Skip to content

Validator Pricing & Fees

Simple, aligned pricing for Solana validators

Fees will start epoch 859, which starts Saturday October 4th at 4am ET. A flat 5% fee is charged on block signature rewards and priority fees.

The fees directly fund the infrastructure which makes DoubleZero possible. Including physical fiber lines, and equipment in data centers.

An in depth exploration of why fees exist, and the validator pricing model can be found here.

This guide focuses on how fees are paid from a technical perspective.

Settlement Model

  • Fees are denominated in SOL and settled per epoch
  • Validator debt is computed on chain by the Revenue Distribution program
  • Each validator has a deposit account (PDA) for payments

  • Funding window: Fees are deposited during the Solana epoch following their accrual. IE fees which are accumulated during epoch 860, need to be paid in epoch 861.

  • Prefunding is supported. Balances draw down across epochs

Payment Checklist

  1. Derive deposit account (PDA) using validator identity pubkey.
  2. Calculate epoch fee: 5% × total block rewards.
  3. Fund your deposit account with the amount calculated in step 2 in the next epoch. If desired; you can make excess payments and that excess SOL will be applied to future epochs. How to Send SOL>>
  4. Monitor balance to ensure successful settlements.

Estimating Fees

Historical estimates and per-pubkey data are available in the Fee Estimates Repo. The repo does not replace on chain data. You are responsible for the balance on chain, not in the balance in this repo.

Questions? Contact Nihar Shah at nihar@doublezero.us

Developer Details

For educational purposes the backend process is provided in detail below.

Dependency - Rust

Deposit Account Derivation

const REVENUE_DISTRIBUTION_PROGRAM_ID: Pubkey =
    solana_sdk::pubkey!("dzrevZC94tBLwuHw1dyynZxaXTWyp7yocsinyEVPtt4");

let (deposit_key, _) = Pubkey::find_program_address(
    &[&[b"solana_validator_deposit"], validator_identity_pubkey.as_ref()],
    &REVENUE_DISTRIBUTION_PROGRAM_ID,
);

Seed uses the validator identity public key deposit_key is the SOL account for fee payments

Transfer Example

let dz_payment = block_signature_rewards
    .checked_add(priority_fees)
    .expect("sum overflow")
    * 5 / 100;

let transfer_ix = solana_system_interface::instruction::transfer(
    &payer_key, 
    &deposit_key, 
    dz_payment
);