Every time you buy or sell a Pump.fun coin, a slice of the fee goes to whoever holds that coin's creator position. Pump.fun calls it the creator fee, and it sits alongside the protocol fee the platform keeps and, in a graduated pool, a liquidity fee. The share is small on any single trade, but it comes out of every trade, in both directions, for the life of the coin.
That one fact changes how you read a coin. Knowing who gets paid is different from knowing how a Pump.fun coin works in the abstract; it tells you where a creator's incentives point when they post.
The creator fee has applied to every coin on the bonding curve or on PumpSwap since May 13, 2025. The rate depends on where the coin trades and how big it has grown.
What the creator fee actually is
The creator fee is the portion of a trade's total fee paid to the coin's creator rather than to the platform or the pool. Every trade carries one combined fee, split into named parts: the creator fee, a protocol fee the platform keeps, and, once a coin has graduated, a liquidity fee that flows back into the pool. The combined curve fee is 1.25% of a trade, split between the creator and the protocol (source: Pump.fun bonding-curve docs).
It is charged on both sides of a trade, so a buy pays it and a later sell pays it again. Nobody claims it manually; the smart contract splits it the moment the trade settles, and the front end shows only the combined cost. Pump.fun's own interfaces add nothing on top of the contract fee, though a third-party terminal or wallet can layer its own charge. The percentages are set on-chain and can change at any time without notice, so a figure copied from an old post is worth rechecking against the live Pump.fun fees breakdown before you lean on it.
The creator earns whether you win or lose
This is the part most traders miss: the creator fee is paid on volume, not on outcome. Whether a trade profits you, and whether the price is climbing or falling, every fill pays the creator their cut. A coin that chops sideways all day pays the creator on every trade back and forth.
That makes the fee a standing incentive to keep activity moving. A creator paid on turnover has a reason to post, hype, and keep a chart busy, because their income tracks how much the coin trades rather than how well holders do. It simply describes the shape of the incentive, worth holding in mind when a launch account urges people to keep buying. It is one of the tells covered in how to spot a Pump.fun rug: when the promoter is paid on volume, their enthusiasm reflects that stake. That incentive only exists when the creator keeps the fee, which since early 2026 is no longer a given, because the payout can be locked to traders at launch instead of the deployer.
What the creator fee is on the bonding curve
Before a coin graduates, while it is still trading on its bonding curve, the creator fee is a flat rate. Every curve trade pays that same 1.25% total, split between the coin's creator and the protocol.
The creator's share of that 1.25% is 0.300%, with the remaining 0.95% going to the protocol and nothing set aside for liquidity at this stage (source: Pump.fun transaction-fee documentation). Every coin on the curve pays it regardless of size, so the creator's cut is predictable: three-tenths of one percent of everything that trades. Most coins live their whole life on the curve and never graduate, so for the large majority of Pump.fun coins this flat rate is the only creator fee that ever applies.
What changes after graduation: the sliding scale
Once a coin graduates and its liquidity moves into a canonical PumpSwap pool, the flat curve rate gives way to a schedule that changes with the coin's market cap, current price multiplied by the one billion token supply. The fee is read off whichever band that market cap falls into (source: Pump.fun fee schedule).
The shape surprises people: the creator's cut does not simply shrink as a coin grows. It starts at 0.300% for the smallest graduated coins, the same rate as on the curve, jumps to a high of 0.950% for coins in roughly the 420 to 1,470 SOL market-cap band, then steps down band by band, falling as low as 0.050% for the very largest coins. So a creator earns most from a mid-sized graduated coin, less from a tiny one, and least from a giant one.
Say a coin graduates and settles around 800 SOL of market cap. It sits in the 420 to 1,470 SOL band, so its creator collects the top 0.950% on every buy and sell. If it later runs to a 50,000 SOL market cap, the cut drops to roughly 0.300%, and past 98,240 SOL it falls to about 0.050%, even though the coin is now far bigger and busier. Coins launched with USDC as the paired token run on their own parallel schedule keyed to a USDC market cap, but the same rise-then-fall shape holds. A creator's incentive is strongest not at launch and not at the top but in the middle of a coin's growth, exactly where hype runs hottest. PumpSwap's fee tiers give the band-by-band breakdown, and Pump.fun graduation explained covers the event that triggers the switch.
Beyond the coins launched on the platform, Pump.fun's own PUMP token trades on centralized venues. On BloFin the PUMP/USDT market is available, and BloFin's trading fees show what a position there costs.
Where the creator earns nothing: non-canonical pools
Graduation gives a coin one recognized home market, its canonical pool, but the token can trade elsewhere too. Anyone can open another pool for the same coin on PumpSwap, and those non-canonical pools follow a different split: the creator fee is 0%, with the total 0.30% fee divided between the protocol and liquidity providers (source: CryptoSlate 2026 Pump.fun review).
This matters for two reasons. First, the creator only earns from trades routed through the canonical pool, so the fee stream is tied to a specific venue rather than to the token everywhere it trades. Second, it is a reminder that PumpSwap covers only part of the market for a graduated coin: the pool you trade in decides both your cost and who gets paid, and telling the canonical pool apart from the rest is its own skill that canonical versus non-canonical pools walks through.
