A summary of fees (gas, priority & "local fee markets") on Solana

[IaroslavMazur]

Generally speaking, aside from Rent (paid once, at account creation), there are are just 2 types of fees:

• Tx fees (i.e. “gas fees”) and
• Prioritization fees

While the “base” Tx fee is currently set at 5k lamports per signature (subject to change in the future), the Prioritization fee goes up proportionally to the use of the chain bandwidth.

Akin to the other blockchains, Solana limits the total amount of Compute Units (i.e. “EVM gas”) that can fit inside a block (48M CUs).

However, unlike the other chains, Solana also limits how much CUs each account can use in a block (12M CUs).

Now, the “Localized fee markets” are not, actually, a separate kind of fee or something. Instead, they are the side-effect of Prioritization fees and the 12M-CUs-per-block account limit.

If a program temporarily becomes very popular and achieves the 12M CU limit, then, anyone willing to interact with the program needs to include a bigger Prioritization fee w/ their Tx. However, Txs interacting with the other Solana programs continue paying “normal” Prioritization fees.

Refs: Fees on Solana and Solana's Local Fee Markets

cc @sablier-labs/solana

[smol-ninja]

I have learned so much about Solana from your educational posts like these. So thank you for keep sharing them 👏👏👏

[IaroslavMazur]

Thank you very much for the kind words, @smol-ninja! 🙏

I'm glad that the results of my thorny path of learning Solana contribute to making your learning curve a more pleasant experience! ☺️