EOS resources explained: RAM, CPU, NET and PowerUp

6 min read

Why EOS uses resources instead of gas

On Ethereum, every transaction carries a gas fee paid in ETH. If the network is busy, fees spike, and a simple game move can cost more than the item you are buying. EOS was designed in 2017–2018 around a different idea: treat network capacity like a utility that accounts rent or own, so apps can cover costs for users and nobody pays per click.

A transaction is accepted if two things are true: the account paying for it has enough CPU and NET available, and any new data it writes fits in RAM that someone owns. That is the whole model. The rest of this page explains each piece, with real numbers from the chain.

If you want to experiment right away, use the calculator below. It reads the live RAM market when available and falls back to recent defaults.

The three EOS resources at a glance

CPU: processing time

CPU measures how long block producers’ machines spend executing your transaction, in microseconds (µs). One millisecond is 1,000 µs. The chain enforces a minimum of 100 µs per transaction, and a single block can hold 200,000 µs of CPU in total.

In a sample of real core.vaulta token transfers, CPU usage ranged from the 100 µs minimum to around 315 µs, with a median of about 130 µs. A complex DeFi trade or a game action that updates many tables uses more.

Subjective billing

Block producers can also bill CPU for transactions that fail, to stop spammers from flooding the network with junk for free. This billing is not recorded on-chain, but it is why repeatedly retrying a failing action can drain your CPU.

NET: bandwidth

NET measures the size of your transaction in bytes. A simple transfer takes about 136–216 bytes, with a median of around 148 bytes. Each block can carry up to 1 MiB. NET is rarely the bottleneck for normal users, but it is rented the same way as CPU, through PowerUp.

PowerUp: renting CPU and NET for a day

Since April 2021, CPU and NET have been rented through PowerUp. It replaced two older approaches: staking tokens to get a share of bandwidth, and renting through the original REX market. You pay a small fee and get resources for 24 hours.

The price follows a curve that depends on how busy the network is. The on-chain parameters are an exponent of 2, a minimum price of 2,500 and a maximum price of 75,000 tokens for 100% of the network’s capacity for one day. In plain terms: when the network is quiet, renting is very cheap; as utilization approaches 100%, prices climb steeply.

• Network utilization for CPU was only about 3% when we checked, so prices were near the floor.
• Worst-case estimate: even using the congested-price formula, 1 ms of CPU for a day came out to roughly 0.00013 A. When the network is idle, elastic limits make it cheaper still.
• Minimum fee: 0.0001 A, the smallest unit of the token. A single transfer’s CPU and NET cost less than that, so in practice you pay the minimum.

RAM: the storage you actually own

RAM stores everything that has to stay on-chain: token balances, account data, contract code and table rows. Unlike CPU and NET, you buy RAM, own it and can sell it back to the system contract later.

How the RAM price is set

The price comes from a Bancor-style market inside the system contract. The less free RAM there is, the higher the price. Total supply is capped at 390 GiB, and about 82% of it was already reserved when we checked. Based on the market’s balances at that point, RAM cost about 0.345 A per KiB. Every buy and sell carries a 0.5% fee.

What uses RAM

The figure of 241 bytes comes straight from the Vaulta upgrade docs: the first time an account receives A, a new balance row has to be stored. Most wallets and exchanges handle this transparently.

Recent RAM upgrades

• ramtransfer (2024): move unused RAM between accounts without fees.
• ramburn and buyramburn (2024): send RAM to eosio.null; total supply stays the same.
• WRAM (2024): a wrapped RAM token so RAM can trade on DEXs and exchanges.
• giftram (2025): onboarding services can lend encumbered RAM to new users.

Real-world examples

Sending 10 A to a friend

Your wallet builds a transfer that uses roughly 130 µs of CPU and 150 bytes of NET. If your wallet sponsors resources, you pay nothing. If not, you pay the minimum PowerUp fee of 0.0001 A. If your friend’s account has never held A before, a 241-byte balance row is created. Finality takes about one second.

Playing an on-chain game

Each game move is a transaction. A player making 300 moves a day uses more CPU, but the game usually cosigns as resource payer. That is the scenario EOS was built for, and why the "Gamer" preset in the calculator above shows zero cost when the dApp pays.

Opening an account for a family member

You pay for about 3 KB of RAM (around 1 A at recent prices) plus a small PowerUp. The RAM belongs to the new account. Step-by-step instructions are in our create an EOS account guide.

EOS resources vs Ethereum gas

The model also explains EOS’s speed claims. With 0.5-second blocks, 200,000 µs of CPU per block and a 100 µs minimum per transaction, the protocol’s theoretical ceiling works out to roughly 4,000 simple transactions per second. Typical real load is far lower, around a dozen per second in our sample. See EOS vs Ethereum and Bitcoin for a full comparison.

Troubleshooting resource errors

• "CPU usage exceeded" or "NET usage exceeded": rent more via PowerUp in your wallet or on Unicove, or use a wallet that sponsors resources.
• "Insufficient RAM": buy a few KB of RAM. The payer of a new table row needs space for it.
• Old guides say "stake for CPU": that is the pre-2021 model. Staking today means REX rewards; see our EOS staking guide.

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