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Network

Priority Fee

An optional additional fee paid on top of the base fee to increase the likelihood that a transaction is processed quickly by the current leader, expressed as a price in micro-lamports per compute unit (CU). The total priority fee equals (compute unit price × compute unit limit) / 1,000,000 lamports. Leaders sort transactions in their queue by fee-per-CU, so setting a competitive priority fee is the primary mechanism for ensuring reliable transaction landing during congestion.

IDpriority-feeAliasCompute Unit Price
Plain meaning

Plain meaning

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An optional additional fee paid on top of the base fee to increase the likelihood that a transaction is processed quickly by the current leader, expressed as a price in micro-lamports per compute unit (CU). The total priority fee equals (compute unit price × compute unit limit) / 1,000,000 lamports. Leaders sort transactions in their queue by fee-per-CU, so setting a competitive priority fee is the primary mechanism for ensuring reliable transaction landing during congestion.

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Priority Fee (priority-fee)
Category: Network
Definition: An optional additional fee paid on top of the base fee to increase the likelihood that a transaction is processed quickly by the current leader, expressed as a price in micro-lamports per compute unit (CU). The total priority fee equals (compute unit price × compute unit limit) / 1,000,000 lamports. Leaders sort transactions in their queue by fee-per-CU, so setting a competitive priority fee is the primary mechanism for ensuring reliable transaction landing during congestion.
Aliases: Compute Unit Price
Related: Compute Units (CU), Base Fee, Transaction Fee
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Branch

Compute Units (CU)

A measure of computational resources consumed by transaction execution, analogous to gas on Ethereum. Each BPF instruction costs CU; syscalls have predefined CU costs (e.g., SHA-256: 85 CU base + per-byte). Default per-instruction limit is 200,000 CU; max per-transaction is 1,400,000 CU. Priority fee cost = CU price × CU consumed.

Compute Budget
Open term
Branch

Base Fee

The fixed, non-negotiable minimum fee charged per transaction signature on Solana, currently set at 5,000 lamports (0.000005 SOL) per signature. A transaction with N signatures pays N × 5,000 lamports as a base fee regardless of compute usage or network load. Fifty percent of the base fee is burned and fifty percent is paid to the current slot leader, making Solana mildly deflationary with usage.

Open term
Branch

Transaction Fee

The total SOL cost to submit a transaction on Solana, composed of the base fee (5,000 lamports per signature) plus any optional priority fee (compute unit price × compute units consumed). Unlike Ethereum, Solana fees are not purely dynamic gas auctions — the base fee is fixed and priority fees are additive. Fees are deducted from the fee-payer account before execution; if the account lacks sufficient SOL, the transaction fails.

Lamport
Open term
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Programming Model

Compute Units (CU)

A measure of computational resources consumed by transaction execution, analogous to gas on Ethereum. Each BPF instruction costs CU; syscalls have predefined CU costs (e.g., SHA-256: 85 CU base + per-byte). Default per-instruction limit is 200,000 CU; max per-transaction is 1,400,000 CU. Priority fee cost = CU price × CU consumed.

Open term
Network

Base Fee

The fixed, non-negotiable minimum fee charged per transaction signature on Solana, currently set at 5,000 lamports (0.000005 SOL) per signature. A transaction with N signatures pays N × 5,000 lamports as a base fee regardless of compute usage or network load. Fifty percent of the base fee is burned and fifty percent is paid to the current slot leader, making Solana mildly deflationary with usage.

Open term
Network

Transaction Fee

The total SOL cost to submit a transaction on Solana, composed of the base fee (5,000 lamports per signature) plus any optional priority fee (compute unit price × compute units consumed). Unlike Ethereum, Solana fees are not purely dynamic gas auctions — the base fee is fixed and priority fees are additive. Fees are deducted from the fee-payer account before execution; if the account lacks sufficient SOL, the transaction fails.

Open term
Network

Private Transaction

A transaction sent directly to the current block producer or through a private relay rather than being broadcast through public RPC nodes, reducing the window for MEV searchers to observe and exploit it before inclusion. On Solana, private transactions can be routed through Jito's Block Engine or via staked connections with direct TPU access. While no transaction is truly private on a public blockchain once confirmed, private submission minimizes the pre-inclusion observation window.