Who actually holds the creator position
The creator fee does not always go to the person who launched the coin, and since early 2026 it does not always go to a creator at all. At launch the creator now picks one of two models that lock in place: keep the Creator Fee, or make it a Cashback Coin that redirects 100% of the fee to traders instead of the deployer. Pump.fun rolled this out in February 2026 as a fix for fees that reward deployers who add nothing after launch, and once a coin goes live the choice cannot be changed (source: crypto.news). The trader-reward side of that fork gets its own treatment in Cashback Coins.
Beyond that first choice, the position can still change hands. After a community takeover, where holders effectively adopt an abandoned coin, a Creator Fee coin's fee can be redirected to a new fee owner rather than the original developer, so the account earning from trades may differ from the wallet that created the coin. A Cashback Coin cannot be taken over this way, because it already routes the whole stream to traders, with no deployer position to seize.
A couple of smaller details round this out. Some mobile users may see an extra fee of up to 0.1% on certain transactions, which can go to creators, to fee owners after a takeover, or back to the user or their referrer, depending on the case. And a creator can route their fee to a charity rather than keep it, through Pump.fun's integration with the Donate.gg platform, entirely at their own discretion (source: Pump.fun charity coin terms).
None of this changes the size of the fee you pay as a trader; it only changes who receives it. Because the fee owner can shift, the checks for coins after a takeover and for charity coins differ from those for an ordinary launch.
How to read this as a trader
The creator fee is a fixed, unavoidable cost, so read it instead of fighting it. Confirm the live rate first, because the split depends on whether the coin is on the curve or in a pool and on the size band it currently sits in, and coins move between bands as market cap changes. Treat a creator's promotion as coming from someone paid on turnover, not a neutral party. And check where you are actually trading, because a non-canonical pool pays the creator nothing while the canonical pool pays the scheduled rate.
The fee tier tracks the coin's state and pool structure, not your personal trading volume, so there is no loyalty rate and no discount for trading more. Confirm a coin's venue and live fee against the pool itself rather than a number on a front end, since the pool holding the real liquidity sets both your price and the split on an actual trade. Read alongside what a coin page is telling you, the creator fee stops being a hidden line item and becomes one more signal about whose interests a coin is built to serve.
Looking to trade PUMP? To get started, you'll need to first create a BloFin account, fund your account with cryptocurrency, and navigate to the PUMP/USDT Spot trading page or PUMPUSDT Perpetual page.
Frequently asked questions
How much is the Pump.fun creator fee?
On the bonding curve it is a flat 0.300% of every trade, out of a 1.25% total fee. After a coin graduates to its canonical PumpSwap pool, the creator fee changes with the coin's market cap: it starts at 0.300% for the smallest graduated coins, rises to a high of 0.950% in the roughly 420 to 1,470 SOL band, and then steps down to as little as 0.050% for the largest. Coins paired with USDC follow a similar schedule keyed to a USDC market cap.
Who receives the creator fee?
By default it goes to the coin's creator, meaning whoever holds the creator position on that coin, usually the wallet that launched it. Since February 2026, though, the creator chooses at launch between keeping the Creator Fee and making a Cashback Coin that sends 100% of it to traders instead, and that choice is locked once the coin is live. The recipient can also shift afterward: a community takeover can redirect a Creator Fee coin's fee to a new fee owner, and a creator can route their fee to a charity through Pump.fun's Donate.gg integration. As a trader you pay the same fee regardless; only who receives it changes.
Do I pay the creator fee when I sell as well as when I buy?
Yes. The creator fee is charged on both sides of a trade, so a buy pays it and a later sell pays it again. It is deducted automatically by the smart contract as each trade settles, and the front end shows only the combined cost rather than the separate slices.
Does a bigger coin always mean a smaller creator fee?
No, and this is the common misconception. On the canonical pool schedule the creator's cut is lowest for the smallest and largest coins and highest in the middle, peaking around the 420 to 1,470 SOL market-cap band before it declines. So a mid-sized graduated coin pays its creator the largest share, not a tiny new one or a giant established one.
Can I avoid the creator fee by trading somewhere else?
Sometimes, but not usefully. Non-canonical PumpSwap pools for the same coin charge a 0% creator fee, so a trade routed through one pays nothing to the creator. The trade-off is that those pools can hold far less liquidity than the canonical pool, so any saving on the fee can be dwarfed by worse pricing on the trade itself. The venue with the deepest liquidity, not the lowest headline fee, usually decides your real cost.
Researched and written by the BloFin Academy editorial team with AI-assisted drafting. Primary sources include Pump.fun's fee schedule, Pump.fun's bonding-curve documentation, and Pump.fun's charity coin terms. All facts independently verified against cited documentation current as of September 2026.
This article is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not financial, investment, trading, or legal advice. Memecoins are extremely high-risk and most lose all their value quickly. Platform mechanics and fees change often, so verify current details against primary sources before acting. Do your own research and never risk funds you cannot afford to lose.