The independent Photon reference
The Independent Guide to
Photon
PhotonGuides is an independent reference for Photon, the web-based Solana trading terminal. We do not run it and have no relationship with the company that does. What we do is document how it actually works, what it actually costs, and where it now sits against Axiom and GMGN, with every number traced to a named source you can check yourself. Start with the flat 1% on every buy and every sell, which is the figure most other write-ups get wrong.
Independent. Sourced. Not financial advice.
What Is Photon?
Photon is a Solana trading terminal that runs in the browser at photon-sol.tinyastro.io, published under the Tiny Astro brand. It is not a chain, not a DEX and not a token: it is an interface layered over Solana DEX liquidity, built for people trading new launches faster than a standard swap UI allows. Sign-up creates a Solana wallet on the spot and shows you the private key once. There is no KYC and no email. Photon's Terms of Use name Tiny Astro Inc. as the operating company and give a notice address in the British Virgin Islands, but state no place of incorporation, and no founders are named publicly. Our full explainer on what Photon is goes further, through the feature set, the eight unrelated products that share the name, and where the platform actually stands now.
The economics are simple and unusually blunt. Photon takes 1% of every buy and 1% of every sell, collected in SOL, stated verbatim in Photon's own fee documentation. No volume tiers. No published referral discount. The Solana priority fee and the Jito bribe you set in Settings are separate costs that go to validators, not to Photon, and blurring those two is the single most common error in competitor content about this platform. Our fees section keeps them apart and shows how a round trip actually adds up.
The product itself is real and well documented: Memescope, a filterable dashboard of Pump.fun and Moonshot tokens you can screen by top-10 holder concentration, developer holding, bonding-curve progress and liquidity, and our guide covers what Memescope surfaces and how to read it; a live pairs feed and trending page; limit and DCA orders; Smart-MEV protection in Fast and Secure modes; S1, S2 and S3 presets; auto-buy and auto-sell on market-cap triggers; and up to five wallets per account. Mobile access is through the Phantom wallet's in-app browser rather than a native app.
This is an independent reference, not the official app, and it does not pretend Photon is winning. One pull of the DefiLlama fees API on records $440.8M in lifetime fees since the January 2024 launch, a peak of $84.6M in January 2025, and $507,610 across the trailing 30 days. That is . Every figure in this paragraph is that one pull on that one date, so check it against the source before quoting it as current. We cover the comparisons with those numbers attached, the custody and phishing risks in plain language, and the token and airdrop questions with the honest answer, which is that there is no Photon token.
HOW THIS SITE IS FUNDED
Does Our Link Cost You Anything Extra?
PhotonGuides runs on referral revenue, and we would rather say exactly what that means than dress it up. Photon publishes no referral commission schedule anywhere, and the "30% forever" figure you will find on other sites traces to affiliate blogs, not to Photon. So we will not print a number we cannot source. Our link is /@Concept211, and Photon charges the same flat 1% either way, so using it changes nothing about your costs. Read the full referral disclosure before you decide.
Same 1% either way
EVERYTHING YOU NEED
Explore Our Guides
Getting Started
Create a Photon wallet, save your private key, fund it with SOL, and place your first trade in minutes.
Explore Guides →
Trading Features
Master Memescope, limit and DCA orders, Smart-MEV protection, priority fees and Jito bribes, and the S1/S2/S3 presets.
Fees Explained
The flat 1% buy and sell fee straight from the docs, what priority fees and bribes really cost, and how the drag compounds.
Terminal Comparisons
Data-driven comparisons of Photon vs Axiom, GMGN, Trojan, Bloom and every major Solana terminal, with DefiLlama numbers rather than vendor claims.
Points & Token
The Photon Points leaderboard, why there is no Photon token, and the honest read on every airdrop rumor.
Security & Custody
Self-custody and the one-time private key reveal, exporting to Phantom, the fake-Photon drainer sites, and how to verify you are on the real domain.
Troubleshooting
Fix failed transactions, slippage errors, insufficient SOL, wallet import problems, and every common Photon issue, fast.
GET STARTED IN MINUTES
How Do You Start Trading on Photon?
No KYC, no email, no app store. Photon builds you a Solana wallet in the browser and shows you the private key once. Save it, fund it with SOL, set your presets, and you are trading. The one step people skip is the one they cannot undo.
Open PhotonCreate Your Wallet and Save the Key
Photon generates a Solana wallet for you and reveals the private key exactly once, behind a slider. Copy it somewhere offline before you click past that screen. Photon’s own Terms of Use state that the Company has no way of restoring access if you lose it.
Fund It With SOL
Send SOL to your Photon deposit address, or buy in through the built-in Moonpay on-ramp. Keep a buffer beyond your trade size: priority fees and Jito bribes come out of the same balance.
Set Your Presets, Then Trade
Configure the S1, S2 and S3 presets with the slippage, priority fee, bribe and MEV mode you want, then trade from Memescope, the live pairs feed, or any token page. Photon takes 1% on the way in and 1% on the way out.
HOW IT STACKS UP
How Does Photon Compare to Axiom and GMGN?
Every fee row below comes from the platform's own documentation, Photon's from its published fee page, and every revenue row from the DefiLlama fees API, pulled . Photon is the only one of the three with no published way to pay less than 1%, and it is the one losing share fastest.
 Photon |  Axiom |  GMGN | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Web terminal, Solana | Web + Telegram terminal | Web + Telegram, multichain |
| Headline fee | 1% flat, buy and sell | 1%, tiering to 0.75% | 1%, 0.70–0.90% with a code |
| Published referral discount | None published | Yes, 10% off | Yes, 10–30% off |
| 30-day gross fees | $507,610 | $22.35M | $9.31M |
| Share of the named cohort | 1.26% (7th) | 55.3% (1st) | 23.0% (2nd) |
| Lifetime fees | $440.8M | $727.3M | $240.1M |
| 30-day trend | −28.1% | +4.7% | −20.5% |
| Native token | None | None confirmed | None confirmed |
You may republish these figures with attribution and a link to https://photonguides.com. How each one is collected and re-checked is set out on our methodology page.
JUST ADDED
Recently Published
The Solana Terminal Fee Index: Photon vs Axiom vs GMGN, Normalized
Every Solana terminal's published fee, normalized to one round trip and modeled across four trade sizes, with each rate sourced to the platform's own documentation.
Photon vs GMGN (2026): Fees, Chains & Which Terminal Fits Which Job
Photon vs GMGN with sourced numbers: Photon's flat 1% from its own docs, GMGN's 1% reducible to 0.70%, seven chains against one, and DefiLlama fee share pulled 2026-08-06.
How to Trade on Photon: Complete Beginner's Guide (2026)
Step-by-step Photon tutorial: sign up, save your one-time private key, fund with SOL, find a token, set S1/S2/S3 presets, and place your first trade safely.
Photon Memescope: What Every Filter Means (2026)
Every Photon Memescope filter explained: what top-10 holder share, dev holding and bonding curve progress tell you, plus three filter setups you can copy.
READY TO TRADE?
Open Photon With Your Eyes Open
Flat 1% each way, a private key you have to save yourself, and a Memescope feed that is still one of the better ways to screen a new Solana launch. Know all three before you fund an account, and read the security page so you land on the real domain rather than a clone.