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- The network fee follows the fee payer: on Solana the first signer by default, or a sponsor who signs for it.
- A processor's fee follows the contract: most bill the merchant a percentage, some add a fee on top for the customer.
- On a 49.00 USDC Fianto plan today, the merchant receives 49.00 per charge and the customer pays 49.01 plus a little SOL at checkout.
Which fees can a crypto payment carry?
A crypto payment can carry up to five kinds of cost, and each has its own payer. Before asking who pays, separate them:
| Cost | What it is | Paid in | Goes to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Network fee | The charge for including a transaction in a block | The chain's own token: SOL on Solana, ETH on Ethereum | Validators, part burned |
| Priority fee | An optional tip to get included sooner | The chain's own token | Validators |
| Account rent | On Solana, a balance an account must hold while it exists | SOL | The new account itself, not a company |
| Processor fee | What the payment company charges | Usually the payment token or fiat | The processor |
| Conversion | Turning tokens into bank money later | Varies | An exchange or off-ramp service |
The network fee and rent are rules of the network, and the priority fee is the sender's choice; nobody can make the network drop them, only decide who covers them. The last two are business decisions. This post is about who pays each; the comparison with card fees is in USDC vs card fees.
Who pays the network fee in a crypto payment?
The network fee is paid by the transaction's fee payer, which on Solana is the first signer unless another account is named. The Solana docs on fee abstraction put it this way: "Solana transactions have a designated fee payer", by default the first signer, and a different account can be set, "allowing a third party (the 'sponsor') to cover fees on behalf of the sender". Both sign: the sender for the transfer, the sponsor for the fee.
The Solana fee docs set the base fee at 5,000 lamports per signature, half burned and half to the validator, plus an optional priority fee that goes entirely to the validator. A lamport is one billionth of a SOL. What each Fianto transaction costs is worked out in how much a Solana transaction costs. On Ethereum, ethereum.org says "Gas fees have to be paid in Ethereum's native currency, ether (ETH)", and its account abstraction page adds that "Applications can pay users' gas fees or allow payment in tokens other than ETH".
The practical effect for a merchant: unless someone sponsors the fee, a customer paying in USDC also needs a little of the chain's own token. Why you need SOL to send USDC covers that from the customer's side.
How do payment processors split crypto fees?
Crypto fees are split in one of three common ways: the sender covers everything, the merchant pays a processor a percentage that includes a sponsored network fee, or the processor adds its costs on top for the customer.
| Model | Network fee | Processor fee | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plain wallet transfer | The sender | None | Sending USDC to an address you posted |
| Merchant-paid, fee sponsored | The processor, from its percentage | The merchant | Stripe stablecoin payments: 1.5%, "Included: conversion to fiat, wallet and AML screening, fraud prevention, gas sponsorship" (stripe.com/pricing, 15 October 2026) |
| Customer-paid, on top | The customer, or a sponsor on automatic charges | The customer, added to the price | Fianto: nothing for the merchant; after the beta, about 0.1 to 0.5% on top for the customer |
No model is free; the question is whose line the cost lands on. The merchant-paid model hides every cost from the customer and charges you for it, which also buys conversion to your currency. The customer-paid model leaves your price whole and shows the customer a few cents more, and you handle any conversion yourself.
Who pays which fee in a Fianto payment?
In a Fianto payment the merchant pays nothing, ever: the customer pays for the transactions they sign, and Fianto's charging key is the fee payer on renewals, which the customer never signs. By transaction:
| Transaction | Who signs | Solana fee (SOL) | Added in USDC | Rent (SOL) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One-off payment | The customer | The customer, under $0.01 | Fianto fee, zero in the beta | None |
| Subscribe, first charge included | The customer; Fianto's key co-signs | The customer, under $0.01 | 0.01 USDC network fee today, plus the Fianto fee | About 0.00144 SOL as of 15 October 2026, plus about 0.00119 SOL on a wallet's first subscription; the checkout shows the exact amount |
| Each renewal | Fianto's charging key | Fianto's charging key | 0.01 USDC network fee today, plus the Fianto fee | None |
| Cancel, reclaim rent or re-authorise in the portal | The customer | The customer | None | None; a reclaim returns the subscription's rent |
The network fee, 0.01 USDC today, is a setting frozen onto each plan when the plan is created, so a plan keeps the fee it started with; plans created before 6 October 2026 carry none. Signing in to the portal is a signed message, not a transaction, so it costs nothing. The full table for payers is on what it costs in the Fianto docs.
The merchant never pays a network fee on Fianto, and there is no Fianto fee during the beta.
See the pricingWorked example: who pays what on a 49.00 USDC plan
Take a monthly plan at 49.00 USDC, created after 6 October 2026, and the same product sold once for 49.00 USDC. Amounts in USDC are exact; USDC has six decimals, so nothing below is rounded.
| Charge | Customer pays in USDC | Merchant receives | Other costs and who pays them |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subscribe, today | 49.01 (49.00 + 0.01 network fee) | 49.00 | Customer: Solana fee under $0.01, rent of about 0.00144 SOL as of 15 October 2026 (returned on reclaim after the end) and, on a wallet's first subscription, about 0.00119 SOL (not returned); the checkout shows the exact live amount |
| Each renewal (every 30 days), today | 49.01 | 49.00 | Fianto's charging key is the fee payer; the customer signs nothing and needs no SOL |
| Each charge after the beta at 0.1% | 49.059 (49.00 + 0.049 + 0.01) | 49.00 | As above |
| Each charge after the beta at 0.5% | 49.255 (49.00 + 0.245 + 0.01) | 49.00 | As above |
| One-off sale, today | 49.00 | 49.00 | Customer: Solana fee under $0.01; no rent. The wallet must hold about 0.00067 SOL as of 15 October 2026, most of which stays in it; the checkout says the exact amount if it is short |
| One-off sale after the beta | 49.049 to 49.245 | 49.00 | As above |
The merchant column never moves. For contrast, the same 49.00 under the merchant-paid model at Stripe's published 1.5% costs the merchant 0.735 per payment, with the network fee sponsored and the money converted to fiat.
Who pays when a payment fails, is discounted or is refunded?
A failed renewal costs the customer nothing, a discount lowers the Fianto fee with the price, and a refund is the merchant's own transfer:
- Failed renewal. Nothing is taken. The subscription goes past due and Fianto tries again at about one hour, six hours and a day after the period boundary, four attempts in all; after the fourth counted failure it ends. Missed periods are never back-billed. Failed renewals and retries has the details.
- Discount code. The Fianto fee is computed on the discounted price, and the subscription network fee stays the same. A discounted price must stay at least 0.01 USDC.
- Refund. A refund is not part of the payment, and Fianto has no refund API. The merchant sends USDC back as its own transfer, from its own wallet, and like any transfer that wallet signs, it pays that transaction's Solana fee in SOL. Fianto charges nothing for it.
- Cancel. The customer cancels in the portal at fianto.xyz/my with one signature and pays its Solana fee; the subscription runs to the end of the paid period.
Rent is the line people misread. It is not a fee to anyone: it is SOL held by an account on Solana while it exists, and Solana is lowering it in steps under SIMD-0437, with further cuts expected in November 2026. Fianto reads the live amount when the customer subscribes, so the checkout always shows the exact figure. Account rent and reclaim explains how the customer gets the subscription account's share back.