name: Arweave FinOps
description: Arweave storage is priced as a one-time permanent fee rather than a recurring subscription. The protocol stores an endowment that earns interest to fund storage indefinitely. Costs are denominated in AR (the native token) or via Turbo Credits purchasable with fiat or multi-chain cryptocurrencies. FinOps practices center on estimating upload costs ahead of time, choosing the right upload path, and managing token exposure.
currency: AR (native token), USD via Turbo Credits
billingModel: pay-once permanent storage + dynamic per-byte pricing
url: https://docs.ar.io/build/upload/turbo-credits

cost_drivers:
  - name: Data Size
    description: Primary cost driver. Fees scale with the number of bytes uploaded. The /price/{bytes} endpoint returns the minimum network fee for a given size. Dynamic pricing means the cost per byte fluctuates with AR/USD exchange rates and network storage economics.
    unit: winston per byte
    endpoint: GET /price/{bytes}

  - name: New Wallet Surcharge
    description: An additional fee is applied on the first transaction sent to a wallet address that has never received funds, to discourage wallet spam.
    unit: variable winston surcharge
    endpoint: GET /price/{bytes}/{target}

  - name: Turbo Top-Up Surcharge
    description: When purchasing Turbo Credits with crypto tokens (other than ARIO), a surcharge applies to cover infrastructure and token liquidity costs.
    surcharges:
      - token: ARIO (Solana or Base)
        surcharge: 0%
      - token: KYVE
        surcharge: 50%
      - token: all others (AR, ETH, SOL, MATIC, USDC, POL)
        surcharge: 35%

cost_optimization:
  - name: Use Free Tier for Small Uploads
    description: Uploads under 100 KiB via the Turbo service are free. Batch small assets into a single sub-100 KiB bundle when possible.

  - name: Bundle Transactions
    description: ANS-104 bundles pack multiple data items into a single Arweave transaction, reducing per-item overhead and improving throughput vs. individual transactions.

  - name: Use ARIO Token for Zero-Surcharge Top-Ups
    description: Funding Turbo Credits with ARIO tokens (on Solana or Base) incurs no additional surcharge (0%), versus 35% for most other tokens.

  - name: Estimate Fees Before Upload
    description: Use GET /price/{bytes} (or /price/{bytes}/{target}) before submitting large transactions to validate budget. The network fee is dynamic and should be re-fetched close to submission time.

  - name: Monitor AR/USD Exchange Rate
    description: Storage cost in USD depends on the AR token price. Purchasing Turbo Credits during favorable rates locks in more upload power per dollar.

pricing_resources:
  - name: Turbo Pricing & Credits Docs
    url: https://docs.ar.io/build/upload/turbo-credits
  - name: Arweave Storage Pricing Overview
    url: https://www.arweave.org/technology#endowment
  - name: Price Endpoint Reference
    url: https://docs.arweave.org/developers/arweave-node-server/http-api