{"id":3467,"date":"2026-09-24T09:02:38","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T09:02:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nownodes.io\/blog\/?p=3467"},"modified":"2026-09-24T09:02:39","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T09:02:39","slug":"flat-rate-rpc-plans-compared-chainstack-quicknode-alchemy-nownodes-pricing-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nownodes.io\/blog\/flat-rate-rpc-plans-compared-chainstack-quicknode-alchemy-nownodes-pricing-in-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Flat-Rate RPC Plans Compared: Chainstack, Quicknode, Alchemy NOWNodes Pricing in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A flat-rate RPC plan charges a fixed monthly fee for a set amount of capacity, so the bill stays the same however many requests you send or which methods you call. It replaces the usual credit-based bill, where a heavy call like eth_getLogs<\/code> costs several times more than a balance check. Providers sell flat capacity in different ways, though, and the differences show up in the invoice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This comparison covers Chainstack pricing, Quicknode pricing, Alchemy pricing and the NOWNodes price model. It explains how each provider bills, who benefits from a fixed fee, and the request volume at which flat capacity starts to cost less than credits. All figures come from the providers’ own pages as of September 2026, so re-check them before you budget.<\/p>\n\n\n

What is a flat-rate RPC plan?<\/h2>\n\n\n

A flat-rate RPC plan is a subscription where you buy throughput, usually measured in requests per second (RPS), instead of buying a pool of credits. You pay the same amount every month, and requests above your ceiling are rejected rather than billed. Quicknode describes its version as a “fixed monthly fee based on your configured request capacity, so your bill stays the same regardless of actual usage,” in its Flat Rate RPS documentation<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RPC<\/strong> (remote procedure call) is how an application asks a blockchain node for data or submits a transaction. On EVM networks this is JSON-RPC<\/a>, with methods such as eth_getBalance<\/code> and eth_sendRawTransaction<\/code>. A provider hosts the node, and you pay for access to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two billing families exist. Credit-based plans meter usage with units, and flat-rate plans meter speed. The rest of this article turns on that difference.<\/p>\n\n\n

Why do teams move away from credit-based billing?<\/h2>\n\n\n

The main reason is that credit-based bills are hard to forecast. Providers assign each RPC method a different weight, so the same number of calls can produce very different totals. Alchemy’s compute unit table<\/a> lists eth_blockNumber<\/code> at 10 units, eth_getBalance<\/code> at 20, eth_call<\/code> at 26 and eth_getLogs<\/code> at 60.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That makes a log-scanning workload six times more expensive per call than a block-height poll. Chainstack’s own comparison says credit weighting “creates a hidden variable that many teams only discover after their first production billing cycle.” Here’s why that matters: you can’t estimate next month’s invoice from request counts alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flat-rate plans remove the variable. When traffic exceeds the plan, the provider returns an HTTP 429 (Too Many Requests)<\/a> error instead of an overage charge. The cost is a hard ceiling, and your application needs retry logic to handle it.<\/p>\n\n\n

Who uses flat-rate RPC plans?<\/h2>\n\n\n

Flat capacity suits products whose traffic is steady and heavy. A few typical cases:<\/p>\n\n\n\n