How credits work
Credits are how Varnir prices everything: every charged action costs a listed number of credits, and a plan is bought with credits too. This page explains the model. Subscription pricing covers the plans, and the homepage lists every price.
We call it a "credit" rather than a "token" because on Varnir "token" already means a crypto asset: USDT, or a token you have added yourself.
One balance, on the ledger
Each identity has one credit balance, held in its own state on the ledger. The contract that runs a charged action takes its credits in the same ledger transaction that performs it. So an action either happens and is paid for, or neither happens.
- No negative balance. If the balance can't pay an action in full, the ledger refuses it before anything is done.
- A history. Every change is recorded with a reason: a test grant, a plan fee, a renewal, a withdrawal, a wallet, or a refund. The web wallet's billing page shows it.
- Whole credits only.
- Credits are for using Varnir only. They can't be transferred to anyone else, sold or exchanged for money.
- Each identity pays for itself, at its own plan's prices. Shared credits for sub-accounts are not built.
Getting credits
- Testnet: the web wallet's billing page has a "Get credits here for testing" button. It adds 1,000 credits, at most once every 24 hours per identity. The ledger contract refuses the grant outside the testnet; hiding the button there is only for the UI.
- Buying credits is coming. Top-ups aren't available yet.
What costs credits, and what doesn't
Free, always: transfers between Varnir accounts, deposits, sweeps (Varnir gathering token deposits into its pool; see How sweeps work), and placing or cancelling orders on the exchange. Transfers and swaps on the ledger sit under fair-use and rate limits.
Charged on the ledger today, on the testnet:
| Action | Credits |
|---|---|
| A plan, each 30 days | The plan's price, see Subscription pricing |
| A withdrawal to a blockchain | The network's Economy weight, see Withdrawals |
| A wallet added after sign-up | See Wallets |
Other actions on the homepage's price list, such as raising and settling invoices, taking an order, names, SMS and social recovery, have prices but are not charged yet. Each will be charged once the ledger can do it.
Varnir switches withdrawal and wallet charging on and off for the whole
network (the creditsLive setting in the plans config). Plan fees and the
testnet grant don't depend on it.
Plan discounts
A paid plan takes a percentage off wallets, and off invoices once those are charged:
| Tier | Credits a month | Discount on wallets and invoices |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 0 | 0% |
| Lite | 500 | 10% |
| Hobbyist | 2,900 | 20% |
| Trader | 19,900 | 30% |
The discount is rounded in your favour. Withdrawals get no plan discount. Enterprise is priced by agreement.
Wallets
| Wallet | List price | Lite | Hobbyist | Trader |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard, added after sign-up | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 |
| Advanced (MPC-TSS) | 200 | 180 | 160 | 140 |
- Your first Standard wallet on each network is free. Spellings of the same network count as one network.
- A wallet for one invoice (one deposit and done) costs 10 credits plus that network's Economy withdrawal weight for the invoice's asset, which pays for its sweep, less your plan's discount. For Tron USDT that is 10 + 300 = 310 credits on Free. It is never your free sign-up wallet, and it must be a Standard wallet.
- Replacing a frozen wallet is free.
- The wallet's credits are taken when the ledger makes the wallet for you or
assigns a pool wallet to you (
Varnir.CreateorVarnir.AssignOwner). If the balance is short, the ledger refuses it and no wallet is made or assigned.
Withdrawals
A withdrawal to a blockchain costs the network's Economy weight, the 24-hour rate, for everyone in this release. There is no plan discount. A withdrawal is charged the weight in effect when it is sent.
Economy weights, in credits:
- Tron · token (USDT/TRC20, user-added): 300
- Ethereum · token (ERC20): follows live gas, at least 120
- BNB Smart Chain · token: 10
- Base, Arbitrum, Polygon · token: 5
- Any network · native coin (ETH, TRX, BNB, POL, BTC): 10
An Ethereum token weight is worked out from a gas reading kept on the ledger: the cost of a token transfer, converted to credits, times 1.3, and never less than 120.
