pump.fun vs LetsBonk: fees, graduation and market share

pump.fun and LetsBonk (also called bonk.fun) both launch Solana meme coins on bonding curves, and for a buyer they feel similar. The real differences are where the fees go and where coins end up. On pump.fun part of every curve trade pays the coin's creator, and graduated coins move to pump.fun's own exchange, PumpSwap. On LetsBonk the fee is a flat 1%, much of the revenue buys and burns BONK, and graduated coins move to Raydium. pump.fun is larger again in 2026; LetsBonk suits creators and traders tied to the BONK community.

Their rivalry is the most dramatic story in Solana launchpads: LetsBonk passed pump.fun in summer 2025, then lost the lead. Here is what each does, what changed, and how to choose.

How we compared them

We focused on what affects a launch or a trade, and checked each point against 2025 and 2026 reporting:

• Launch steps and cost.
• Fee per trade and who receives it (creator, protocol, token burns).
• Graduation: where the coin moves and how liquidity is handled.
• Audience and market share over time.
• Extra features and recent changes.

pump.fun vs LetsBonk at a glance

How did LetsBonk overtake pump.fun in 2025?

LetsBonk launched on April 25, 2025, built with Raydium by the BONK community. For two months it was a minor player. Then in early July 2025 it surged: on July 8 it handled 65.9% of Solana token launches, over 22,300 coins in one day, against pump.fun's roughly 32%. Its daily revenue went from about $70,000 to over $1 million, and for a week more than half of graduated coins came from LetsBonk. Coins like USELESS, which passed $100 million in market cap, became its flagship.

Several things drove the flip: a community that wanted fees to buy BONK rather than flow to pump.fun, a run of successful coins, and frustration among some traders with pump.fun before its PUMP token sale in July 2025. The lead did not last. pump.fun recovered most of the market within weeks in late 2025, and mid-2026 reporting put it at roughly 60% of the category, with Moonshot, Believe and others sharing the rest.

pump.fun's comeback came with big moves of its own. On July 12, 2025, it sold PUMP tokens publicly at $0.004 each, part of a raise reported at about $1.3 billion including private sales, and it later committed protocol revenue to PUMP buybacks. It kept improving PumpSwap, and in 2026 added USDC-paired coins (May), trading on Ethereum, Base and BNB Chain with SOL (May) and BOOST (July). Public reports put its cumulative revenue above $1 billion by mid-2026.

The lesson for a creator is that launchpad share moves fast. Do not pick one only because it is hot this week; pick the one whose audience fits your coin.

How do you launch a coin on pump.fun vs LetsBonk?

From a creator's side the steps are almost identical, which is why many people try both:

1. Connect a Solana wallet such as Phantom with some SOL in it.
2. Enter a name, ticker, image and short description, plus links to X or Telegram.
3. Choose a first buy if you want one. It buys coins on the curve at the starting price.
4. Confirm. The coin is live on its bonding curve within seconds and visible to Solana terminals and DexScreener.
5. Share it. The first minutes decide most launches, so post your announcement right away.

The differences are in the details. pump.fun has no platform fee to create a coin, offers USDC-paired coins as well as SOL pairs since May 2026, and shows livestreams on coin pages. LetsBonk uses Raydium's LaunchLab underneath, so its curve settings and graduation rules follow Raydium's, and it has offered a limit on how much a single wallet can buy in the first 60 seconds. Check each site's current launch screen, since both change often.

What does BONK have to do with LetsBonk?

BONK is one of Solana's oldest community meme coins, and LetsBonk was built by that community with Raydium. The idea was simple: if Solana memes were going to generate millions in fees, some of that should flow back to BONK instead of to a separate company. So a large share of LetsBonk's revenue buys BONK on the market and burns it, more goes to BONK reserves, and part supports the BONKsol validator. In July 2025 the team also set aside 1% of revenue for weekly buybacks of top coins in the BONK ecosystem.

For a buyer this matters only indirectly. For a BONK holder it is the whole point: more launches on LetsBonk mean more BONK bought and burned. For a creator, it means LetsBonk's community tends to rally around coins with a BONK theme, which can give those coins an early audience they would not get elsewhere.

pump.fun vs LetsBonk: which has lower fees?

On the curve, LetsBonk's 1% is a little lower than pump.fun's roughly 1.25% first tier (October 2026 breakdowns). After graduation it depends on the pool: PumpSwap's fee steps down as a coin's market cap grows, while LetsBonk coins trade on Raydium pools with their own fee settings and a small platform share.

