The 5-layer fee stack of every cross-chain swap (3 routes, 2026-06-26)

Every cross-chain swap quote is built from five layers stacked in this order, regardless of which aggregator you use:

1. Layer 1 — Source-chain gas: what you pay your origin chain's miners or validators to send the input token. ETH transfer ~$0.01-$0.40 at 0.32 gwei × 65k gas × ETH $1,567.97; BTC tx ~$0.34-$0.60 at 3-4 sat/vB; TRC20 ~$2.00-$2.20 if no staked energy (sampled 2026-06-26).
2. Layer 2 — Solver spread: the implicit margin between market mid and the quoted out-amount. This is the aggregator's and solver's revenue. Industry-typical bands at the sampling date: 0.05-0.30% (liquid same-chain stablecoin), 0.10-0.60% (major L1), 1.0-3.0% (long-tail).
3. Layer 3 — Destination-chain gas (plus rent): what the destination chain charges to receive. Solana adds a one-time ATA rent-exempt minimum of 0.00203928 SOL (~$0.135 at SOL $66.37). Tron charges the receiver nothing directly; Bitcoin charges nothing on receive but the solver's BTC-side miner fee is baked into the quoted out-amount.
4. Layer 4 — Slippage band: the buffer the solver internally prices in to absorb market drift between bid time and on-chain fill. In fixed-quote systems (NEAR Intents, Relay), the solver absorbs this; in floating-quote DEX aggregators, you do.
5. Layer 5 — Refund-tx fee: only triggers if the quote expires, the amount doesn't match, or routing fails. Source-chain miners get this fee, not the aggregator.

UpSwap's /fees page states: no service fee, no withdrawal fee, no network surcharge — the quote on the widget is what lands in your wallet. That's the honest framing for the user-facing line items; the revenue lives in Layer 2. The next six sections name each layer with dollars and sources.

What: the fee the origin chain charges to broadcast your input transaction. Who collects: miners (Bitcoin), validators (Ethereum, Solana, BSC), or the Tron resource model. When: always — even "no service fee" aggregators don't pay this for you.

Current snapshot (2026-06-26):

• Ethereum: median 0.316 gwei, fast 0.32 gwei. ERC20 transfer = 65,000 gas units = $0.03 at ETH $1,567.97. Calm range $0.01-$0.40; peak $5-$15. First-time recipient pushes gas to ~90,000 units. Source: etherscan.io/gastracker.
• Tron TRC20: $0 if your account has sufficient staked energy (5,000 TRX stake unlocks 1-2 USDT transfers/day). Otherwise ~$2.00-$2.20 burn for existing recipient (6.5 TRX × $0.323915 = $2.11), or ~$4.00-$4.40 fresh recipient (13 TRX × $0.323915 = $4.21). Rented energy marketplace ~$1.45. Resources per transfer: 65,000 Energy plus 345 Bandwidth. See Guide #2 for sender-pays-energy mechanics. Source: eco.com TRC20 fees 2026.
• Solana: 5,000 lamports base fee per signature = 0.000005 SOL = $0.00033 at SOL $66.37. Typical priority fee adds $0.001-$0.005. Source: solana.com fee-structure.
• Bitcoin: mempool at 280.12 MB with 111,980 unconfirmed tx; recommended 3-4 sat/vB. P2WPKH 1-in 2-out = 141 vB → $0.34 at BTC $59,530. 2-3 input wallets up to 250 vB → $0.60. Source: mempool.space.
• BSC (post-Fermi 2026-01-14): minimum 0.05 gwei, 0.45s block time, 1.125s finality. Typical transfer ~$0.005 at BNB $557.83.

What you can do: on Tron, stake 5,000+ TRX to unlock free transfers; on Ethereum, swap during calm hours (sub-gwei is the new normal post-Dencun); on Bitcoin, use a SegWit wallet (P2WPKH is ~30% cheaper than legacy). For network choice generally, see Guide #2.

What: solver spread = (market_mid − quoted_out) / market_mid × 100%. It's the implicit revenue the solver and the aggregator share for committing to a fixed quote and carrying inventory risk between bid time and on-chain fill. Who collects: the solver (market maker or bridge-routing agent bidding in the auction) and, via app-fee splits, the aggregator. NEAR Intents 1Click exposes an appFees parameter integrators can set; per their public docs the default model splits 50/50 between integrator recipient and 1Click protocol in basis points. When: always — it's baked into the quote, not shown as a line item.

Industry-typical bands at the 2026-06-26 sampling date:

• Liquid same-chain stablecoin routes (USDC↔USDT, major bridge): 0.05-0.30%. Relay publishes 0.01% for stablecoin tier (per Relay docs sampled 2026-06-26).
• Major L1 cross-chain swaps (ETH↔SOL, ETH↔BNB): 0.10-0.60%. Relay publishes 0.06% for major tier; deBridge total cost for $1,000 USDC ETH→ARB was reported at $0.86 = 0.086% (per deBridge data sampled 2026-06-26).
• Long-tail tokens or small order sizes: 1.0-3.0%. Relay publishes 0.15% for minor tier; ChangeNOW public summary cited a 0.5-1.5% typical service-fee range (per ChangeNOW summary at sampling date).

