Price comparison of Ethereum and EVM compatible RPC providers

Introduction

An affordable and reliable Ethereum (and EVM compatible) RPC provider can be a valuable asset whether you're building a decentralized application (dApp) or simply need a node for your blockchain project, enabling you to optimize your resources and streamline your development process. In this blog, we will examine the various full Node RPC providers and compare their pricing plans. We focus solely on pricing of standard Ethereum JSON-RPC methods.
We will analyze the restrictions or limitations each provider has and give you an idea of which provider might be the best fit for your project.
If you're wondering why RPC providers tend to charge similarly high rates, and you're looking for a cheap RPC provider, we have good news. This blog offers valuable insights on which RPC provider to use for your business without breaking the bank.

Price comparison of RPC NODE providers

We've done the research for you and we'll show you the 15 options available for full nodes, including a breakdown of their free plans. Let's get started!

1. Node RPC

https://www.noderpc.xyz/

Chains: Ethereum, Polygon PoS, Optimism

Node RPC was established in 2023 and set prices significantly lower than its competitors. Currently, it is the most affordable rpc provider known to us and has no competition in terms of pricing. It's no wonder their motto is 'Say goodbye to sky-high costs and hello to affordability'. And what's even better, the monthly or daily number of requests is not limited. If you are looking for a cheap rpc provider with no additional fees and transparent pricing, Node RPC will be the right choice.

• Free plan: $0/month, 26.3M requests/month

  • 10 requests/second

• Basic plan: $25/month, 132M requests/month

  • 50 requests/second
  • no other limitations

• Custom plan: $500/month, 2.628B requests/month

  • 1000 requests/second
  • no other limitations
  • You can calculate the price using a handy tool for your individual needs.

2. Node Real

https://nodereal.io/

Chains: Arbitrum, BNB Chain, Ethereum, Polygon, Multichain, Solana

NodeReal is a blockchain infrastructure and services provider. The price is calculated based on compute units per second (CUPS) and per month, and each request incurs a varying amount of compute units (CU) within the range of 5 to 150 (without debug-related API costs).

• Free plan: $0, 2.3M - 70M requests/month

  • 300 CUPS (2 - 60 requests/second), 350M CU/month

• Growth plan: $39/month, 3.3M - 100M requests/month

  • 700 CUPS (4,7 - 140 requests/sec), 500M CU/month

• Team plan: $199/month, 13.3M - 400M requests/month

  • 1500 CUPS (10 - 300 requests/second), 2B CU/month

• Business plan: $499/month, 33.3M - 1B requests/month

  • 3000 CUPS (20 - 600 requests/second), 5B CU/month

• Enterprise plan: custom price and CU

3. Chainnodes

https://mwww.chainnodes.org

Chains: Ethereum, Polygon, Optimism, Arbitrum

Chainnodes offers highly performant, fast, low-latency, and secure blockchain infrastructure for dApps and crypto projects.

They provide four transparent pricing plans to cater to different needs and budgets:

• Free plan: $0, 12.5M requests/month
  • 25 requests/second
• Developer plan: $50/month, 25M requests/month
  • 50 requests/second
• Team plan: $250/month, 125M requests/month
  • 100 requests/second
• Growth plan: $1000/month, 500M requests/month
  • 500 requests/second

Chainnodes offers a discount on their annual subscription plan.

4. Chainstack

https://chainstack.com/

Chains: Ethereum, Polygon, BNB Smart Chain, Avalanche, Fantom, Solana, Harmony, StarkNet, Tezos, Fabric, Corda, Bitcoin, Quorum, and MultiChain

Chainstack is a blockchain infrastructure provider that offers a range of pricing plans based on the number of requests per month. Chainstack's pricing model is designed to provide flexibility with a tool that allows users to calculate their estimated pricing based on their expected RPM usage. The pricing model of Chainstack can be somewhat misleading as it is automatically set to an annual subscription, which is 16% cheaper. However, for accuracy, we provide the monthly price since nearly every provider offers annual subscriptions at a discounted rate.

Chainstack has four pricing tiers:

• Free plan: $0, 3M requests/month

• Growth plan: $49/month, 20M requests/month

• Business plan: $349/month, 140M requests/month

• Enterprise plan: $990/month, 400M requests/month

5. BLAST

https://blastapi.io/

Chains: 24 including Ethereum, Polygon, BNB Smart chain, Astar, Gnosis, Fantom, Avalanche...