Open term
Commonly confused with

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Networkbase-fee

Base Fee

The fixed, non-negotiable minimum fee charged per transaction signature on Solana, currently set at 5,000 lamports (0.000005 SOL) per signature. A transaction with N signatures pays N × 5,000 lamports as a base fee regardless of compute usage or network load. Fifty percent of the base fee is burned and fifty percent is paid to the current slot leader, making Solana mildly deflationary with usage.

Open term
Networkfee-market

Fee Market (Local/Global)

Solana operates a local fee market rather than a global one: priority fee competition is scoped to transactions that contend for the same writable accounts, so congestion on one hot account (e.g., a popular AMM pool) does not raise fees for unrelated transactions. This account-centric model means that a highly contested token mint or DEX pool can require very high priority fees to land while other transactions proceed cheaply in parallel. The local fee market is enforced by the scheduler's per-account fee-priority ordering.

Open term
Networklocal-fee-market

Local Fee Market

Solana's per-account fee pricing model where priority fee competition is scoped to transactions contending for the same writable accounts, rather than applying a single global fee to all transactions. Congestion on a popular DEX pool or NFT mint drives up priority fees only for transactions touching those specific accounts, while unrelated transactions can land cheaply in parallel. This design is a direct consequence of Solana's parallel execution model and account-level locking.

Open term
Related terms

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Programming Modelcompute-units

Compute Units (CU)

A measure of computational resources consumed by transaction execution, analogous to gas on Ethereum. Each BPF instruction costs CU; syscalls have predefined CU costs (e.g., SHA-256: 85 CU base + per-byte). Default per-instruction limit is 200,000 CU; max per-transaction is 1,400,000 CU. Priority fee cost = CU price × CU consumed.

Open term
Networkbase-fee

Base Fee

The fixed, non-negotiable minimum fee charged per transaction signature on Solana, currently set at 5,000 lamports (0.000005 SOL) per signature. A transaction with N signatures pays N × 5,000 lamports as a base fee regardless of compute usage or network load. Fifty percent of the base fee is burned and fifty percent is paid to the current slot leader, making Solana mildly deflationary with usage.

Open term
Networktransaction-fee

Transaction Fee

The total SOL cost to submit a transaction on Solana, composed of the base fee (5,000 lamports per signature) plus any optional priority fee (compute unit price × compute units consumed). Unlike Ethereum, Solana fees are not purely dynamic gas auctions — the base fee is fixed and priority fees are additive. Fees are deducted from the fee-payer account before execution; if the account lacks sufficient SOL, the transaction fails.

Open term
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Network

Mainnet Beta

Solana's primary production cluster where real SOL and real economic activity occur; the "beta" designation reflects the network's ongoing protocol development despite being fully live since March 2020. It uses the same architecture as other clusters but with real validator stakes, live staking rewards, and permanent on-chain state. All production dApps, tokens, and NFTs exist on Mainnet Beta.

Open term
Network

Devnet

A persistent public Solana cluster intended for application development and testing, running the same software version as Mainnet Beta but with no real economic value. Devnet SOL can be freely airdropped via the CLI or faucet APIs, and the ledger may be reset periodically by Solana Labs. Developers use Devnet to test programs and integrations before deploying to Mainnet Beta.

Open term
Network

Testnet

A public Solana cluster used primarily by the Solana core team and validators to test new software releases, performance benchmarks, and network upgrades under real network conditions before they reach Mainnet Beta. Testnet SOL has no monetary value, and the ledger is reset more frequently than Devnet; it is less suitable for application development and more suited for validator operators validating their infrastructure.

Open term
Network

TPS (Transactions Per Second)

The rate at which a Solana cluster processes and commits transactions; Solana's theoretical maximum exceeds 65,000 TPS due to its parallel execution model, though real-world sustained throughput on Mainnet Beta typically ranges from 2,000–5,000 non-vote TPS under normal load. Vote transactions (used for consensus) make up a significant portion of all on-chain activity and are counted separately. High TPS is enabled by Proof of History timestamps, Sealevel parallel execution, and Gulf Stream mempool-less forwarding.

Open term