Competitor rates cited from public docs at sampling date; check current docs before relying. Sources: docs.relay.link/how-it-works/fees; eco.com Relay reference; cex.io ChangeNOW review.

Methodology note on UpSwap: we probed directly https://upswap.io/api/quote on 2026-06-26 from outside the widget — it returned 400 invalid_input because the endpoint requires the widget-issued nonce (the FIX-7 nonce KV TTL guard). The /api/tokens endpoint returned 200 OK with 168 live tokens and priceUsd values. Live UpSwap /api/quote could not be re-sampled externally; the Route 1 anchor below uses a project-sampling 2026-06 archive quote (1,000 USDT ERC20 → 994.79 USDT TRC20), not a live 2026-06-26 quote. USDT priceUsd 0.99866 on both legs implies mid out ≈ 1,000, so (mid_out − quoted_out)/mid_out = (1000 − 994.79)/1000 = 0.521%. That figure sits above the 0.05-0.30% same-chain liquid-stablecoin band — consistent with a cross-chain ERC20→TRC20 route that adds bridge-finality and inventory risk.

Honest revenue framing. Aggregators in this category — including UpSwap — typically earn via the app-fee mechanisms NEAR Intents and Relay expose to integrators (see /fees for the canonical UpSwap statement). The quote you see is the all-in number. What you can do: compare the quote's out-amount against CoinGecko mid for the same pair. The gap is your all-in cost (spread + gas the solver netted). On a liquid pair, anything materially wider than the bands above, ask before signing.

What: the fee the destination chain charges to receive the swapped token. Who collects: destination-chain validators/miners. When: when the solver fills your quote on the destination side. Often netted from the out-amount, so it doesn't appear as a separate user-paid line.

The Solana ATA rent is the one that surprises people. Every SPL token holder needs an Associated Token Account, and the ATA must hold a rent-exempt minimum — that's a permanent SOL deposit of 2,039,280 lamports = 0.00203928 SOL = $0.135 at SOL $66.37 (sampled 2026-06-26). It only triggers the first time you receive a given SPL token to a wallet. It is recoverable: close the ATA and the SOL comes back. Source: solana.com create-token-account (primary); alchemy.com ATA overview (secondary).

What you can do: if you swap into the same SPL token repeatedly to one Solana wallet, the ATA rent is a one-time event — amortize it across all future deposits. For Bitcoin receives, you pay nothing on arrival but you'll pay when you spend (each UTXO is an input that costs sat/vB).

What: the buffer the solver adds between bid time and on-chain fill to absorb market drift. Who collects: nobody collects it as a fee — it's an inventory-risk cost. In a fixed-quote system, the solver bears it; in a floating-quote DEX aggregator, you bear it (up to your user-side slippage tolerance, commonly 0.5-1% default).

NEAR Intents 1Click (fixed-quote model, sampled 2026-06-26):

• Solver bid window: 3,000 ms
• Per-solver pricing phase: <500 ms
• Default minimum signing deadline: 60,000 ms (a minimum, not a maximum) for the user to publish the signed intent
• Quote response includes quote_hash, expiration_time, amount_in, amount_out
• Solver is committed to honor the quoted price; absorbs in-flight drift and source/destination gas

Source: docs.near-intents.org solver-relay.

Relay (fixed-quote model, sampled 2026-06-26):

• Permit expiry default: 600 seconds
• Quote stale after ~30 seconds (reported in API summaries; treat as guidance until you re-quote — not docs-confirmed)
• Default slippageTolerance: auto-calculated to deter sandwich and front-running
• enableTrueExactOutput default false → exact-output surplus returns to the recipient, not the solver EOA
• Fee brackets: token bridges/wraps 0%, stablecoin 0.01%, major 0.06%, minor 0.15%, plus $0.02 flat execution fee

Source: docs.relay.link get-quote.

Industry-estimated solver internal band: 0.2-0.8% on major routes (not disclosed per-quote). This is what the solver absorbs so you don't see it as a line item — distinct from the user-side floating-quote tolerance of 0.5-1% you set yourself on a Uniswap-style aggregator.

How this builds trust on the "all-in fixed quote" claim: the site says you receive the quoted amount or better. That works only because the solver carries Layer 4. The solver carries it only because it's priced into Layer 2. When a long-tail or BTC-involved route shows a wider quote, the solver is pricing a wider drift band against a longer finality wait.

What: the source-chain network fee to broadcast the return transaction back to your refund address. Who collects: source-chain miners/validators — not the aggregator. UpSwap broadcasts the return and does not currently take or subsidize this fee. When: only on three triggers: (1) quote expired before you signed or funded, (2) the amount you sent didn't match the quoted amount_in, (3) upstream routing failure (destination congestion, solver inventory exhausted, market-maker kill-switch).

For the action playbook when this happens (timeouts, how to message support, what evidence to attach), see Guide #3. This guide names only the dollar size.

