What the fee line is paying for

Two charges, one number in meta

After a Solana transaction lands, the meta object carries a single fee in lamports. That number is the sum of a base fee and, when the sender asked for priority, a priority fee. The learning library treats them separately because they are priced differently and they fail differently.

The base fee is 5,000 lamports for each signature on the transaction. One signer means 5,000 lamports. Two signers mean 10,000. This charge is due even when the instruction later fails. A failed transaction still paid for the signatures the cluster checked.

The fee payer is a position, not a title

The fee payer is the first account in the account-keys list, and that account has to be a signer. In the reading room we underline it before we talk about any transfer. Visitors often point at the wallet that “sent the tokens” and assume that wallet paid the fee. Sometimes it did. Sometimes it is only a token authority further down the list, and the first signer is a different account.

One SOL is 1,000,000,000 lamports. A 5,000-lamport base fee is a small slice of a SOL, which is why people skip the line. The line still tells you who funded the attempt.

Priority is a price times a limit

If the transaction sets a compute-unit price and a compute-unit limit, the priority fee is that price multiplied by the limit, again in lamports, and it is paid by the same fee payer. The meta fee includes it. The log lines may also show compute units consumed, which can be lower than the limit you paid for. You paid for the limit you requested, not only for the units the program happened to use.

When we read a fee in a signature walkthrough, we write three figures on the printout: base, priority, and the meta total. If they do not add up, we stop and recount signatures before we touch the instructions.

If this is the field you want marked on your own signature, reserve a signature walkthrough or book a reading hour and name the guide.