Blast is an RPC provider offering nodes for various blockchains. The pricing is calculated based on API calls, although it is not entirely transparent how many API calls each request entails, so let's assume that 1 API call is equal to one request.

• Free plan: $0, 12M API requests/month

  • 40 API calls/second

• Developer plan: $50/month, 20M requests/month

  • 100 API calls/second

• Startup plan: $250/month, 80M requests/month

  • 400 API calls/second

You can get 10% discount for 6 months plans and 25% discount for 12 months plans.

6. Alchemy

https://www.alchemy.com/

Chains: Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, Polkadot

The world's leading Ethereum API platform used by 70% of the top Ethereum apps. While Alchemy offers powerful tools and developer-friendly features, its pricing plans are designed for enterprise-level use cases and may not be practical for smaller projects or individual developers. It is important to note that the pricing is based on compute units (CUs) rather than the number of requests and each request is weighted differently - 10 to 500 CU for 1 request

There are three pricing tiers in Alchemy’s RPC node service:

• Free plan: $0/month, 600K-30M requests/month

  • 330 compute units per second ( 0.66-33 req/sec)
  • 300,000,000 CU/month, no daily requests limit

• Growth plan: $49/month, 800K-40M requests/month

  • 660 CU/sec (1.32-66 req/sec)
  • 400,000,000 CU/month, every 1,000,000CU over 400M CU $1.20

• Enterprise plan:

  • custom compute units

7. Quicknode

https://www.quicknode.com/

Chains: Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon, BNB Chain, Solana

QuickNode provides both shared and dedicated node plans, with pricing based on the level of usage and support required. Usage is measured in API Credits which are based on intensity to the platform. The Quicknode pricing plan imposes limitations on both the number of requests per second and the total number of API calls per month for clients. Once the monthly API Credits threshold is reached, any additional usage will be subjected to charges for additional API Credits, according to the pricing plan. Requests have an API Credit value in range 1-500/request. When calculated based on the maximum monthly number of requests, the pricing of Quicknode appears to be less cost-effective.

Quicknode has four pricing tiers:

• Free plan: $0, 20K-10M requests/month

  • 25 requests/sec, 10M API credits/month

• Build plan: $49/month, 40K-20M requests/month

  • 100 requests/sec, 20M API credits +$20/additional million API credits

• Scale plan: $299/month, 240K-120M requests/month

  • 300 requests/sec, 120M API credits +$10/additional million API credits

• Enterprise plan: custom price, 1M-500M+ requests/month

  • 500M+ API credits

8. GetBlock

https://getblock.io/

Chains: Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, BNB Chain, Optimism, Arbitrum, Solana

GetBlock has a free plan with a limited number of requests and five paid plans for shared nodes. GetBlock's pricing model is based on the number of API requests and data transfer used, rather than a monthly subscription. This makes it a flexible solution for those who only need occasional access to blockchain nodes, but may be expensive for those who require frequent or heavy usage. For larger companies, Getblock oers an intriguing solution with its "unlimited*" plan. However, it's important to note that there are limitations on requests per second, despite being referred to as unlimited.

Getblocks pricing follows a pay-as-you-go model where customers buy a fixed amount of requests at a given price, and use them without limitation until they’re used up.

• Free plan: $0, 120K requests/month

  • 40K requests/day

• Launch plan: $29, 5M requests/month

  • no expiration date

• Build plan: $49, 10M requests/month

  • no expiration date

• Scale plan: $199, 50M requests/month

  • no expiration date

• Unlimited plan: $499/month, 155.5M requests/month

  • 60 requests/second

9. Infura

https://www.infura.io

Chains: Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, BNB Chain, Optimism, Arbitrum, Starknet

Leading blockchain infrastructure, which offers a free tier with limited usage, which is suitable for small-scale projects and developers just starting out. They also offer paid plans that provide higher usage limits and additional features, which may be more suitable for larger companies or projects with higher demands. The pricing plan of Infura includes limitations on the number of requests per day, and when calculated on a monthly basis, it does not appear to be cost-effective.

Infura offers 5 different pricing plans tailored for teams of varying sizes:

• Free plan: $$0/month, 3M requests/month

  • limited 100,000 total requests per day

• Developer plan: $50/month, 6M request/month

  • 200,000 total requests per day

• Team plan: $225/month, 30M requests/month

  • 1,000,000 total request per day

• Growth plan: $1000/month, 150M requests/month

  • 5,000,000 total requests per day

• Custom

10. Ankr

https://ankr.com

Chains: 30+, including Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitum, Fantom, Avalanche, Binance Smart Chain...

