Transactions on Solana incur fees that are paid to the network in SOL. Although the fee is extremely small (typically a fraction of a cent), this means that you must have a balance of SOL in your wallet in order to execute any type of transaction on the Solana network. For example, if you want to send USDC on the Solana network, you need some SOL in your wallet to do so. You can use the Bitcoin.com Wallet to customize the fees you pay for your Solana transactions. This articles guides you through that process.
Table of Contents
Customizing fees using the Solana network in the Bitcoin.com Wallet
When you create a transaction on the Solana network using the Bitcoin.com Wallet, you can customize the fee you pay to the Solana network. Here's how:
On the "Enter send amount" screen, tap on the "Network fee" icon at the bottom-left. This will open up the network fee settings menu.
Choose from one of the three following options:
'Eco' means you'll pay no priority fee, which keeps cost to a minimum but may result in slower confirmation when the network is congested
'Fast' adds a small priority fee that strikes the optimal balance between cost and speed
'Fastest' adds a larger priority fee that optimizes for speed over cost
Manually customizing fees when using the Solana network in the Bitcoin.com Wallet
The Bitcoin.com Wallet constantly monitors current network conditions to arrive at the optimal price for each preset mode. However, you also have the option to manually customize your network fee settings for each transaction (see below for an explanation of how compute units relate to fees on Solana). Here's how to set customized fees in your wallet:
On the "Enter send amount" screen, tap on the "Network fee" icon at the bottom-left. This will open up the network fee settings menu.
In the network fee settings menu, select "Custom fee options." You'll then be prompted to enter two values:
Compute Units (CU) — the maximum amount of computational work your transaction is allowed to consume. A simple SOL transfer needs only around 300 CU, while token transfers and swaps require more.
Priority Fee Rate (L/CU) — the amount in lamports you're willing to pay per compute unit requested. Higher rates increase the likelihood that validators will prioritize your transaction.
Solana fees in detail
The cost you pay for a transaction on the Solana network is two-fold. First, there is the base fee, which is fixed at 5,000 lamports per signature. Most transactions have a single signature, so the base fee is typically 5,000 lamports (0.000005 SOL). Half of this fee is burned (destroyed) and half is paid to the validator that includes the transaction in a block. Second is the optional priority fee, which goes entirely to the validator as an incentive to include your transaction ahead of others when the network is busy.
A lamport is the smallest unit of SOL — one billion lamports equal 1 SOL (1 lamport = 0.000000001 SOL). The name is a tribute to Leslie Lamport, a foundational figure in distributed computing.
Unlike Ethereum's gas, compute units on Solana do not affect the base fee — a transaction that uses 300 CU and one that uses 200,000 CU both pay the same 5,000-lamport base fee per signature. Compute units only matter when you add a priority fee, because the priority fee is calculated based on the CU limit you request, not the CU actually consumed.
Total fees are calculated as follows:
Base fee + (Compute Units × Priority Fee Rate)
Let's look at an example where Alice sends Bob 1 SOL. A simple SOL transfer requires about 300 compute units. Imagine Alice sets a Priority Fee Rate of 0.0001 lamports per CU. Using the formula above, the total fee is:
5,000 + (300 × 0.0001) = 5,000.03 lamports, or approximately 0.000005 SOL.
When Alice sends the transaction, 1.00000500 SOL will be deducted from her account. Bob will be credited 1.0000 SOL. The validator will receive 2,500 lamports of the base fee plus the full priority fee, and 2,500 lamports of the base fee will be burned.
Note that the fee is charged whether the transaction succeeds or fails, so it's important to make sure your CU limit is high enough for your transaction to complete. Setting a CU limit that is too low will cause the transaction to fail and your fee to be lost.