Field note · 27 August 2026
Priority fees on a quiet afternoon
Solana charges a small base fee, priced in lamports, to get a transaction into a block. A priority fee is an extra amount you offer so that a busy leader is more likely to include you. One SOL is one billion lamports. The numbers on the fee line look huge until you divide by that billion and see a modest fraction of a SOL. Do the division before you decide the fee is alarming, and before you decide it is trivial.
On a quiet Tuesday in the reading room, a simple transfer can land on the base fee when the network is calm. Compute units measure how much work the transaction asks of the validator. A plain send is light. A transaction that calls several programs is heavier, and a modest priority fee can be ordinary then. Choose the amount on a calm screen, from the figure your wallet offered before any page replaced it.
Pressure shows up as a banner: the transaction will fail unless you accept a higher fee right now. Sometimes the network really is congested, around a popular mint or a crowded market hour, and a higher priority fee is a normal way to be included. Sometimes the banner is the rush. Compare the proposed fee with the figure your own wallet showed before the page replaced it. If that comparison is missing, cancel and rebuild the transaction from the wallet itself.
We practice this with yesterday’s fee, written on the session sheet, next to today’s quote. Visitors see that the line moves. They also see that a fee larger than the amount they meant to send is a reason to put the phone down. No reader at Clarity Junction will tell you the “correct” priority fee for a trade. We will sit with you while you read the line in lamports and decide whether the afternoon is actually busy.