Ethereum Layer 2 Fees Compared: What a Transaction Costs on Base, Arbitrum, OP Mainnet and 20+ Networks

Median transaction cost by network (last 90 days)

Daily medians from growthepie for Ethereum mainnet and 23 other networks, sorted by 30-day average. The “vs Ethereum” column divides mainnet’s 30-day average ($0.078) by each network’s. Daily transactions show how busy each chain is. Network type is growthepie’s classification.

Networks growthepie labels “Optimium” post their transaction data outside Ethereum, Polygon PoS is a sidechain, and “Other” covers different designs, so they carry different security assumptions from rollups. Check a network’s risk profile on L2BEAT before moving meaningful amounts.

90-day chart: mainnet vs Linea, Arbitrum, Base and OP Mainnet

Three things stand out. First, mainnet is the most volatile: its daily median ran from $0.0026 to $0.19 in this window, a 75-fold swing, while Arbitrum stayed between $0.0023 and $0.0061. Second, the gap between networks is huge on a percentage basis but tiny in dollars: every rollup on the chart stayed under 5¢. Third, OP Mainnet’s median sits far below Base (about 38× lower on the 30-day average) even though both run the OP Stack; Base processed about 7.9 million transactions a day over the last week versus about 1.8 million on OP Mainnet.

Comparing with Solana, which keeps activity on a single chain? Its base fee is a flat 5,000 lamports per signature (about $0.0005 at October 18, 2026 prices) plus an optional priority fee; seeEthereum vs Solana fees and speed.

How much did fees fall after Dencun?

The Dencun upgrade went live on March 13, 2024. Its headline change, EIP-4844, gave rollups a cheaper place to post data (“blobs”) with a separate fee market. Pectra and the two blob-only forks that Fusaka enabled have since raised the blob target from 3 to 14 per block (see the Ethereum upgrades timeline). The table shows monthly averages of growthepie’s daily median transaction cost before and after, and today.

Rollup costs dropped about 88–97% within a month of Dencun. Mainnet’s own median fell more slowly but even further over time, from $4.34 in February 2024 to about $0.061 in September 2026. ethereum.org notes that Dencun was aimed at rollup costs rather than mainnet gas, so mainnet’s decline also reflects lower demand for block space and other changes since then, not EIP-4844 alone.

What you actually pay on a layer 2

A rollup fee has two parts: the L2’s own execution fee (gas used × the L2 gas price) and a charge for posting your transaction’s data to Ethereum. Arbitrum, the OP Stack chains such as Base and OP Mainnet, and the ZK rollups all document this split, though each prices the data part differently. That is why L2 fees still rise a little when Ethereum is congested and why bigger transactions (more calldata) cost more.

• Simple transfers are the cheapest action on every network. On mainnet a plain ETH transfer uses 21,000 gas; at a 0.1 gwei base fee that is 0.0000021 ETH, about half a cent at ETH ≈ $2,420, plus your priority tip. Check today’s base fee on the live gas tracker; mainnet’s gas price history shows how far fees have fallen since 2021.
• Token swaps usually cost more than the median transaction: about 2× on Base and mainnet and about 3.4× on Arbitrum One in growthepie’s hourly snapshot ($0.003, $0.051 and $0.011 at 10:00 AM ET on October 17, 2026).
• Bridging in and out is the hidden cost. A native-bridge deposit is a mainnet transaction, and native withdrawals from optimistic rollups (Arbitrum, OP Stack chains) take about 7 days. Exchanges that let you withdraw directly on Base or Arbitrum skip that step.

To convert a gwei gas price into ETH or dollars, use the wei / gwei / ETH converter; to estimate a specific mainnet action, use the gas fee estimator.

Which network should you use?

• One transfer now and then: mainnet is often fine at current gas levels and avoids bridge risk entirely.
• Frequent swaps, mints or payments: any major rollup cuts the cost to fractions of a cent. Pick the one your apps and exchange support.
• Large balances you rarely touch: fees matter less than security. Compare risk ratings on L2BEAT and read Ethereum layer 2 explained before you bridge.
• Always: confirm the network in your wallet before you send. Your 0x address is the same on every EVM chain, but the funds are not. The ETH address checker catches typos and lookalike addresses.

Download the data

License and credit: Source: growthepie, growthepie.com (public API data, CC BY 4.0). Compiled, averaged and reformatted by GrowYourEthereum. Our tables, chart and CSV are released under CC BY 4.0. Please credit both, for example “Source: growthepie; compiled by GrowYourEthereum”, and link to this page. growthepie does not endorse this page.

GrowYourEthereum. (2026). Ethereum Layer 2 Fees Compared (growthepie data) [Data set]. Updated October 17, 2026. https://growyourethereum.com/data/layer-2-fees. Licensed CC BY 4.0.

<a href="https://growyourethereum.com/data/layer-2-fees">Ethereum Layer 2 Fees Compared (growthepie data)</a> by GrowYourEthereum, licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY 4.0</a>.

@misc{growyourethereum_layer_2_fees_2026,
  author       = {{GrowYourEthereum}},
  title        = {Ethereum Layer 2 Fees Compared (growthepie data)},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://growyourethereum.com/data/layer-2-fees}},
  note         = {Data set, updated October 17, 2026. CC BY 4.0}
}

Embed this table on your site

Writers, educators and wallet guides can add a compact, live version of the fee table (median transaction, token swap and how much cheaper each network is than Ethereum mainnet) with one iframe. It loads the same growthepie feed as this page and keeps the credit to growthepie and a link back here, as CC BY 4.0 requires. Preview the embed.

<iframe
  src="https://growyourethereum.com/embed/l2-fees"
  width="100%"
  height="680"
  style="border:none;max-width:780px;display:block;"
  title="Live Ethereum layer 2 fees by GrowYourEthereum"
  loading="lazy"
></iframe>
<p style="font-size:13px;">Source: <a href="https://growyourethereum.com/data/layer-2-fees">Ethereum layer 2 fees compared</a> by GrowYourEthereum; data from <a href="https://www.growthepie.com/fees">growthepie</a> (CC BY 4.0).</p>

Methodology

• Daily data: growthepie v1/fundamentals.json (txcosts_median_usd and txcount), fetched October 17, 2026; latest complete day October 16, 2026 (UTC). growthepie defines txcosts as a median-style cost per transaction, not total fees.
• Live table: growthepie v1/fees/table.json, newest hourly row per chain, loaded in your browser. Dollar values are growthepie’s ETH-denominated fees × the ETH price implied by its mainnet row.
• History: growthepie v1/metrics/chains/{chain}/txcosts.json monthly series (monthly average of daily medians).
• Coverage is limited to networks growthepie tracks. ZKsync Era appears in the live table but not in the daily cost export used for the 90-day table. Medians hide the spread: some transactions cost far more.

Layer 2 fees FAQ

Sources

All links checked October 17, 2026.

• growthepie: Transaction costs (median fee per transaction by chain)
• growthepie: Live fee comparison
• growthepie docs: txcosts metric definition
• growthepie docs: API overview and endpoints
• growthepie: Data & API terms (CC BY 4.0)
• ethereum.org: Dencun upgrade (proto-danksharding)
• EIP-4844: Shard blob transactions
• ethereum.org: Layer 2 overview
• Arbitrum docs: Gas and fees
• Optimism docs: Transaction fees on OP Stack chains
• Base docs: Network fees
• Arbitrum docs: Bridge quickstart (withdrawal timing)
• Optimism docs: Standard Bridge (withdrawal timing)
• l2fees.info: Layer 2 fee comparison (L2BEAT)
• L2BEAT: rollup risk and maturity (stage) ratings