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Transaction Fees

Every TON user should keep in mind that commission depends on many factors.

Gas​

All computation costs are nominated in gas units and fixed in a certain gas amount.

The price of gas units is determined by the chain config and may be changed only by consensus of validators. Note that unlike in other systems, the user cannot set his own gas price, and there is no fee market.

Current settings in basechain are as follows: 1 unit of gas costs 400 nanotons.

1 gas = 26214400 / 2^16 nanotons = 0,000 000 4 TON

Current settings in masterchain are as follows: 1 unit of gas costs 10000 nanotons.

1 gas = 655360000 / 2^16 nanotons = 0,000 01 TON

Average transaction cost​

TLDR: Today, every transaction costs around ~0.005 TON

Even if TON price increases 100 times, transactions will remain ultra-cheap; less than $0.01. Moreover, validators may lower this value if they see commissions have become expensive read why they're interested.

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The current gas amount is written in the Network Config param 20 and param 21 for masterchain and basechain respectivly.

Gas changing voting process​

The gas fee, like many other parameters of TON, is configurable and may be changed by a special vote made in the mainnet.

Changing any parameter requires getting 66% of the validator votes.

Could gas cost more?​

Does it mean that one day gas prices could rise by 1,000 times or even more?

Technically, yes; but in fact, no.

Validators receive a small fee for processing transactions, and charging higher commissions will lead to a decrease in the number of transactions which will make the validating process less beneficial.

How to calculate fees?​

Fees on TON are difficult to calculate in advance, as their amount depends on transaction run time, account status, message content and size, blockchain network settings, and a number of other variables that cannot be calculated until the transaction is sent.

That is why even NFT marketplaces usually take an extra amount of TON (~1 TON) and return (1 - transaction_fee) later.

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Each contract should check incoming messages for the amount of TONs attached to ensure they are enough to cover the fees.

Check the low-level fees overview to learn more about the formulas for calculating commissions and fees calculation to learn how to calculate fees in FunC contracts using the new TVM opcodes.

However, let's read more about how fees are supposed to function on TON.

Basic Fees Formula​

Fees on TON are calculated by this formula:

transaction_fee = storage_fees
                + in_fwd_fees
                + computation_fees
                + action_fees
                + out_fwd_fees

Elements of transaction fee​

  • storage_fees is the amount you pay for storing a smart contract in the blockchain. In fact, you pay for every second the smart contract is stored on the blockchain.
    • Example: your TON Wallet is also a smart contract, and it pays a storage fee every time you receive or send a transaction. Read more about how storage fees are calculated.
  • in_fwd_fees is a charge for importing messages only from outside the blockchain, e.g. external messages. Every time you make a transaction, it must be delivered to the validators who will process it. For ordinary messages from contract to contract this fee is not applicable. Read the TON Blockchain paper to learn more about inbound messages.
    • Example: each transaction you make with your wallet app (like Tonkeeper) requires first to be distributed among validation nodes.
  • computation_fees is the amount you pay for executing code in the virtual machine. The larger the code, the more fees must be paid.
    • Example: each time you send a transaction with your wallet (which is a smart contract), you execute the code of your wallet contract and pay for it.
  • action_fees is a charge for sending outgoing messages made by a smart contract, updating the smart contract code, updating the libraries, etc.
  • out_fwd_fees stands for a charge for sending messages outside from TON Blockchain to interact with off-chain services (e.g., logs) and external blockchains.

FAQ​

Here are the most frequently asked questions by visitors of TON:

Fees for sending TON?​

Average fee for sending any amount of TON is 0.0055 TON.

Fees for sending Jettons?​

Average fee for sending any amount of a custom Jettons is 0.037 TON.

Cost of minting NFTs?​

Average fee for minting one NFT is 0.08 TON.

Cost of saving data in TON?​

Saving 1 MB of data for one year on TON will cost you 6.01 TON. Note that you don't usually need to store big amounts of data on-chain. Consider TON Storage if you need decentralized storage.

How to calculate fees in FunC?​

References​

See Also​