datapoint.market Rate Card — Base, Stellar & Solana
Pricing transparency for providers and buyers. Figures dated 2026-06-05 (ETH $1,659.52, XLM $0.1906). Network settlement costs are measured live on-chain and move with token price and network congestion — see Methodology.
1. How charging works
- You (the provider) set a price
Pin USD per call. - The buyer pays
P + protocol feein USDC, on the network they choose. - You receive the full
P. The fee is added on top — it does not come out of your price. - datapoint.market keeps the fee and pays the on-chain settlement gas out of it. You and the buyer never touch gas.
Protocol fee = 10% of
P, with a $0.005 minimum per call.fee = max(0.10 × P, $0.005)
The $0.005 minimum exists because every paid call triggers one on-chain settlement transaction that costs real money to land (see §3). Below ~$0.05 the minimum applies; above it, the flat 10% applies.
2. What the buyer pays (worked examples)
Provider price P | Protocol fee | Buyer pays | Provider receives | Fee basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $0.001 | $0.005 | $0.006 | $0.001 | floor |
| $0.005 | $0.005 | $0.010 | $0.005 | floor |
| $0.01 | $0.005 | $0.015 | $0.010 | floor |
| $0.05 | $0.005 | $0.055 | $0.050 | 10% = floor |
| $0.10 | $0.010 | $0.110 | $0.100 | 10% |
| $0.50 | $0.050 | $0.550 | $0.500 | 10% |
| $5.00 | $0.500 | $5.500 | $5.000 | 10% |
Break-even point: at P = $0.05, 10% equals the $0.005 floor. Price above
$0.05 and you’re on the flat 10%; below it, the per-call minimum dominates.
Pricing a call under ~$0.05 means the fee is a larger percentage of the price — that’s the unavoidable cost of settling a micro-payment on-chain. For high-volume sub-cent use cases, batch settlement is on the roadmap.
3. Per-chain settlement cost (transparency)
Each paid call is one atomic on-chain settle() that splits USDC to the provider
and the fee account in a single transaction. datapoint.market pays this out of the
protocol fee — it is not added to the buyer’s bill. Shown here so you can see
where the floor comes from.
| Base | Stellar | |
|---|---|---|
| Network (mainnet) | eip155:8453 | stellar:pubnet |
| Network (testnet) | eip155:84532 | stellar:testnet |
| USDC decimals | 6 | 7 |
| Settlement venue | EVM splitter contract | Soroban splitter contract |
| Measured settle cost | ~$0.0015 | ~$0.0006 |
| Cost breakdown | 113,820 L2 gas + ~4,003 L1 data-gas | 33,686 stroops (0.0034 XLM) Soroban resource fee |
| Cost volatility | High — L1 data fee tracks Ethereum mainnet gas; can 3–5× under congestion | Low — stable Soroban resource fee, no separate L1 |
| Settle latency | ~2 s | ~5 s (one ledger close) |
Solana (
solana:…) is also live for settlement. Its base fee is5,000 lamports ($0.001 at typical SOL prices) plus any priority fee — low and stable, in the same ballpark as Stellar. The relayer pays SOL for the fee-payer slot; the $0.005 floor covers it with margin. Precise on-chain measurements will be folded into the tables above; until then treat Solana as a low-cost option alongside Stellar. Check live availability atGET /x402/solana/supported.
Stellar is now the cheaper and more predictable chain. Our Soroban splitter pays the provider and fee directly from the buyer in one transaction — it never custodies USDC — which keeps it to two token transfers and no contract balance entry. Base’s number is its quiet-L1 floor; its L1 data fee spikes with Ethereum congestion, so under load Base costs several times Stellar. Net: Stellar is the low, stable option; Base is cheap-on-calm-days but spiky.
4. Choosing a network
- Want the lowest, most predictable settle cost: Stellar (~$0.0006, barely moves).
- Want EVM tooling / Base-native buyers: Base — cheap on calm days, but budget for L1 spikes.
- Either way, the price your buyer sees is identical (
P + fee); the network only affects what datapoint.market spends to settle, which the floor already covers.
Methodology & economics
Internal note — how the numbers above were derived and why the floor is set where it is.
Measurements (live, on-chain, 2026-06-05):
- Base — real
settle()tx on Base Sepolia (splitter0x62bFe99b9003865cAfC9187B041535DABEa89b7c). L2 execution: 113,820 gas (stable ±20). L1 data fee: 4,003 L1-gas @ 14.7 gwei Ethereum L1 → 2.18e-7 ETH. Total 9.005e-7 ETH ≈ $0.0015 at ETH $1,659.52. The L1 component is the volatile part — it rises directly with Ethereum mainnet gas. - Stellar — real
settletx on testnet (af0cd16c…).fee_charged= 33,686 stroops = 0.0034 XLM ≈ $0.0006 at XLM $0.1906. This is the metered resource fee (our max-fee cap was 0.116 XLM but only the resource fee is charged). The splitter pays provider + fee directly from the buyer (two transfers, no contract balance entry); the earlier three-transfer version cost 135,162 stroops (~$0.0026), so removing the custody hop cut Soroban cost ~75%.
Why the floor is $0.005:
The 10%-of-price fee only covers settlement when P ≥ ~$0.015 (Base) / ~$0.006
(Stellar). For cheaper calls the floor must clear settle cost or the protocol
loses money on every call. Base is the binding constraint (Stellar is now far
cheaper). At a $0.005 floor, protocol net per call is:
- Base: $0.005 − $0.0015 = +$0.0035
- Stellar: $0.005 − $0.0006 = +$0.0044
This holds margin through moderate gas/price swings, and Stellar is now trivially covered. It does not survive an extreme Ethereum-L1 spike + ETH price jump — revisit the floor if Base settle cost approaches $0.004.
Fee policy source of truth: app/payments/fee.py — FEE_BPS = 1000 (10%),
MIN_FEE_USD (the floor), converted per-chain via usd_to_atomic() using each
network’s USDC decimals (Base 6dp, Stellar 7dp). Changing the floor = change
MIN_FEE_USD; it propagates to both chains automatically.
Structural fix (roadmap): per-call on-chain settlement can’t profitably serve sub-cent prices when a settle costs ~$0.0025. Batching multiple calls into one settle (Stage 3) is what unlocks true micro-pricing.