Sodium metal is an auspicious, sustainable alternative to be used in next generation rechargeable batteries. During the past years, a considerable effort was put into finding suitable chemistries, electrode designs, cell setups, and test configurations to enable the safe and efficient use of sodium metal electrodes. With the hunt for ever-increasing coulombic efficiencies and dendrite suppression, the understanding of basic influencing factors is thereby often neglected. Here, we show that not only the basic and so far most studied cell elements, namely electrolyte, separator and substrate, have an impact on the performance of sodium metal anodes. Smallest variations in the amount of electrolyte, current density, cell architecture, and electrode preparation, which are often overlooked, are shown to make the difference between instant cell failure and stable long-term cycling. By optimizing all discussed parameters, we apply the findings and show that stable cycling for more than 1.000 cycles can be achieved with a commercially available electrolyte, if seemingly unimportant factors are considered. (C) 2019 The Electrochemical Society.