Banana Gun Alternatives for Ethereum: Flat-Fee Sniping vs 1% Per Trade
By Merunas Grincalaitis, founder of MEV DAO and a developer who builds MEV, sniping and trading bots on Ethereum. Last updated: October 2026.
TL;DR: The main Banana Gun alternatives on Ethereum are Maestro and Sigma (both charge 1% per trade), a flat-fee subscription bot, or your own custom bot. Banana Gun itself charges 0.5% on manual Ethereum buys and 1% on auto-snipes. If you trade more than about 100 times your monthly flat fee in volume, a flat-fee model is cheaper; below that, per-trade fees usually win.
People searching for a Banana Gun alternative usually have one of three complaints: the fees add up, they don't like a bot holding their keys, or their snipes keep landing late. Those are different problems with different fixes, so in this article I compare the realistic Ethereum options by fee model, key custody and how they get into the block, rather than ranking them by hype.
I build sniping bots for a living, so I'll also say where a Telegram bot is genuinely the right tool. If you're new to how these bots work under the hood, read how Ethereum sniper bots work first.
What is Banana Gun, and how does it charge?
Banana Gun is a Telegram trading bot (now also a web app, Banana Pro) that buys, sells and auto-snipes tokens on Ethereum and other chains. According to its official docs, the fees are:
- 0.5% on manual buys and limit orders on Ethereum
- 1% on the autosniper on Ethereum
- 1% on trades on other chains
Those are charged on each successful trade, on top of gas and the snipe tip you set. The snipe tip is an extra ETH payment to the block builder to get ahead of other snipers, as the Banana Gun auto-sniping guide explains. Banana Gun also pays some of the fees back as $BANANA cashback, but the base fee is still a percentage of every trade.
The key point: a percentage fee scales with your volume, not with how often you win. A 1 ETH snipe and its sell cost 0.02 ETH in bot fees whether the token does 10x or rugs.
What are the best Banana Gun alternatives on Ethereum?
The serious options fall into four groups. Here's how they compare on what actually matters:
| Option | Fee model on Ethereum | Who holds the key | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Banana Gun | 0.5% manual, 1% autosnipe (docs) | Bot-held wallet | Large user base, Telegram + web app |
| Maestro | 1% on every buy and sell (docs) | Bot-held wallet | Fees accumulate and are pulled from your highest-balance wallet |
| Sigma | 1% sniping and trading (docs) | Bot-held wallet | Has a "First or Fail" mode for snipes |
| Flat-fee subscription bot | Fixed monthly fee, no per-trade cut | Depends on the product | Cheaper only above a volume threshold |
| Your own custom bot | Development cost + infrastructure | You | Full control; highest upfront cost |
Unibot used to be on most of these lists. It also charged 1%, but it was exploited in October 2023 (more on that below) and has faded since, so I wouldn't treat it as a main alternative in 2026.
Maestro
Maestro is one of the oldest Telegram snipers. Its fee page says it charges 1% on every successful buy and sell, manual or automatic, and that simple transfers aren't charged. On Ethereum it doesn't take the fee inside each transaction: it tracks what you owe per Telegram account and pulls it from your wallet with the highest balance once it crosses a minimum. That's worth knowing, because you'll see transfers to Maestro's fee address in your history that don't match any single trade.
Sigma
Sigma's fee table lists 1% for both sniping and trading on Ethereum. Its auto-snipe guide documents a "First or Fail" option, which makes your snipe fail if it doesn't get first position in the block, plus pre-approval so you can sell a block sooner. On fees alone it isn't cheaper than Banana Gun's manual rate.
Flat-fee subscription bots
Some bots, including the one I run at MEV DAO, charge a fixed monthly fee instead of a percentage. The trade-off is simple: you pay even in a month you don't trade, but heavy traders stop paying a cut of every buy and sell.
Your own bot
If you have a specific strategy, a custom bot means no per-trade fee and no third party holding your keys. It's also the most expensive and slowest route. I've written about what to know before you hire a custom MEV bot developer.
When is a flat fee cheaper than 1% per trade?
A flat fee wins once your monthly trading volume is more than 100 times the monthly fee (that's where 1% of volume equals the fee). Remember that both the buy and the sell count as volume on a per-trade bot.
