Gas benchmarks

This page provides gas consumption benchmarks for TON wallet contracts,
measured in both sandbox (local testing) and on-chain (testnet) environments.

Single transfers

Gas costs vary between sandbox and on-chain due to different VM configurations, but the relative comparison between wallet versions remains consistent.

Wallet Version	Sandbox (gas)	On-chain (gas)	Notes
V3	2,994	2,494	Baseline, most efficient for single transfers
V4	3,308	2,808	+10% vs V3, adds plugin support
V5	4,939	4,439	+65% vs V3, supports gasless & batch
Highload V3	6,200	6,200	+107% vs V3, but highly efficient for batches

Batch transfers

Wallet Version	Sandbox (gas)	On-chain (gas)	Notes (12 messages are chosen for simplicity)
V3	14,760	-	Supports up to 4 messages per transaction
V5	11,392	10,892	Efficient with batch compared to V3/V4
Highload V3	7,956	7,911	Less gas, but uses 2 transactions for batch

Total cost

Wallet Version	Single Transfer	4 Messages	12 Messages	50 Messages
V3	0.0022648 TON	0.0048448 TON	0.0145344 TON	N/A
V4	0.0023872 TON	0.0049704 TON	0.0149112 TON	N/A
V5	0.0031356 TON	0.0059768 TON	0.0137208 TON	0.05052 TON
Highload V3	0.0036404 TON	~0.025 TON	0.0158308 TON	0.0521892 TON

Key insights:

• V5 has higher gas overhead for single transfers (+65% vs V3) but becomes efficient with batch operations. Supports up to 255 messages per transaction.
• Highload V3 is expensive for single transfers but becomes highly efficient at scale:
  • Gas cost doesn’t change with the number of messages in a batch
  • 100 messages: ~79 gas/msg
  • Designed for handling thousands of transactions

"Wallet V3 batch 4 messages": {
    "gas": 4920,
    "compute_fee_nanoton": 1968000,
    "storage_fee_nanoton": 0,
    "import_fee_nanoton": 1276800,
    "total_fwd_fees_nanoton": 1600000,
    "forward_only_nanoton": 1066676,
    "action_fee_nanoton": 533324,
    "total_fee_nanoton": 3778124,
    "reported_total_nanoton": 3778124,
    "true_network_total_nanoton": 4844800,
    "transactions": 1
}

"Wallet V5 batch 12 messages": {
    "gas": 12826,
    "compute_fee_nanoton": 5130400,
    "storage_fee_nanoton": 0,
    "import_fee_nanoton": 3790400,
    "total_fwd_fees_nanoton": 4800000,
    "forward_only_nanoton": 3200028,
    "action_fee_nanoton": 1599972,
    "total_fee_nanoton": 10520772,
    "reported_total_nanoton": 10520772,
    "true_network_total_nanoton": 13720800,
    "transactions": 1
}

"Highload V3 batch 12 messages": {
    "gas": 7956,
    "compute_fee_nanoton": 3182400,
    "storage_fee_nanoton": 0,
    "import_fee_nanoton": 4096400,
    "total_fwd_fees_nanoton": 8552000,
    "forward_only_nanoton": 5701381,
    "action_fee_nanoton": 2850619,
    "total_fee_nanoton": 10129419,
    "reported_total_nanoton": 10129419,
    "true_network_total_nanoton": 15830800,
    "transactions": 2
}

Methodology

Sandbox measurements:

Framework: Blueprint + @ton/sandbox
Wallets: implementations from @ton/ton (V3R2, V4, V5R1) and Highload V3 sources
Test scenario: Simple transfer of 0.01 TON with PAY_GAS_SEPARATELY mode

On-chain measurements:

Network: TON testnet
Wallets: Same implementations as sandbox
Measurement: Actual transaction gas consumption from explorer data

Use case recommendations

Based on cost-effectiveness:

For retail users (1-10 transactions/day):

• Use V3 or V4 — most cost-effective for single transfers (2,994 gas baseline)
• V5 adds 65% gas overhead for single transfers but provides modern features
• Total cost difference negligible for low volume; choose based on feature needs

For moderate volume (10-100 transactions/day):

• Use V5 for batch operations — 6% savings vs V3 for 12-message batches
• Single V5 batch (255 msgs) more efficient than multiple V3/V4 batches
• V5 supports up to 255 messages per transaction vs V3/V4 limit of 4

For high volume (100+ transactions/day):

• Highload V3 becomes efficient with large batches
• Designed for exchanges and payment processors (different processing approach)
• Gas cost remains constant regardless of batch size (unlike V3/V4/V5)
• Note: Uses 2-transaction approach resulting in ~1.8x higher forward fees

Gas comparison for batching:

• Highload V3: 7956 gas per batch (flat cost regardless of batch size)
• V5: ~1,069 gas/message for 12 messages (scales down with larger batches)
• V3/V4: ~1,230 gas/message (limited to 4 messages per batch)

Code examples

Check gas-research and tolk-bench projects for code examples.

Key features of the gas-research testing suite:

• Comprehensive gas and fee breakdown analysis
• Automated benchmarking across all wallet versions
• Fee calculation helpers for precise cost analysis