Blockchain Server Costs: What You Need To Know

One of the first questions you hit when building on chain is often:
"Do I run my own node, or just plug into a provider?"

On paper, spinning up a node looks easy. Rent a server, sync the chain, expose an RPC, done. In practice, the real costs, money, time, and headaches, stack up fast.

Let’s break down what “server costs” actually mean, look at some real numbers for Ethereum and Solana, and see why most teams end up choosing managed infra instead of DIY.

First, what’s a “blockchain server” anyway?

Call it a node if you like, it’s the piece of infra that keeps the chain alive. It stores the data, validates transactions, and makes sure consensus rules are followed. Depending on what you’re building, you might need:

- Full nodes: store and verify the chain from top to bottom.‍

- Archive nodes: keep every historical state (needed for queries like eth_getBalance at block 12,345,678).

- Validators / miners: actually propose and produce blocks.

Each type has its own hardware, storage, and bandwidth demands, and that’s where the money goes.

Where the costs come from

Running blockchain infra isn’t like renting a single web server. You’re on the hook for:

Hardware & setup
Think CPUs with 16-64 cores, 64-256 GB RAM, and multi-terabyte NVMe SSDs. A single decent node box can run you anywhere from $800-$3,800 upfront. Archive or validator nodes are way above that.

Operational expenses
If you’re on-prem, that’s power, cooling, and bandwidth. If you’re on cloud, it’s compute, storage, and egress. For Ethereum, expect $500-$2,000/month per node.

Maintenance & upgrades
Syncs break, forks happen, clients need patching. Budget 10-20% of project cost per year just for upkeep.

Scaling
One server isn’t enough if you care about redundancy or latency. Production apps usually need nodes in US, EU, and APAC. Costs triple overnight.

Security & compliance
Firewalls, DDoS protection, logging, audits. Nobody budgets for these at the start, but you’ll need them.

And then there are the hidden costs: slow responses under load, tracer/debug calls that fail, chain-specific quirks (like Arbitrum’s pre-Nitro debug gaps), and the human cost of someone being on-call when a node dies at 3am your local time but peak time for your client/user.

Case 1: Ethereum Archive Node

If you’re building a DeFi dashboard or analytics platform, you’ll need an archive node for balances, tx history, and historical queries.
If you’re also participating as a validator, infra costs meet capital lock-up costs.

Software: Erigon

Hardware:

👉 16-32 vCPUs

👉 64-128 GB RAM

👉 6-8 TB NVMe SSD

Cost:

• Bare-metal server: ~$2,500 purchase
• Cloud equivalent: ~$3k-5k/month (AWS/GCP/Azure)
• Ops: Redundancy (2-3 nodes across regions) + one DevOps engineer (~$150k/year in Western countries)

Validator Node:

• Hardware: 8-12 cores / 64-128GB RAM / 4-8 TB NVMe → a few hundred $ per month‍
• Capital requirement: 32 ETH staked per validator (~$150k at $4,500 ETH)‍
• Redundancy: most validators run multiple failover nodes, adding infra + monitoring‍
• Slashing risk: downtime or double-signing can mean financial penalties

In practice, validator infra is cheap, but the locked capital and operational risk are the real costs.
When paired with archive nodes for data, Ethereum infra can easily surpass $250k/year + 32 ETH locked per validator.

Choosing Erigon over Geth can halve your storage bill and cut sync headaches, but even “optimized” clients still cost thousands per month once you add compute, bandwidth, and redundancy. For a full breakdown of performance, sync speed, and storage requirements, check out our Geth vs Erigon article.

Case 2: Solana RPC/Archive Node

Solana’s high throughput demands extreme infra. Even a full node with just a few days of history is heavy, and archive nodes (full history) are almost out of reach for anyone but giant infra providers.

Full RPC Node (3-5 days of history)

Hardware:

👉 128-256 vCPUs

👉 1 TB RAM

👉 3-5 TB NVMe SSD

Cost:

• ~$4,000/month per node
  
• Redundancy: 3-5 nodes for failover → $150k-250k/year infra
• Ops: 3-4 highly skilled FTEs (each ~$150k/year, in Western countries)

Archive Node (complete history)

• Storage: ~300 TB today, grows terabytes every month
• Reality: requires constant upgrades (add NVMe or replace servers)
• Cost: “money + compute nearly impossible” for most teams

Validator Node

Running a Solana validator is fundamentally different from operating an RPC node. While the hardware footprint is similar, validators exist to participate in consensus and earn rewards, which requires staking millions of dollars’ worth of SOL to stay competitive. This means validators face not only the same infra costs as RPC operators, but also a massive capital requirement tied to the stake they control.

• Hardware: similar to full RPC node (~128+ vCPUs, 512 GB-1 TB RAM, fast SSD)
• Capital requirement: must stake SOL (millions of $) to earn validator rewards and compete for slots
• Ops: validator operators often run clusters across multiple geos → adding to infra + staffing burden

In practice, running Solana infra can hit $500k+/year when you add hardware, redundancy, growth, and staffing, and validators also need tens of millions in staked SOL to be competitive.

Why these numbers matter

For most teams, that means less time building products, more time keeping servers alive.

The Tatum path: skip the pain

This is where Tatum changes the math. Instead of burning $250k+ a year to keep Ethereum and Solana nodes humming, you're getting for $29/month:

RPC Gateway: sub-30ms latency, 99.9% uptime, 130+ chains, one endpoint.

Data API: indexed balances, tx history, token ownership, no need to run your own explorers.

Notifications: real-time webhooks for transfers, contract events, and failed txs.

Archive access: live + historical data from the same endpoint, no extra nodes required.

You get production-grade infra on demand, starting free and scaling by usage. No clusters, no DevOps payroll, no sleepless nights.

Bottom line

Yes, you can run your own nodes. Ethereum? Around $250k+32 Staked ETH/year for a real setup. Solana? Over $500k/year for a cluster. And that’s before you count the people hours.

For most dev teams, it makes zero sense. Managed infra is faster, cheaper, and more reliable. That’s exactly what Tatum gives you: global RPC, indexed data, and notifications, all priced on usage.

Milliseconds matter. So does your budget.

If you’re building on Ethereum, Solana, BSC, Tron, Base, or 130+ other chains, test it yourself with Tatum RPC Gateway.

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