How to use
- Set the stake in tokens, token price, and staking APR
- Specify monthly network fee income in tokens and monthly node operating costs in dollars
- Adjust the expected token price change over one year (from -80% to +200%)
- The calculator shows annual income, expenses, profit (including price dynamics), and breakeven stake
- The chart shows profit vs. stake size with a breakeven point marker
- If APR + price change ≤ 0, breakeven is unachievable
Fees_tokens is a catch-all for all non-issuance token income: base priority fees, MEV tips, and commission earned on delegated stake. Estimate conservatively using your validator’s historical monthly average.
Typical MEV premiums for reference:
- Ethereum (MEV-Boost): adds ~20–40% on top of base consensus APR historically
- Solana (Jito): protocol-level MEV tips; 94% goes to validators + stakers, 6% to TipRouter. >95% of SOL stake runs the Jito client (Q1 2026)
- Commission on delegated stake: ETH pools 5–15%; SOL typical 5–10%; ATOM 5–10% (no 0% allowed)
The calculator applies Δ only to the starting stake (Stake × Price × Delta). Rewards and fee tokens earned mid-year are not re-priced at year-end — so gains/losses on those streams are not captured.
For more rigor, treat Δ as an average-path price change (roughly the mid-year price) rather than a year-end endpoint. For a tighter approximation of mid-year averaging, multiply reward streams by (1 + Δ/2) manually.
The default is a mid-range cloud figure and varies widely by network:
- Ethereum (home solo): $50–150/mo (consumer hardware + residential bandwidth)
- Solana (bare-metal): $800–1,200/mo (high-spec CPU, NVMe, 1 Gbps+)
- ATOM / DOT (cloud): $200–500/mo
- Cloud (AWS/OVH) for SOL: $300–600/mo; add $100–300/mo for bandwidth
Adjust the slider to match your target network.
Scope notes. The calculator is a generic PoS model. It does not model slashing risk (expected slashing ≈
P_slash × Slash_rate × Stake × Price), nor does it split hardware vs. bandwidth vs. ops costs. Treat it as a first-pass sizing tool, not a platform-specific P&L.
Calculator
Formulas
- Profit — annual validator profit, $ (computed)
- Stake — number of staked tokens
- Price — token price ($)
- APR — annual staking percentage rate (fraction, 0 to 1)
- Fees_tokens — monthly network fee income (in tokens)
- Cost — monthly node operating costs ($)
- Delta — expected token price change over one year (fraction, -1 to +N)
- Breakeven — minimum stake for breakeven, tokens (computed)
- If Fees_tokens × Price × 12 ≥ Cost × 12 — validator is profitable at any stake
- If APR + Delta ≤ 0 — breakeven is unachievable (staking is unprofitable)