Ankr offers a pay-as-you-go service, which means that you only pay for what you consume. This billing model allows users to save money by not paying for unused capacity or services. While pay-as-you-go can be more cost-effective for businesses with low usage, it can become expensive for businesses with high demand and it can make budgeting and forecasting more difficult because costs can fluctuate. This can make it harder for businesses to compare costs and make informed decisions.

• Free plan: $0, 2,6M requests/month

  • 30 requests per second

• Premium plan: $20/month, 100M requests/month

  • 1500 requests per second, pay-per-use model. Where you pay $10 for every 100M credits where 1 request costs 2 credits.

• Enterprise plan: from $1000: 15000 request/sec, custom limits applies

11. Kriptonio

https://kriptonio.com/

Chains: Ethereum, Polygon

Kriptonio offers fast and scalable nodes for various blockchain networks. You can choose between shared or dedicated nodes to suit your needs. You pay for API credits on a monthly basis, and the price varies depending on the type of request, ranging from 1 to 50 credits (doubled if you use Kriptonio wallet/Smart contracts).

• Free plan: $0, 1M-50M requests/month

  • 50M API credits/month

• Starter plan: $59/month, 2M-100M requests/month

  • 100M API credits/month

• Growth plan: $259/month, 10M-500M requests/month

  • 500M API credits/month

12. NowNodes

https://nownodes.io/

Chains: 40+ including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tezos, BNB Smart Chain, Avalanche, Polkadot, Cardano, Algorand...

NOWNodes is a blockchain-as-a-service solution that lets users get access to full Nodes and blockbook Explorers via API. While Nownodes pricing is not the most competitive on this list, they offer developers the option to either participate in shared or dedicated nodes, allowing for maximum customizability to fit developers’ needs.

• Free plan: $0, 100K requests/month

  • 1month only

• Pro plan: €20/month, 1M requests/month

  • over limit €5 per 100k requests

• Business plan: €200/month, 30M requests/month

  • over limit €1 per 100k requests

• Enterprise plan: €500/month, 100M requests/month

  • over limit €0,5 per 100k requests

13. Pokt Network

https://www.portal.pokt.network/

Chains: Algorand, Avalanche, Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum, Fantom, FUSE, Gnosis Chain, Harmony, IoTeX, NEAR, Optimism, Polygon, Solana...

Pocket Network operates as a decentralized API platform that relies on a network of decentralized nodes. The infrastructure is built and maintained by developers who hold POKT tokens and contribute to the network by supporting a node. While Pokt does not openly share their pricing information on their website, their support documentation indicates that they offer free blockchain node support for developers within a specific limit of requests. Once users exceed this daily or per-session limit, they are advised to reach out to Pokt directly to obtain details about pricing. It is recommended to contact Pokt for further information regarding their pricing structure beyond the initial usage threshold.

14. Llamanodes

https://llamanodes.com/

Chains: Ethereum, Polygon

LlamaNodes strives to be the lowest-cost RPC provider in the industry with these cost savings and payment features. Unlimited requests, Pay-as-you-go (PAYG) Pricing- you pay for what you use. The pricing structure is not publicly available, making it less transparent.

Summary

We have created the largest comparison of RPC provider prices for you. If someone is missing from our list, please email us or reach out to us on Twitter. We are committed to keeping our comparison up-to-date and accurate to help you make informed decisions when choosing a node RPC provider for your blockchain project.
Below you will find a table displaying all prices per 1 million request in ascending order based on their most affordable plans. There are some providers that price each EVM JSON-RPC methods method individually (using compute units, credits, etc). In these cases, we have tried to estimate an average price. Our estimate was based on our own statistics (and experience) of what are the most commonly used methods in web3 applications. The prices of these methods were the main determinant of the resulting average price.

Conclusion

Our conclusion is that prices vary widely, ranging from less than $0.01 per million requests to a whopping $20 per million requests! Price is undoubtedly a crucial factor when selecting a provider, and making the right choice can save a considerable amount of money for web3 businesses. According to the data, the Node RPC provider stands out as the unquestionably cheapest option, being nearly 8 times cheaper than the second cheapest competitor. If you want to know more about how Node RPC is so cheap without compromising on quality, read the following blog.