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If you’ve traded on other platforms, “slippage” usually means the gap between the price you expected and the price you actually got filled at. On Perpetra, it means something different, and it’s worth understanding before you set it.

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What max slippage actually checks

When you place an order, you set a limit price, the worst price you’re willing to accept, and a max slippage tolerance. At the moment your order is matched, the platform compares the live oracle price to your limit price:
  • If the oracle price has drifted too far past your limit price, beyond the tolerance you set, the match is rejected.
  • If it’s within tolerance, the match goes through.
So max slippage isn’t measuring how far your fill price ended up from what you expected. It’s a check on how much the market has moved, according to the oracle, relative to the price you locked in, by the time your order actually gets processed.

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Why this matters

Between the moment you sign an order and the moment it’s matched, some time passes, sometimes only a fraction of a second, sometimes longer if the market is busy. In that window, the real price can move. Max slippage is your control over how much movement you’re willing to tolerate before you’d rather the order fail than execute at a materially different price than what you agreed to. A tight slippage tolerance means your order is more likely to get rejected during fast-moving markets, but you’re protected from executing far from your intended price. A looser tolerance means your order is more likely to go through, but you’re accepting more price movement before it does.

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The hard limit price floor

Separately from your slippage tolerance, your limit price itself acts as a hard boundary:
  • On a long, the order is rejected if the oracle price is above your limit.
  • On a short, the order is rejected if the oracle price is below your limit.
This applies regardless of your slippage setting. Your limit price is always the absolute worst price you’ll accept, slippage tolerance only controls how close to that edge you’re willing to let the market get before you’d rather not trade at all.