Solana WebSocket Billing

As of May 1, 2026, Solana WebSocket billing has transitioned from per-message billing to metered data billing based on the uncompressed size of data delivered. This change provides more fair and transparent pricing that better reflects actual infrastructure costs and aligns with industry standards.

What Changed

Aspect	Before (Per-Message Billing)	After (Metered Data Billing)
Billing Model	Flat rate per message	Based on uncompressed data size
Rate	20 API credits per message	0.1 MB = 15 API credits
Message Size Impact	No impact - all messages cost the same	Directly affects cost - smaller messages cost less
Subscription Responses	20 credits per response	Metered by data size (0.1 MB = 15 credits)
Unsubscribe Requests	Flat API credit cost	Flat API credit cost (unchanged)
Example: slotSubscribe (~100 bytes)	20 credits per notification	~0.015 credits per notification (99.93% reduction)

Timeline

Date	What Changed
May 1, 2026	All Solana WebSocket methods transitioned to metered billing (0.1 MB = 15 API credits) except blockSubscribe, which remains on flat-rate billing temporarily.
July 1, 2026	blockSubscribe transitions to metered billing (0.1 MB = 15 API credits). All WebSocket methods now use metered billing.

Why This Change?

WebSocket message sizes vary significantly across different subscription methods. For example:

• Small messages: slotSubscribe, signatureSubscribe, voteSubscribe typically return only a few hundred bytes per notification
• Large messages: blockSubscribe returns full Solana blocks averaging ~4 MB each

Under the previous flat-rate billing, users of small-message methods were effectively subsidizing the infrastructure costs of large-message methods. Metered billing ensures you only pay for the data you actually receive.

Impact on Your Usage

Lower Costs for Most Users

Most users will see lower API credit usage under the new rate of 0.1 MB = 15 API credits. Methods that return small amounts of data per notification will cost less than the previous flat rate of 20 credits per message:

• accountSubscribe
• logsSubscribe
• programSubscribe
• rootSubscribe
• signatureSubscribe
• slotSubscribe
• slotsUpdatesSubscribe
• transactionSubscribe
• voteSubscribe

These methods typically return small amounts of data per notification, resulting in much lower costs under metered billing compared to the previous flat rate of 20 credits per message.

Example: A slotSubscribe notification is typically ~100 bytes. Under metered billing, this costs approximately 0.015 API credits (compared to 20 credits previously), resulting in a 99.93% cost reduction.

blockSubscribe Considerations

blockSubscribe returns complete Solana blocks, which can exceed 30 MB per notification. Most applications don't need every byte. With metered billing, optimizing what you subscribe to directly reduces your cost.

Timeline

• May 1 - June 30, 2026: blockSubscribe remains on the previous flat billing model
• July 1, 2026: blockSubscribe transitions to metered billing

How to optimize your blockSubscribe usage for metered billing

• Filter by account or program. If you only care about transactions involving specific accounts or programs, use the mentionsAccountOrProgram filter instead of "all". Blocks with no matching transactions won't generate notifications at all.

• Reduce transaction detail. The transactionDetails parameter accepts full, accounts, signatures, or none. If you don't need full transaction data, stepping down to signatures or accounts cuts payload size significantly.

• Turn off rewards. Set showRewards to false if your application doesn't use reward data.

• Choose the right encoding. The encoding parameter controls how account data is returned. base64 and jsonParsed are common choices. Pick the one your application actually consumes.

If you need the full block data for every block or expanded filtering options, or you're a heavy user of blockSubscribe, consider these alternatives that may be more cost-effective for your use case:

• Quicknode Streams: Managed data pipeline with flat pricing per block
• Solana gRPC: High-performance Yellowstone-compatible Geyser gRPC streaming with advanced filtering

Affected Methods

The following WebSocket subscription methods are now billed based on metered data:

Method	Typical Data Size	Effective Date
accountSubscribe	Small (~100-500 bytes)	May 1, 2026
logsSubscribe	Small-Medium (~500-2000 bytes)	May 1, 2026
programSubscribe	Small-Medium (~100-1000 bytes)	May 1, 2026
rootSubscribe	Small (~100 bytes)	May 1, 2026
signatureSubscribe	Small (~200 bytes)	May 1, 2026
slotSubscribe	Small (~100 bytes)	May 1, 2026
slotsUpdatesSubscribe	Small (~200-400 bytes)	May 1, 2026
transactionSubscribe	Medium-Large (~1-10 KB)	May 1, 2026
voteSubscribe	Small (~300 bytes)	May 1, 2026
blockSubscribe	Large (~4 MB)	July 1, 2026

Understanding Your Usage

You can monitor your WebSocket usage in your Quicknode dashboard:

1. Navigate to your endpoint page
2. Click the Metrics tab
3. View the following charts:
   • API Credits - Track total API credits consumed over time
   • Metered endpoint data - Monitor data volume for metered methods
   • Metered endpoint credits - Track credits consumed by metered WebSocket methods

Questions?

If you have any questions about WebSocket billing or need help optimizing your usage, please contact billing@quicknode.com.