Background

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, let's analyze the components of the formula:

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 (IC)

The Input complexity (IC) measures how complex a user's request is based on their inputs. It mainly 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.

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".

Range

When making a request, the specified range values will also affect the IC. The multiplier 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 (BC)

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.