Picking a Solana RPC provider in 2026 comes down to four numbers: what the free tier allows, how usage is billed, how far the rate limits stretch, and whether uptime is contractual or best effort. This guide compares the five providers Solana teams shortlist most often on those points, using each provider's own published pricing.
Top 5 Solana RPC Providers at a Glance
| Provider | Free tier | Paid plans from | Billing unit | Max self-serve RPS | Uptime SLA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Instanodes | 600K requests/mo, 40 RPS, no card | $29/mo | Requests | 220 (Advanced) | 99.95%, contractual on every plan, Free included |
| Helius | 1M credits/mo, 10 RPS | $49/mo | Credits, weighted by method | 500 (Professional) | Enterprise only |
| QuickNode | 1-month trial: 10M API credits, 15 RPS | $49/mo | API credits, weighted by method | 500 (Business) | Enterprise only |
| Alchemy | 30M CUs/mo, 15 RPS | $0.52 per 1M CUs (Pay as You Go) | Compute units, weighted by method | 300 included, add-ons to 30,000 CU/s | Enterprise only |
| Chainstack | 3M request units/mo, 5 RPS on Solana mainnet | $49/mo | Request units: 1 per call, 2 for archive | 600 (Business). Solana mainnet capped at 50 on Growth | Enterprise only |
The Alpenglow Upgrade: What Changed for Solana RPC Users
Alpenglow activated on Solana mainnet on October 21, 2026, in epoch 1064, with Alpenglow consensus taking over at slot 459,653,000. Its first phase, Votor, replaces TowerBFT. The finality target drops from about 12.8 seconds to about 150 ms. Rotor, the second phase that replaces Turbine for block propagation, has no date yet.
For teams choosing an RPC provider, four changes matter:
| Change | What it means for your RPC setup |
|---|---|
| Votes move off chain into certificates | Blocks no longer carry vote transactions, so TPS dashboards and transaction-count alerts need new baselines |
confirmed and finalized effectively merge | Read at finalized and shorten timeouts and retry windows built around 12.8 seconds |
| Faster finality | Webhook debounce windows, cache TTLs and indexer re-org logic tuned for slower finality need revisiting |
| New client software | Providers must run an Alpenglow-capable client. The getAgGenesisCert RPC method returns the Alpenglow genesis certificate on current nodes and a Method not found error on older ones |
The 150 ms figure is a target. No sustained, independent mainnet average has been published yet, so measure finality on your own workload before you tighten application logic.
We covered the downstream effects in detail in Solana Alpenglow: What 150ms Finality Actually Breaks Downstream.
How We Compared
We checked each provider on five points: the free tier (allowance, rate limit, card requirement and time limit), paid plan pricing and overage, how usage is billed, Solana-specific limits such as sendTransaction and getProgramAccounts caps, and whether uptime is contractual on self-serve plans.
We did not rank on latency. Results vary by region and method, and no independent Solana benchmark yet covers the network under Alpenglow.
1. Instanodes
Managed RPC endpoints on 50+ chains, including Solana, with published request quotas and a contractual 99.95% uptime SLA on every plan, Free included.
| Plan | Price per month | Requests per day | Requests per month | RPS | Endpoints | Archive access |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 20K | 600K | 40 | 1 | No |
| Build | $29 | 60K | 1.8M | 60 | 2 | No |
| Basic | $79 | 500K | 15M | 180 | 4 | Yes |
| Advanced | $169 | 1.6M | 48M | 220 | 6 | Yes |
Usage is billed in requests, with daily and per-second limits listed for each plan, and the 99.95% uptime SLA is contractual on every tier. Paying for 6 months saves 12% and annual billing saves 20%. You can upgrade, downgrade or cancel from the dashboard with no minimum term. On Solana, standard broadcast supports priority fees, and getProgramAccounts is rate-limited on shared endpoints. Teams that outgrow Advanced get a custom plan priced against their peak requests per second.
Best for: teams that want a fixed monthly price and an uptime SLA in writing from the first request.
