Methodology

What a “fee” means here

The cost, in the network's own coin and in US dollars, of one typical transfer: a USDT token transfer where the recipient already holds the token, or a plain send of the native coin. It is what the network charges. Exchange withdrawal fees, which are often far higher, are covered in the guides.

Sources, by chain

• Bitcoin: mempool.space recommended fee (half-hour target) × a typical 140 vB transaction. Litecoin: litecoinspace, same method.
• Tron: TronGrid chain parameters (energy price × the energy a USDT transfer burns, plus bandwidth).
• Solana: base fee plus the median recent prioritisation fee from the public RPC.
• Ethereum, Arbitrum, BNB Smart Chain, Polygon: current gas price from public RPCs (with fallbacks) × the gas a USDT or native transfer uses.

Prices

USD prices come from Coinbase first, then Kraken, CoinGecko and Binance for any asset the previous source did not quote. The price used is shown in the tape at the top of the front page.

Freshness and failure

The snapshot is rebuilt on request and cached for 90 seconds; the front page refreshes itself every minute and shows the age of the data. When a source does not answer, its row says so. We never substitute a stale or estimated figure, which is why a row can occasionally show a dash.

Guides

Country guides are written from the providers, regulators and rails that people in that country actually use, and carry the date they were last reviewed. Rules change; the date is there so you can judge how much to trust the page.

Conflicts

CheapestChain is sponsored by Craze, a casino that accepts crypto deposits. We have no commercial relationship with any exchange or network listed, and no affiliate links to them. Ownership details are on the about page.

Last reviewed 2026-09-23