The Token Risk Hub flags the thin-liquidity and taxed tokens where slippage problems concentrate.