Where the money goes is the bigger difference. On pump.fun, about 0.30% of each curve trade goes to the coin's creator, and pump.fun's own share funds buybacks of its PUMP token. On LetsBonk, a large share of revenue is used to buy and burn BONK (reports in 2025 put it at about half), with more going to BONK reserves and the BONKsol validator. In other words, pump.fun pays creators more directly, while LetsBonk feeds the BONK token. Our guide to Solana creator fees goes deeper on creator payouts.

Worked example (illustrative only): a coin trades $200,000 on the curve before it graduates. On pump.fun at about 1.25%, fees are about $2,500, and roughly $600 of that (0.30%) goes to the creator. On LetsBonk at 1%, fees are $2,000, and a large share goes to buying and burning BONK. If creator income matters to you, pump.fun's model pays you more directly; if you hold BONK, LetsBonk's model supports that token.

Where do coins go when they graduate?

pump.fun coins graduate to PumpSwap, which pump.fun launched in March 2025 to replace Raydium as the destination. Liquidity is locked in the pool. Since July 2026 BOOST is the default: part of the liquidity that used to stay idle at graduation is used to buy and burn the coin during the first five minutes on PumpSwap. The Block reported pump.fun's graduation rate rising from about 2.5% to 4.7% to 6.7% over the weeks after BOOST rolled out, though whether that lasts is open.

LetsBonk coins graduate into Raydium pools. Raydium's LaunchLab changed its rules on August 17, 2026: new launches must graduate to Raydium's CPMM pool type, part of the LP is burned, and creators earn a share of pool fees through a Fee Key NFT rather than holding LP they could sell. The details are in what happens when a Solana meme coin graduates.

What does a coin's first hour look like on each?

On both launchpads, the first minute is dominated by bots. Sniper wallets watch for new coins and buy in the first blocks, sometimes before the creator has even posted about the launch. Then human traders arrive through terminals and Telegram groups, and within minutes it is usually clear whether the coin has momentum. Most do not: public data from August 2026 showed about 1.8% of Solana launchpad coins graduating.

Two practical differences show up in that first hour. First, the audience: pump.fun's feed is watched by more traders, so a good coin can find buyers faster, while LetsBonk's crowd is smaller but more loyal to BONK-themed coins. Second, the payout: on pump.fun the creator starts earning a share of every curve trade from the first buy, which adds up quickly on a busy coin; on LetsBonk the main beneficiary of early volume is the BONK token through buy-and-burn.

Whichever you use, three habits help: post your announcement as soon as the coin is live, keep your first buy modest so holders do not see one wallet with a large share, and do not chase your own coin with more buys if it stalls. A stalled launch is the normal outcome, not a failure of the platform.

Do they show up in the same apps?

Yes. Both are standard Solana launches, so coins from either appear in Solscan, DexScreener, GMGN, terminals and wallets. Terminals usually label which launchpad a coin came from, which helps if you only want one kind. For finding fresh coins across both, see how to find new Solana meme coins, and for the bots traders use, the best Solana meme coin trading bots.

Which is safer to buy on?

Neither launchpad checks the people behind a coin. Both run fair-launch curves with no presale, and both lock or burn liquidity at graduation, which blocks the classic liquidity pull. The main risks are shared: snipers and bundled wallets buying the first seconds, creators selling into early buyers, and coins that simply stop trading. LetsBonk has noted limits on how much one wallet can buy in the first 60 seconds of a launch, which may soften sniping. Run a Solana meme coin safety check before any buy.

Is there another way to launch on Solana?

Yes. Besides these two, there are Moonshot, Believe, Jupiter's Studio and others, covered in Solana meme coin launchpads. sasa is a newer, smaller option that launches Solana coins on Solana's standard launch curve (the curve pump.fun runs), paid from a USDC balance at about $5 plus your first buy, with no SOL or Solana wallet needed; creator fees on those coins are split half to the creator and half to sasa. Our sasa vs pump.fun page compares it honestly, including where pump.fun is better. To browse what launched today across chains, see sasa's new Solana meme coins list or the daily archive.

Which one should you use?

If you are weighing more options, LetsBonk alternatives lists the other choices, and Four.meme vs pump.fun covers the BNB Chain route.

Most coins on both platforms never graduate. Launch and trade with money you can afford to lose.