Costs and deposits
Nobody pays to read or to publish on ARIADNE. Each person pays only the small network costs of their own actions, and the platform takes nothing and pays for nobody. The website always shows the exact total before your wallet asks you to sign.
On TestNet, ALGO (the currency of Algorand) are free at the TestNet dispenser, so everything on this page costs you nothing real there. See TestNet and MainNet, and the glossary for blockchain terms such as transaction.
Two kinds of cost
Section titled “Two kinds of cost”| Network fee | Storage deposit | |
|---|---|---|
| What it pays for | processing your transaction | keeping the record your action creates |
| How much | currently 0.001 ALGO per transaction | depends on the size of the record |
| Who receives it | the Algorand network | nobody: it stays locked in the ARIADNE application |
| When | every transaction | only when an action creates a record |
Network fees. Every Algorand transaction pays a fee, currently 0.001 ALGO. The web app reads the fee from the network when you act; it is never fixed in advance.
Storage deposits. Algorand asks every account to keep a minimum balance for the data it stores, called the MBR (minimum balance requirement). ARIADNE keeps its records in boxes: small named records in the storage of the ARIADNE application, such as one per article, co-author, review, comment, vote, flag and reputation record. Each box raises the application’s minimum balance by 0.0025 ALGO plus 0.0004 ALGO per byte. When your action creates a box, you pay exactly that increase, in the same group of transactions, and the contract checks the amount. The deposit is not paid to anyone: it stays locked in the application, as storage, for as long as the record exists.
The application’s spendable balance never goes down because of what users do: every deposit and every fee is covered by the person acting.
What each action costs
Section titled “What each action costs”| Action | Storage deposit (ALGO) |
|---|---|
| Publish | 0.2122, plus 0.0293 per declared co-author |
| Confirm co-authorship, resolve a comment | 0 |
| Follow, link an ORCID iD, declare a DOI | 0 |
| Vote for an article | 0.0289 |
| Vote for a review or a comment | 0.0321 |
| Review | 0.0911 the first time in a field, then 0.0658 |
| Comment | 0.0818 the first time in a field, then 0.0565 |
| Claim reputation | 0.0253 per field the first time, then 0 |
| Flag | 0.0265 |
| Claim the article token | 0.1 kept in your own account while you hold the token |
On top, each transaction pays the network fee (currently 0.001 ALGO per transaction; a publication is three). The website reads the exact amounts from the network and shows them before you sign.
What “the first time in a field” means
Section titled “What “the first time in a field” means”Reviews, comments and claims need your reputation record in the article’s primary field, a box of its own worth 0.0253 ALGO. The first of these actions in a field creates it, and later ones reuse it. So if you claimed reputation in a field first, your first review there costs 0.0658, not 0.0911. A claim creates the records for both the primary and the secondary field of the article, if you do not have them yet.
What a publication pays for
Section titled “What a publication pays for”The publication deposit covers the article token (0.1), the article record (0.0829) and your own author record (0.0293). Each declared co-author adds a record of 0.0293 ALGO, paid by the submitter when publishing.
Your own minimum balance
Section titled “Your own minimum balance”Every Algorand account keeps 0.1 ALGO that it cannot spend. Your account therefore needs the cost of the action plus those 0.1 ALGO. The cost box in the web app shows the ALGO your account can spend and warns when it is not enough.
Network fees per action
Section titled “Network fees per action”With an ordinary wallet, at today’s fee of 0.001 ALGO per transaction:
| Action | Transactions | Network fee (ALGO) |
|---|---|---|
| Publish (up to 4 co-authors, or 5 without a secondary field) | your payment, the call, and the creation of the article token | 0.003 |
| Vote, review, comment, claim reputation, flag | your payment and the call | 0.002 |
| New version | the call, and the update of the article token | 0.002 |
| Change status | the call | 0.001 |
| Retract | the call, and the revocation of the article token | 0.002 |
| Confirm co-authorship, resolve a comment | the call | 0.001 |
| Follow one person, link an ORCID iD, declare a DOI | the call | 0.001 |
| Save to a public list (up to 50 changes in one note) | one payment of 0 ALGO to yourself | 0.001 |
| Claim the article token | your opt-in to the token, the call, and four steps that move and freeze it | 0.006 |
A publication that declares many co-authors needs a few extra calls in its group, one for every 8 more records it touches: with 9 co-authors it is four transactions, with 25 it is six.
Fees for Falcon accounts
Section titled “Fees for Falcon accounts”An Algorand account can sign with an ordinary key (Ed25519) or with Falcon-1024, a post-quantum signature. Algorand charges each transaction signed with Falcon two extra minimum fees, so it costs 0.003 ALGO instead of 0.001. The steps the contract makes on your behalf (creating or updating the article token) stay at 0.001.
| Action | Ordinary wallet | Falcon account |
|---|---|---|
| Follow, link an ORCID iD, declare a DOI | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Vote, review, comment, claim reputation, flag | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Publish (few co-authors) | 0.003 | 0.007 |
The cost box in the web app says that its fees assume an Ed25519 wallet. Deposits are the same for every account. ARIADNE’s governance account signs with Falcon (see Flags, disputes and governance).
Actions that cost only the network fee
Section titled “Actions that cost only the network fee”These create no box, so there is no deposit:
- confirming co-authorship and resolving a comment;
- following and unfollowing, linking or unlinking an ORCID iD, declaring or withdrawing a DOI: each one is only an event recorded on the blockchain;
- public lists: each change is a note on a payment of 0 ALGO from you to yourself, outside the contract; one note carries up to 50 changes, and the wallet signs up to 16 notes at once (see Lists and bibliographies);
- new versions and status changes;
- claiming reputation, once your reputation records exist.
Reading, searching, keeping private lists, receiving browser notifications and preparing a Zenodo draft need no transaction at all.
Do deposits come back?
Section titled “Do deposits come back?”No. Nothing on ARIADNE is ever deleted, so the records stay, and their deposits stay locked in the application for as long as the records exist, which is forever. That makes a deposit permanent, not a fee: nobody receives it, the ARIADNE project included. The status page of the web app shows the deposits the application holds.
The one exception is the article token. Its 0.1 ALGO is not paid to the application: it is part of the minimum balance of your own account while you hold the token.
A typical month
Section titled “A typical month”An active researcher who already has reputation records in the fields involved, on one month:
| Activity | Deposits (ALGO) | Network fees (ALGO) |
|---|---|---|
| Publishes one article with 2 co-authors | 0.2708 | 0.003 |
| Writes 3 reviews | 0.1974 | 0.006 |
| Writes 6 comments | 0.3390 | 0.012 |
| Votes for 10 articles | 0.2890 | 0.020 |
| Votes for 8 reviews or comments | 0.2568 | 0.016 |
| Claims reputation from 2 articles | 0 | 0.004 |
| Follows 4 people | 0 | 0.004 |
| Total | 1.3530 | 0.065 |
That is about 1.42 ALGO for the month, almost all of it deposits. In a first month, the first review, comment or claim in each field also pays 0.0253 ALGO for the reputation record, once.
ARIADNE itself runs on donations: the deposits pay for storage on the blockchain, not for the server, the website or the copies of the articles. If it is useful to you, you can support it.