Trade & order details
CoW Protocol charges the same two-part fee on every order; only the label changes depending on whether it was a limit order or a market swap.
Fee breakdown
| メトリック | 価値 |
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Where the 0.98% cap takes over
Trade volume fixed at your value above. As the solver's surplus grows as a % of your trade size, the fee component switches from "50% of surplus" to the 0.98%-of-volume ceiling right around 1.96% surplus.
| Surplus (% of volume) | Fee component | Binding constraint | Net surplus kept by you |
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A swap that's really a solver-won batch auction
CoW Protocol doesn't route your order straight to an AMM pool. Instead it collects signed intents off-chain and runs a fair combinatorial batch auction: independent, competing solvers each propose a settlement for the whole batch, the protocol filters out any bid that would deliver an order less than it could've gotten alone, and the winning solver is the one whose combination maximizes total surplus across every order in the batch. Settlement happens at Uniform Directed Clearing Prices — every order trading the same pair in that batch gets the exact same price, so the order transactions are mined in in a block stops mattering, which is the mechanism CoW DAO's own documentation credits for blocking sandwich-bot MEV.
When two orders in a batch want opposite sides of the same pair, a solver can match them directly against each other instead of touching an AMM at all — true peer-to-peer settlement with no pool slippage and no swap fee on that leg. That's the Coincidence of Wants (CoW) the protocol is named for, and it's a distinct trade-filling mechanism from both a classic AMM swap and a UniswapX-style single-filler Dutch auction.
What you pay for the privilege, per CoW DAO's fee-model docs: a surplus fee (limit orders) or quote-improvement fee (market orders/swaps) of exactly 50% of whatever gap the solver found beyond your limit price or quote — capped at 0.98% of your trade's volume so an outsized fill doesn't turn into an outsized protocol cut — plus a separate, always-on volume fee of 2 basis points (standard pairs) or 0.3 basis points (correlated stable/RWA pairs). Both are charged in the surplus token and the two fees stack, applied in that order.
よくある質問
What is a CoW Protocol batch auction, and how is it different from swapping on Uniswap?
On an AMM like Uniswap your trade executes alone, instantly, against whatever price the pool happens to be at that block — a bot watching the mempool can sandwich it. CoW Protocol instead collects orders off-chain as signed intents, batches many of them into one auction, and lets independent solvers compete to propose the best overall settlement. Per CoW DAO's own documentation, the winning solver settles the whole batch at Uniform Directed Clearing Prices, so every order trading the same pair in that batch gets the same price regardless of transaction order — that's what removes the "who goes first" advantage a sandwich bot relies on.
What counts as "surplus" or "quote improvement," and why does CoW Protocol only take half of it?
Surplus is the gap between the price you actually got executed at and the worst price you said you'd accept (your limit price, for a limit order) or the price you were quoted (for a market order/swap). Per CoW DAO's fee-model docs, the protocol fee on that gap is exactly 50% of surplus (an out-of-market limit order) or 50% of quote improvement (a market order) — so solvers still have a strong incentive to find you the best possible price, since you keep the other half, while CoW Protocol captures revenue only when it actually beat your ask rather than charging a fee on every trade regardless of outcome.
Why is the fee capped at 0.98% of volume — what happens on a huge price improvement?
Per the documented formula — surplus × 0.5, or volume × 0.0098, whichever is lower — the 50% cut only applies up to a ceiling of 0.98% of the trade's total volume. If a solver finds you an unusually large improvement (say, 5% of your trade size), you still only pay 0.98% of volume as the fee component, not 2.5%. The cap exists so an outsized, lucky fill (e.g. during a thin-liquidity moment) doesn't turn into an outsized protocol take — the binding constraint flips from "50% of surplus" to "0.98% of volume" once surplus crosses roughly 1.96% of your trade size.
Does the volume fee really stack on top of the surplus fee, and is it different for stablecoin pairs?
Yes. Per CoW DAO's fee-model documentation, protocol fees are applied as an ordered list — the surplus/quote-improvement fee first, then a separate volume fee on every order regardless of order type, then any partner fee. The volume fee is 2 basis points (0.02%) of volume for standard asset pairs, but drops to 0.3 basis points (0.003%) for correlated pairs (stablecoin-to-stablecoin or similar RWA pairs), since those trades carry far less price risk for solvers to manage. Both fees are charged in the surplus token — the buy token on a sell order, the sell token on a buy order.
What is "Coincidence of Wants" (CoW) peer-to-peer matching, and does it protect me from MEV/sandwich attacks?
When two orders in the same batch want opposite sides of the same asset pair, a solver can match them directly against each other — a true peer-to-peer swap that never touches an on-chain AMM, skipping its slippage and fees entirely. That's the "Coincidence of Wants" the protocol is named after. Per CoW DAO's documentation, because clearing prices are uniform across the batch and settlement order inside the block doesn't change anyone's price, there is no ordering advantage left for a sandwich bot to exploit — each order receives as good a price as if it had been auctioned off alone, which is the core MEV-protection claim of the design.