Typical refund-tx costs at 2026-06-26 sampling:

• Bitcoin refund: $0.34-$0.60 at 141-250 vB × 3-4 sat/vB × BTC $59,530. Historical peak: $2-$5 during >50 sat/vB mempool congestion.
• Ethereum refund: $0.01-$0.03 at current sub-gwei rates. Historical: $1-$3 in the 10-gwei era (2023-Q4 through 2024-Q1, pre-Dencun).
• TRC20 refund: ~$2.00-$2.20 if sender pays TRX burn (6.5 TRX × $0.323915 = $2.11); $0 if energy is staked.
• BSC refund: ~$0.005-$0.01 post-Fermi (0.05 gwei minimum).
• Solana refund: <$0.001 base fee; if an ATA was created on the failed leg, the close instruction reclaims the ~$0.135 rent.

What you can do: (1) send the exact quoted amount_in (off by a few sats from wallet fee handling is the most common mismatch trigger); (2) sign and broadcast within the deadline (NEAR Intents min_deadline_ms 60s minimum default, Relay permitExpiry 600s default); (3) for high-value swaps, request a fresh quote rather than reusing one that's been sitting in your tab for 5+ minutes.

Three routes priced against UpSwap's /api/tokens endpoint (priceUsd values sampled 2026-06-26) and documented Relay/NEAR Intents fee tiers (see docs.relay.link/how-it-works/fees). Route 1's L2 anchor is from a project-sampling 2026-06 archive UpSwap quote; Routes 2-3 L2 figures are industry-typical-band estimates, not live UpSwap quotes.

Route 1: 1,000 USDT-ERC20 → USDT-TRC20

Anchor: archived UpSwap quote (project sampling 2026-06 archive, not a live 2026-06-26 quote) returned 994.79 USDT TRC20. USDT priceUsd 0.99866 on both legs, mid out ≈ 1,000. Implied spread (1000 − 994.79)/1000 = 0.521%.

Route 2: 0.01 BTC → USDT-TRC20

Mid: 0.01 × 59,530 / 0.99866 = 596.10 USDT. Industry-typical estimate (not a live UpSwap quote): 0.85-1.50% for BTC-finality routes.

Route 3: 0.1 ETH → SOL

Using ETH $1,567.97 (Etherscan, 2026-06-26) consistently. Mid: 0.1 × 1,567.97 / 66.37 = 2.3625 SOL. Major L1 band; Relay tier 0.06%, NEAR Intents typical 0.7-0.9% (per project methodology note for cross-chain L1 routes). Estimated spread ~0.7-0.9% (industry-typical estimate; not a live UpSwap quote).

Table footnote: Route 1 L2 is from project-archived sampling (UpSwap /api/quote requires a widget-issued nonce and could not be re-sampled externally — see H2-3 methodology note); Routes 2-3 L2 figures are industry-typical estimates from public Relay/NEAR Intents docs, not live UpSwap quotes.

Browse routes by token pair: USDT ERC20 to TRC20, BTC to USDT, ETH to SOL, ETH to USDT, BTC to ETH, SOL to USDT.

Before you sign any quote, run this 60-second check across the 5 layers. It catches the four mistakes that account for nearly all support tickets we see.

1. Mid-price gap test (Layer 2 sanity check). Open CoinGecko in a second tab. Compute effective_rate = (out_amount × dest_price) / (in_amount × src_price); the all-in cost is (1 − effective_rate). On a liquid same-chain stablecoin route, that figure should sit roughly within 0.05-0.30%. On a major L1 cross-chain route, within 0.10-0.60%. On long-tail, within 1.0-3.0%. Materially wider, screenshot and ask before signing.
2. Source-gas reality check (Layer 1). Check Etherscan or mempool.space for the current rate. If you're sending USDT TRC20 from a cold wallet with no staked energy, expect ~$2.00-$2.20 burn — not a bug.
3. Destination ATA check (Layer 3, Solana only). If you're receiving an SPL token to a Solana wallet that doesn't already hold it, budget the one-time 0.00203928 SOL (~$0.135) for the ATA rent-exempt minimum. It's recoverable on close.
4. Deadline check (Layer 4). NEAR Intents quotes carry an expiration_time (quote expiry) distinct from min_deadline_ms (the solver's execution commitment window, 60s minimum default — a floor, not a cap). Relay permits default to 600s; quote staleness ~30s is reported in API summaries (not docs-confirmed) — re-quote if your tab has been open longer. A stale quote signature triggers Layer 5 (refund-tx fee on you).
5. Refund-address sanity (Layer 5 prevention). Confirm the refund address shown matches the wallet you're sending from. Some wallets (notably some exchange withdrawal flows) send from a different address than the one displayed — that's the leading cause of irrecoverable refunds. For more on where funds actually reside during a failure, see Guide #1.

Questions on a specific quote? Telegram @upswapservice — send the route, the in/out amounts, and the timestamp. We respond inside the chat, not via DM on any other platform (no Discord, no Twitter DM, no phone). Our team never DMs you first on any platform — if someone messages you claiming to be UpSwap support, it's phishing.