Deploy a free endpoint2. Helius
Solana-only RPC provider billed in credits, with per-method rate limits published for each plan.
| Plan | Price per month | Credits per month | RPS | send | get | Support SLA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 1M | 10 | 1 | 5 | None |
| Developer | $49 | 10M | 50 | 5 | 25 | 24 hours |
| Business | $499 | 100M | 200 | 50 | 50 | 12 hours |
| Professional | $999 | 200M | 500 | 100 | 75 | 8 hours |
Most RPC methods cost 1 credit and getProgramAccounts costs 10, so gPA-heavy apps burn through allowances faster. Overage is $5 per 1M credits on paid plans. Staked connections start on Developer, while LaserStream gRPC on mainnet starts on Business (Developer gets devnet only). Uptime SLAs are reserved for Enterprise.
Best for: Solana-native teams that want enhanced APIs and staked connections.
Source: Helius pricing
3. QuickNode
Multichain provider with API credits weighted by method intensity. The free tier is now a one-month trial.
| Plan | Monthly price | Annual price, per month | API credits | Overage per 1M | RPS | Solana gRPC streams |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free trial | $0 for 1 month | n/a | 10M | None | 15 | No |
| Build | $49 | $34 | 80M | $0.62 | 50 | No |
| Accelerate | $249 | $212 | 450M | $0.56 | 125 | No |
| Scale | $499 | $424 | 950M | $0.53 | 250 | 10 concurrent |
| Business | From $999 | From $849 | 2B | $0.50 | 500 | 25 concurrent |
Credit cost varies by method, so the same allowance stretches differently depending on your call mix. Ticket support response is 24 hours on Build, 12 on Accelerate and 8 on Scale and Business. Contractual uptime SLAs come with Enterprise.
Best for: multichain teams that want Solana on the same account as their EVM endpoints.
Source: QuickNode pricing
4. Alchemy
Multichain provider on usage-based billing in compute units, with throughput priced separately from usage.
| Plan | Price | Included usage | Throughput | Apps / webhooks | Support target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 30M CUs/month | 300 CU/s (15 RPS) | 5 / 5 | 48 hours |
| Pay as You Go | $0.52 per 1M CUs | None, pay per use | 10,000 CU/s (300 RPS) included | 30 / 100 | 24 hours |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | From 1,000 RPS | 100 / 500 | Custom |
CU cost varies by method, and throughput is billed separately: each extra 5,000 CU/s costs $160 a month, self-serve up to 30,000 CU/s. Moving from Free to Pay as You Go drops the free 30M CUs, so every CU is billed from zero. Solana gRPC starts at $75/TB, and signed SLAs are Enterprise only.
Best for: teams already on Alchemy for EVM chains.
Source: Alchemy pricing
5. Chainstack
Multichain provider billed in request units, where a standard call costs 1 unit and an archive call costs 2.
| Plan | Monthly price | Annual price, per month | Request units per month | Plan RPS | Solana mainnet RPS | Overage per 1M |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Developer | $0 | $0 | 3M | 25 | 5 | $20 |
| Growth | $49 | $40 | 20M | 250 | 50 | $15 |
| Pro | $199 | $166 | 80M | 400 | Same as plan | $12.50 |
| Business | $499 | $416 | 200M | 600 | Same as plan | $10 |
| Enterprise | From $990 | From $825 | 400M | Custom | Custom | From $5 |
Solana mainnet has its own caps on top of plan limits: 5 RPS on Developer and 50 RPS on Growth, plus per-method limits. getProgramAccounts is paid-only, at up to 20 RPS with filters and less for larger programs. Archive data starts on Growth, as do the Yellowstone gRPC add-on ($49, $149 or $449 a month for 2, 7 or 25 streams) and the Unlimited Node add-on (from $149 a month at 25 RPS). Uptime SLAs are Enterprise only.
Best for: teams that want simple per-call units across many chains.
Source: Chainstack pricing
Why Headline Allowances Don't Compare Directly
A "10M" allowance means something different at each provider, because each counts usage differently.
