Overview

To ensure clarity and consistency in pricing for our API, we have introduced the concept of a computational unit (CU). This serves as a standard unit of measurement for estimating the cost of a request within our product.

CU Cost Calculation

The CU cost of a request is determined by using the following formula:

total CUs = (base fee + input complexity) / blockchain complexity

To better understand the components of the formula, see the sections below.

Base Fee

The processing complexity fee is charged for each endpoint based on various actions involved in handling a request, such as extraction, processing, storage, activation, and delivery. Each of these actions is considered to consume 1 CU. The processing complexity fee is determined before implementing an endpoint and remains constant even in minor version updates.

Base Fee Costs

Input Complexity

The input complexity (IC) measures how complex a user's request becomes based on their inputs. It primarily applies to raw data requests for most endpoints. Base inputs, such as origin, contract, and op_code, are already included in the base cost and will not incur additional CU costs. However, other factors, such as topics, range, and asset_type, can increase the IC and incur additional charges.

The IC cost is determined by using the following formula:

input complexity = (topic complexity + asset type complexity) * range complexity

Where the costs of topic complexity, asset type complexity, and range complexity are calculated as follows:

topic complexity = (amount of topics in the field - 1) * 2 + 16 for each separate topic (topic 0, topic 1, etc.)

asset type complexity = if (asset type amount > 1) -> (amount of types - 1) * 32; else 0

range complexity = 1 block: 1; 2-1,000,000: 4; >1,000,000: 8

Topics

Topics play a significant role in determining the IC cost. The more topics you provide, the more expensive the request will get. Introducing topics by adding topicN to the query incurs a cost of CUtopic_introduction. Each additional value added to the topicN array incurs an extra charge of CUtopic_value.

Ranges

When sending a request, the specified range values will also affect the IC. The cost of range complexity is determined by the range given and can be calculated in the following manner:

Asset type

The endpoints with the asset_type parameter increase difficulty when introducing a new asset type. One asset type is always included with the base fee of the request. Submitting a new asset type should add CUasset_type to the price of the request.

Blockchain complexity

When calculating the CU cost, the complexity of the blockchain being queried is multiplied by a factor called blockchain complexity. Below is a list of our available blockchains and their corresponding BC value, usually set to 1.0.

You can determine the pricing for various requests by understanding how to calculate CU costs. To estimate the CU of your requests, consider the base fee, input complexity, and blockchain complexity.