Who pays the gas
| Native withdrawal (ETH, TRX, BNB, POL) | Token withdrawal (USDT, user-added token) | |
|---|---|---|
| Who pays the gas | You, in kind | Varnir's pooled wallet fronts it |
| How | You pay the network fee from your balance of that coin, on top of the amount you send | Gas is paid in the network's native coin, which is not what you are sending, so there is nothing to deduct in kind |
| What the credits are for | A flat charge for signing, tracking and delivery, not gas | Recovering the gas Varnir paid for you |
| What the recipient gets | The full amount | The full amount |
Native example. You withdraw 0.5 ETH and the network fee is 0.0004 ETH. The recipient gets 0.5 ETH, 0.5004 ETH leaves your ETH balance, and 10 credits are taken. The gas is not charged again in credits.
Token example. You withdraw 100 USDT on Tron. The recipient gets 100 USDT, Varnir pays the TRX network cost, and 300 credits are taken.
When credits come back
You never pay for a payout that doesn't happen:
- A treasury proposal is charged only when it is confirmed. A voided or expired proposal costs nothing.
- Cancelling a held withdrawal returns its credits along with the amount.
- If the payout fails on-chain and the amount is refunded, its credits are refunded too.
400 free credits a month
As a launch promotion, every plan gets 400 free credits a month: about one Tron USDT payout (300) plus a little more.
- They are spent before your balance on withdrawals and wallets. A charge bigger than what is left takes the rest from your balance, and is refused if the two together can't pay it.
- Plan fees are always paid from your balance, never from the free credits.
- It unlocks 7 days after your first wallet, or after a single deposit of 10 or more of a listed stablecoin (testnet USDT). Native coins don't unlock it.
- A month is your plan's 30-day period. Without a plan record, it starts at your first charge, not on the 1st. Free credits left at the end of a month expire; they don't carry over.
- A charge that comes back (cancelled or failed) returns its free credits if it is still the same month, and its balance part to your balance.
- Your credit history shows how much of each charge came from the free credits and how much from your balance.
Payout speeds
There are three speeds: Economy within 24 hours, Standard within an hour, and Instant, never held back or batched. Each network has a weight for each speed, and Economy is the cheapest.
In this release every withdrawal is charged the Economy weight in credits,
whatever speed you pick. You can pick a speed in the web wallet, the browser
extension and the SDKs (send()'s optional speed):
- On Bitcoin, the speed sets the network fee rate the payout is signed
at, so it changes the fee you pay in BTC. When you leave it out,
send()uses Instant. - On every other network, the payout goes out at once whatever you pick.
The choice is recorded, and
send()uses Economy when you leave it out.
When speed-based delivery ships on the other networks, Standard and Instant will cost their own weights, and the plan perks start: Hobbyist's 1-hour payouts at the 24-hour price, and Trader's instant payouts at the 1-hour price.
Weights can change
Varnir sets the weights in the plans config on the ledger. One update can move a weight at most two times up or down. The plan is to re-benchmark weights every 6 hours against recent network costs; that job is not built, so today's weights are the standing figures.
The intent is for weights to come down as Varnir's own delivery costs fall, through staking for Tron energy, batching and consolidation. That is a direction, not a promise with dates.
Common mix-ups
- Is the 10-credit charge on an ETH withdrawal the gas? No. You paid the gas yourself, in ETH. The credits are a flat charge for signing, tracking and delivery.
- Why does a USDT withdrawal on Tron cost 300 credits when sending TRX costs 10? With USDT there is no TRX in the withdrawal to take the fee from, so Varnir's pooled wallet pays the TRX network cost and the credits recover it.
- Does a plan include credits? No. A plan buys discounts, higher limits and, later, faster payouts. Credits come from your balance.
- Does a Trader withdrawal cost fewer credits than a Free one? No. Withdrawals cost the same on every plan in this release.
- Do ledger transfers use credits? No.
Where to read more
- Subscription pricing: the plans, renewal and lapse.
- Pricing: the wider pricing reasoning, and how sweeps work.