What is Slippage?
The difference between the price you expected and the price your trade actually filled at — the cost of moving a market that didn't have enough liquidity waiting at your price.
Slippage is the gap between the price you expected and the price you actually got — the cost of your own order moving the market. It happens when there isn't enough liquidity waiting at the quoted price: your order consumes the best offers and keeps filling at progressively worse ones.
Slippage scales with two things: your size relative to the market, and the market's thinness. Trading $500 of BTC, it's negligible; trading a micro-cap on a DEX, it can quietly cost several percent — and DEX interfaces make you set a slippage tolerance, which sandwich bots on some chains exploit up to its limit. Defences: limit orders on exchanges (slippage becomes impossible; you set the price), conservative tolerance settings on DEXs, and splitting large orders in thin markets.
See it in practice
Related terms: Liquidity · Market order · Spread · full glossary
FAQ
What slippage tolerance should I set on a DEX?
As low as still executes — commonly under 1% for liquid pairs. High tolerance is an invitation: bots can legally take everything you permitted. A trade that needs 10% tolerance is a market telling you not to make it at that size.
Is slippage the same as the spread?
Related but distinct: the spread is the standing gap between best buy and sell prices; slippage is the additional worsening your own order causes by eating through the book. Thin markets punish you with both.
General information only, not financial advice. Definitions are maintained in our fact database and reviewed with the daily rebuild.