Instanodes counts requests against daily and per-second limits, so peak volume is what you plan around. Chainstack charges 1 unit per call and 2 per archive call. Helius charges 1 credit for most methods but 10 for getProgramAccounts. QuickNode credits and Alchemy compute units both vary by method, and Alchemy bills throughput on top.
To price your workload, list your top methods by volume and convert them into each provider's unit. We break down the four billing models in RPC Pricing Explained and compare costs at scale in Transparent vs Compute-Unit RPC Pricing.
Which Solana RPC Provider Fits Which Workload
| If you need | Consider | Why |
|---|---|---|
| An uptime SLA on a self-serve plan | Instanodes | 99.95% contractual on every plan, Free included. The others reserve uptime SLAs for Enterprise |
| More RPS at entry price | Instanodes | 60 RPS on the $29 Build plan and 180 RPS on the $79 Basic plan. The $49 plans at Helius, QuickNode and Chainstack cap at 50 RPS on Solana |
| A free tier that renews monthly | Instanodes, Helius, Alchemy, Chainstack | QuickNode's free tier is a one-month trial |
| Predictable monthly cost | Instanodes | Fixed plan price with published daily and per-second request quotas |
Heavy getProgramAccounts traffic | Helius, Chainstack | Helius publishes gPA limits per plan (5 to 75 per second) at 10 credits a call. Chainstack counts gPA as 1 unit, on paid plans only, with limits set by program size |
| Transaction landing for trading | Helius | Staked connections from the $49 Developer plan |
| Yellowstone gRPC streaming | Helius, QuickNode, Chainstack, Alchemy | Mainnet gRPC from Business (Helius), Scale (QuickNode), Growth add-on (Chainstack), $75/TB (Alchemy) |
| Solana plus many other chains | Instanodes, QuickNode, Alchemy, Chainstack | Helius is Solana-only |
Still on shared endpoints and seeing throttling under load? Our guide to dedicated vs shared RPC covers when shared stops being enough.
FAQ
What is the best Solana RPC provider in 2026?
It depends on the workload. Instanodes suits teams that want fixed pricing and a contractual uptime SLA on self-serve plans. Helius suits Solana-native teams that need enhanced APIs and staked connections. QuickNode and Alchemy suit multichain teams, and Chainstack suits teams that want simple per-call units across many chains.
Which Solana RPC providers have a free tier?
Four of the five have a free tier that renews monthly: Instanodes (600K requests at 40 RPS), Helius (1M credits at 10 RPS), Alchemy (30M CUs at 15 RPS) and Chainstack (3M request units, capped at 5 RPS on Solana mainnet). QuickNode offers a one-month trial with 10M API credits at 15 RPS.
How much does a paid Solana RPC plan cost?
Entry paid plans start at $29/month on Instanodes and $49/month on Helius, QuickNode and Chainstack. Alchemy has no fixed entry plan. Pay as You Go costs $0.52 per 1M compute units.
Which providers include an uptime SLA on self-serve plans?
Of the five, only Instanodes. Its 99.95% uptime SLA is contractual on every plan, including Free. Helius, QuickNode, Alchemy and Chainstack offer uptime SLAs on Enterprise contracts.
Does Alpenglow change which RPC provider I should use?
Only if your app reads at confirmed, counts vote transactions, or relies on timeouts sized for 12.8-second finality. Check that your provider runs an Alpenglow-capable client by calling getAgGenesisCert on its endpoint.
What is the difference between credits, compute units and request units?
Credits (Helius, QuickNode) and compute units (Alchemy) weight each call by method, so heavier calls use more of your allowance. Chainstack's request units count 1 per call and 2 per archive call. Instanodes counts requests against daily and per-second limits.
Start With a Free Solana RPC Endpoint
Run your own workload on Instanodes next to your current provider before you commit. The Free plan gives you 600K requests a month at 40 RPS, needs no credit card, and carries the same contractual 99.95% uptime SLA as every paid plan. You can compare plans before you upgrade.
Deploy a free endpointNeed limits above Advanced?
Talk to an expertSwitching from another provider? Follow the migration playbook.