Slippage on Padre Terminal: What It Is and How to Set It
Slippage is the setting beginners ignore most and regret most. On Padre Terminal you will find it in the order panel under the gas settings, shown as a percentage. Here is what that number means in plain terms.
Slippage in one sentence
Slippage tolerance is the worst price change you are willing to accept between the moment you click buy or sell and the moment your transaction is confirmed on-chain.
Example: you buy at a quoted price of $1.00 with 10% slippage. If the price has risen above $1.10 by the time your transaction is processed, the order fails instead of filling. If it is anywhere up to $1.10, the order goes through.
Too low vs too high
| Setting | What happens |
|---|---|
| Too low | Orders keep failing on fast-moving tokens, and you still pay network fees for failed attempts |
| Too high | Orders go through, but sometimes at a much worse price than you expected |
Why memecoins need wider settings
On large, liquid assets, prices barely move within a few seconds, so 0.5–2% is often enough. New memecoins are different: thin liquidity and bursts of buying mean the price can move 10% or more between click and confirmation. That is why Padre's default slippage is far wider than you might expect from a regular exchange; the order panel shows 20% by default in our testing.
A wide setting is not a target. It is a ceiling. Most fills on calmer tokens land much closer to the quoted price.
Practical settings by situation
- Established tokens with deep liquidity: lower it to a few percent to protect your entry.
- Fresh launches and migrations: wider settings reduce failed orders, at the risk of worse fills. Padre's Inferno Mode goes further in that direction.
- Large orders: slippage cannot fix an order that is simply too big for the pool. Check liquidity first using our safety checklist.
Use presets so you are not adjusting every trade
The order panel lets you switch between presets (labelled P1, P2 and P3). Each preset can hold its own combination of slippage and priority fee. A sensible setup is:
- P1, careful: low slippage, normal priority fee, for liquid tokens.
- P2, standard: the default-style settings for everyday memecoin trades.
- P3, fast: wider slippage and a higher priority fee for launches.
Switching preset is one click, which is much safer than editing numbers in a hurry.
A 20% slippage setting does not mean you lose 20% on every trade. It means the terminal will not stop a fill unless the price has moved more than 20%. On thin, fast tokens that can still mean a painful entry, so lower it whenever you can.
Set up your presets
Open the terminal and save P1–P3 presets that match how you trade.
Open Terminal →