Here's the math with a €200/month flat fee as an example:
| Monthly volume (buys + sells) | 1% per-trade fees | 0.5% per-trade fees | Flat €200 fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| €5,000 | €50 | €25 | €200 |
| €20,000 | €200 | €100 | €200 |
| €50,000 | €500 | €250 | €200 |
| €100,000 | €1,000 | €500 | €200 |
So if you snipe a few small launches a month, a percentage bot is cheaper. If you're rotating tens of thousands a month, the percentage fee quietly becomes your biggest cost after bad tokens. Gas and builder tips apply in every model, so they don't change the comparison.
Is Banana Gun safe? What about the alternatives?
Every Telegram bot that generates a wallet for you holds a copy of that wallet's private key on its servers. That's what lets it trade instantly from a chat message, and it's the biggest risk in this category. The history shows it's not theoretical:
- Maestro, October 2023. CertiK's write-up describes a router bug that let an attacker call
transferFromon tokens users had approved to the Maestro router, affecting 106 users for about 280 ETH. - Unibot, October 2023. A week later, a similar call-injection bug in Unibot's new router drained about 355.5 ETH (roughly $640,000) from 364 wallets, as CoinDesk reported.
- Banana Gun, September 2024. The Block reported that about $3 million was taken from 11 users through a suspected vulnerability in the Telegram message oracle the bot used. Banana Gun refunded them from its treasury and added a transfer delay and two-factor authentication for transfers.
Unibot and Banana Gun both publicly committed to compensating affected users, which is to their credit. But the lesson stays the same: don't keep more in a bot wallet than you're actively trading, and revoke router approvals you don't need. My guide on revoking token approvals and Permit2 signatures walks through it.
How do you choose the right Banana Gun alternative?
Work through these in order:
- Estimate your monthly volume. Add up buys and sells. Below 100× a flat fee, stay on a percentage bot; above it, a flat fee saves money.
- Decide how much key risk you accept. If a bot holds the key, fund it like a hot wallet and sweep profits out regularly.
- Check how it lands snipes. Ask whether it can bundle behind a public launch transaction (same-block, "Block-0") and what it does when the launch goes through a private RPC. I explain both cases in same-block sniping on Uniswap with Flashbots.
- Look at the token checks. Tax limits, honeypot simulation and max-transaction checks save more money than any fee difference. See how to spot a honeypot before you buy and anti-snipe token launches.
- Think about where your calls come from. A bot only executes. Many people who leave Banana Gun really want better launch information, which is what a sniping group is for.
Frequently asked questions
Is Banana Gun free?
No. There's no subscription, but Banana Gun charges 0.5% on manual Ethereum buys and limit orders and 1% on Ethereum auto-snipes and on other chains, per its docs. Gas and snipe tips are extra.
How does Banana Gun work?
You send commands in Telegram or the Banana Pro web app, and the bot signs and sends trades from a wallet it generated for you. For auto-snipes you paste a token's contract before launch, set a max spend and a builder tip, and the bot tries to buy as soon as trading opens.
What is the Banana Gun router?
It's the smart contract the bot sends trades through. You approve tokens to the router so it can sell them for you, which is why it's worth revoking those approvals once you stop using the bot.
Is Maestro cheaper than Banana Gun?
Not on headline fees. Maestro charges 1% on every buy and sell, while Banana Gun charges 0.5% on manual Ethereum trades and 1% on auto-snipes.
Are Telegram trading bots safe?
They're as safe as the team's key storage and contracts. Maestro, Unibot and Banana Gun have all had incidents, so keep only trading funds in a bot wallet and withdraw profits often.
Is a flat-fee sniper bot worth it?
Only if you trade enough. A flat fee beats a 1% fee once your monthly buy-plus-sell volume is above 100 times the fee.
Related guides
- Ethereum Sniper Bot: Flashbots Same-Block Sniping on Uniswap
- How Ethereum Sniper Bots Work: Same-Block Buys With Flashbots (and the Real Risks)
- Anti-Snipe Token Launches: Taxes, Blacklists and Trading Delays
- Honeypot Tokens: How to Spot One Before You Buy
I built MEV DAO's sniper bot around the flat-fee model because I trade a lot myself and got tired of paying a cut of every buy and sell. It comes with the sniping group and the Token Rescue Bot in one subscription, and you can try it free for 3 days. If you have questions about a specific setup, message me on Telegram.