The one number that decides it
Two routes can advertise similar headline rates and deliver very different amounts. One might route through a cheaper path, price gas more accurately, or carry a thinner spread. The only figure that pays is the net output, the crypto in your wallet after everything settles.
Comparing by net output changes the question from "which rate looks best" to "which route leaves me with the most." Those sound similar but rank routes differently, and only the second one matches what you experience.
What to factor into a fair comparison
A headline rate hides several costs. A fair comparison prices each of them in.
- Network fee: gas on the source chain, and for a cross-chain swap, on the destination too. Paid in the native token, so it does not always show up in the received asset.
- Price impact: how far your order size moves the price on that specific route, which grows on thin liquidity.
- Slippage allowance: how much room the route leaves for the price to move before execution, which affects both the risk of a revert and the worst-case fill.
- Spread: the buy/sell gap baked into the quote.
- Route type and length: a direct route is usually cheaper than one that hops through extra tokens, and each hop can add cost a single headline number will not show.
Why quotes differ, and why they move
Rates differ between tools because each source draws on different liquidity, uses different routing logic, and makes different gas assumptions. A route that is best for one pair or one size is often not best for the next. On top of that, quotes are live, so the best option at one moment is not guaranteed to be best a minute later.
That is why comparing at the moment you swap beats assuming a favorite venue is always cheapest. The comparison is only meaningful for the pair, size, and instant in front of you.
Let an aggregator normalize it
Checking every venue by hand is slow and easy to get wrong, especially since each returns its number in a different form. An aggregator queries many engines at once, prices gas into each, and normalizes them onto the same basis, net received. The top result is then the one that actually leaves the most in your wallet.
Multiswap compares routes across engines and many networks and ranks by net output, with gas priced into the comparison. That is the difference between hoping your one chosen venue is competitive and seeing the best available route for this pair and size right now. The web app does this comparison, and cross-chain execution runs through the Telegram bot, with the web app progressively gaining execution.