Uniswap vs Sushiswap Price Differences: Where Gaps Come From

Uniswap and Sushiswap quote different prices for the same token because each pool prices from its own reserves, fee tier and liquidity, and neither updates until someone trades. The difference is only an arbitrage opportunity if it is larger than both pools’ fees, price impact and gas.

Two venues, two sets of reserves

Both Uniswap and Sushiswap are automated market makers, and for constant-product pools the pricing rule is the same idea: price is implied by the ratio of reserves, and trades move that ratio. What differs is the specific pool you trade against. A token pair may have several pools on Uniswap V2, several fee tiers on Uniswap V3, and another pool on Sushiswap. Each has its own reserves, its own depth and its own recent trade history.

Because the pools do not communicate, a trade that moves one pool leaves the others where they were. The Uniswap V2 documentation describes how arbitrageurs bring pool prices back in line with the market. That is the mechanism creating the opportunity you are trying to capture.

What shapes the gap

Factor	Effect on the quoted gap	Effect on profitability
Fee tier	Prices can sit up to a fee apart without being arbitrageable	Higher fees need larger gaps
Liquidity depth	Shallow pools move more per trade	Limits profitable size
Recent trade flow	A large buy or sell displaces one pool	Creates short-lived gaps
Pool design	V2 spreads liquidity evenly, V3 concentrates it in ranges	Quoted depth near the price differs sharply
Token mechanics	Transfer taxes, rebasing	Can hide losses behind apparent gaps

Uniswap V3 deserves particular attention. Liquidity there is concentrated in price ranges chosen by liquidity providers, so a pool can look deep near the current price and then thin out quickly. The Uniswap fee documentation lists the fee tiers available on V3. Two V3 pools for the same pair at different fee tiers can quote slightly different prices, and neither offers a free profit until the gap beats their combined fees.

Key takeaway: the headline price gap is not the opportunity. The opportunity is the gap minus fees on both legs minus price impact minus gas.

Reading a gap correctly

Say your scanner shows token T at a 0.5 percent higher price on one DEX than another. Before treating that as promising, work through these checks:

1. Fees. If both legs charge 0.3 percent, fees alone are 0.6 percent, more than the gap. Not an opportunity at all.
2. Depth at the traded size. Look at how much the price moves for the size you intend. A pool with little liquidity near the price can erase a small gap with one swap.
3. Token safety. An unusually large gap on an obscure token can mean the token charges transfer fees, blocks selling or has been flagged as malicious. Never trade a token you have not examined.
4. Staleness. Make sure both quotes come from the same block. A comparison between prices from different times produces phantom gaps.
5. Gas. Even a profitable percentage may not cover the fixed cost, see gas fees and arbitrage profit.

Why the most obvious gaps are the hardest

Uniswap-Sushiswap gaps in major pairs are watched by many searchers, so they tend to close within a block or two. Opportunities that remain visible for a long time have usually been examined and rejected by faster bots. This is not a hard rule, but it is a good reason to be wary of dashboards that display persistent, large gaps in popular pairs. The competitive picture is explored in whether Ethereum arbitrage is still profitable.

More realistic edges come from covering many pools, including less-watched pairs and different fee tiers, evaluating multi-hop routes, and executing cheaply and privately. That is the scope that vendor products try to cover. CryptoMEV Bot’s Ethereum arbitrage bot page says its software monitors Uniswap, Sushiswap and Curve plus others, and in its FAQ lists Uniswap V2 and V3, Sushiswap, Curve and Balancer as supported. The page does not say how many pools or pairs are scanned per block, or what fraction of opportunities are captured, so those are questions to ask rather than assume.

Practical workflow for evaluating a pair

• Pull both pools’ reserves and fee tiers from the same block.
• Compute the output of a round trip for several sizes and plot net profit against size.
• Identify the size where marginal profit peaks.
• Subtract gas at a conservative price.
• Check the token contract for transfer fees, pausable transfers and ownership privileges.
• Repeat across blocks to see how often the gap occurs and how long it lasts.

This kind of structured review is what separates a one-off screenshot from a sound strategy. It also pairs with the comparison between centralised and on-chain venues in CEX versus DEX arbitrage, where the gaps are bigger but the logistics are harder.

A short example of misleading gaps

Imagine your scanner lists three candidate gaps in the same hour. This is invented to illustrate reasoning, not market data.

• Gap one: 0.8 percent in a major pair. Both pools are deep, fee tiers are low, and the gap survives after fees at a sensible size. It also disappears within a block, because many bots see it. You might capture it occasionally, but you will often arrive second.
• Gap two: 4 percent in an obscure token. It looks fantastic. A quick look at the token contract shows a transfer tax on sells, so the round trip loses money. The gap was never real.
• Gap three: 0.5 percent that lasts for minutes. Persistence suggests that faster bots have already decided it is not worth taking, perhaps because the pool is too shallow or the gas cost for that route is too high.

Only the first is plausibly an opportunity, and even that is contested. The sorting process is what a bot has to do thousands of times a day: filter by fees, depth, token safety and persistence. A vendor’s description of that process, for example on CryptoMEV Bot’s flash loan arbitrage page, mentions simulating each trade before submitting it, and that simulation step is what separates gap one from gap two in practice. Note that the page does not describe token-safety checks specifically, so ask whether a product screens for transfer taxes and honeypots.

A second page on the same site, the DeFi arbitrage bot overview, is worth reading if you are comparing how a vendor treats different venues. Neither page gives performance data, so whatever you learn about capture rates must come from your own tests.

Alternatives to chasing the same pair

Some traders look beyond Uniswap and Sushiswap to stable-asset pools on Curve or weighted pools on Balancer, where pricing curves differ and small, persistent differences can arise. Others examine triangular loops across three pairs, as described in triangular arbitrage in crypto. More venues mean more complexity and more places for a bug or an unsafe token to hide.

Summary

Uniswap and Sushiswap differ in price because their pools are independent, and arbitrageurs are the glue between them. Whether a particular gap pays depends on fees, depth, token safety and gas, all of which must be checked at the intended trade size. Use live data and treat persistent large gaps with suspicion. This is general information, not financial advice.