What a swap costs
Every charge on a Zerochord swap, which part comes back, and who pays the network fee.
The quote panel itemises what you are charged before you sign. Nothing is added later.
The four charges on the quote
| Charge | Paid in | Comes back? |
|---|---|---|
| Pool fee | The asset you pay in | No |
| Venue protocol fee | The asset you pay in | No |
| Venue execution fee | ADA | No |
| Refundable deposit | ADA | Yes |
Pool fee. The trading fee the pool itself charges, taken out of what you pay in. This is already reflected in the quoted output.
Venue protocol fee. The venue's share of that pool fee. It is shown separately so you can see where the pool fee goes.
Venue execution fee. Lovelace paid to the venue operators for a route that needs them.
Refundable deposit. Lovelace that rides along with an order so the output has enough ADA to exist as a Cardano output. It comes back to you.
When the execution fee is an upper bound
Some venues fill orders in batches and spread their fee across the batch. An order filled alone pays the whole fee, an order in a batch pays less.
Where that applies, the note under Venue execution fee says the figure is the most this route can cost and that it can come out lower. When the note is absent, the figure is the amount.
Zerochord quotes the worst case rather than an average, so the total you read is a ceiling and not an estimate you have to hope holds.
The Cardano network fee
Your wallet pays the network fee for the transaction you sign, on top of the four charges above. Your wallet shows it in its own approval dialog.
Zerochord never pays a fee for you. The wallet that signs is the wallet that pays. That rule
is not a policy note: the capability to sponsor a fee is not built, and cardano-swap integrity scans the source and proves no such code path exists. See Footprint and
measurement.
What Zerochord never charges
There are no rewards, rebates, points or referral payouts anywhere in the product. Nothing pays you to transact and nothing pays anyone to bring you here.
Getting a smaller total
Compare against the direct route. The quote panel already does this on every quote. Where the direct pool wins, take it. See Take the direct route.
Watch the branch count. A route split across several venues pays each venue's execution fee. The quote already scores those fees when it picks the route, so the total you see is the one being optimised.