The wallet tries to tell you what a transaction will cost before you sign it. How precisely it can do that depends on the action, because the network prices each transaction by its real size and some transactions cannot be measured until they are prepared.
Before you sign
Action | What you see |
Send | A typical figure for this kind of transfer |
Swap | A typical figure, with the network fee shown separately from the provider fee |
Bulk transfer | The real figure for your exact batch, once it has been prepared |
Merging by hand | An estimate before you confirm |
Connected apps | No estimate. The wallet cannot see the shape of the transaction in advance, so keep a larger cushion in your Fee Balance. |
Why the final amount can differ
An estimate is an estimate. The network charges for what the transaction actually turned out to be, so the final fee can land slightly above or slightly below what you were shown. Both directions are normal.
Where the wallet shows a typical figure rather than a live one, expect a little more variation.
Which actions use the Fee Balance
Anything your wallet submits to the network draws on the Fee Balance. That includes sends, swaps, transactions through connected apps, accepting an incoming transfer by hand, setting up a preapproval, and bulk transfers.
Once one-step transfers or a token preapproval is switched on, the incoming transfers they cover no longer need a manual acceptance, so that fee stops applying to them.
The wallet keeps a current list of these actions with typical figures for each. Open your Fee Balance and choose Learn about Fee Balance to see it.
After you sign
Every fee taken from your Fee Balance is recorded in your history, with the transaction it belongs to. That is the place to check what you actually paid, rather than the estimate you were quoted.
Your balance can take a few seconds to catch up after a transaction while it settles on the ledger.