estimate_gas_price

Overview

Retrieve current gas price estimates for Aptos transactions. This endpoint provides three tiers of gas pricing to help applications choose appropriate fees based on urgency: prioritized (fast), standard, and deprioritized (economy).

Endpoint

GET /v1/estimate_gas_price

Request

Path Parameters

None.

Query Parameters

None.

Request Body

None.

Response

Success Response (200)

Returns gas price estimates in octas (1 APT = 100,000,000 octas):

{
  "prioritized_gas_estimate": "150",
  "gas_estimate": "100",
  "deprioritized_gas_estimate": "50"
}

Field Descriptions:

• prioritized_gas_estimate: Higher gas price for faster inclusion, typically processed within 1-2 blocks
• gas_estimate: Standard gas price for normal transaction speed, typically processed within 2-5 blocks
• deprioritized_gas_estimate: Lower gas price for cost-sensitive, non-urgent transactions, may take longer to process

All values are returned as string-encoded integers representing gas units in octas.

Error Responses

Status	Error Code	Description
500	internal_error	Server error estimating gas
503	service_unavailable	Gas estimation temporarily unavailable

Code Examples

curl -X GET https://api-aptos-mainnet.n.dwellir.com/YOUR_API_KEY/v1/estimate_gas_price \
  -H "Accept: application/json"

Python example with SDK:

from aptos_sdk.client import RestClient

client = RestClient("https://api-aptos-mainnet.n.dwellir.com/YOUR_API_KEY/v1")
gas_estimates = client.estimate_gas_price()
print(f"Standard gas price: {gas_estimates['gas_estimate']} octas")

TypeScript example:

const response = await fetch(
  "https://api-aptos-mainnet.n.dwellir.com/YOUR_API_KEY/v1/estimate_gas_price",
  { headers: { "Accept": "application/json" } }
);
const estimates = await response.json();
console.log(`Prioritized: ${estimates.prioritized_gas_estimate} octas`);

Use Cases

This endpoint is critical for building responsive and cost-effective applications:

1. Dynamic Transaction Fee Setting: Automatically adjust transaction gas prices based on current network conditions rather than using hardcoded values, ensuring reliable execution without overpaying.

2. User Experience Optimization: Offer users multiple speed/cost options (fast/normal/economy) by exposing the three gas tier estimates, similar to modern blockchain wallets.

3. Batch Operation Cost Planning: Estimate total costs for batch operations by multiplying gas estimates by expected gas consumption, helping optimize transaction batching strategies.

4. Gas Price Monitoring: Track gas price trends over time to identify network congestion patterns and schedule non-urgent operations during low-fee periods.

5. Multi-Chain Cost Comparison: Compare Aptos gas costs with other blockchains to provide users with informed decisions about which chain to use for specific operations.

6. Smart Contract Budgeting: Applications with gas sponsorship or limited budgets can use deprioritized estimates to maximize transaction throughput within budget constraints.

Best Practices

Query Frequency: Gas prices on Aptos are relatively stable compared to other chains due to the Block-STM parallel execution model. Query every 30-60 seconds for normal applications, or more frequently during known high-traffic events.

Price Selection Logic: For user-initiated transactions, use the standard estimate. For urgent operations like liquidations or MEV, use prioritized. For background tasks or gas-sponsored operations, use deprioritized.

Safety Margins: Add a 10-20% buffer to estimates to account for price fluctuations between estimation and submission, especially for prioritized transactions during volatile periods.

Transaction Expiration: Set appropriate expiration timestamps (typically 60-120 seconds) that match your gas tier choice. Prioritized transactions should have shorter expirations, while deprioritized can be longer.

Error Recovery: If gas estimation fails (500/503 errors), fall back to conservative hardcoded values. For mainnet, safe fallback values are: prioritized=200, standard=100, deprioritized=100 octas per gas unit.

Performance Considerations

This endpoint is extremely lightweight and typically responds in under 20ms. The estimates are calculated based on recent block gas usage and mempool analysis, updated every block (approximately every 4 seconds on mainnet).

Gas estimates reflect the minimum gas unit price needed for inclusion, but actual transaction costs depend on gas consumption (max_gas_amount × gas_unit_price). A simple transfer might consume 5-10 gas units, while complex smart contract interactions can consume thousands.

For reference, at 100 octas per gas unit, a simple APT transfer costs approximately 0.00001 APT (1000 gas units × 100 octas), making Aptos one of the most cost-effective layer-1 blockchains.