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MATICBTCETHSOLBNBXRPUSDTDOGEADAAVAXDOTLINKMATICPOL. It replaced MATIC as Polygon PoS's native gas and staking token in September 2024. Any MATIC balance already on the Polygon network was converted automatically, so if you're transacting on Polygon today, you're already paying in POL.
That balance is likely a MATIC ERC-20 token on Ethereum, not POL on Polygon. Only balances already on the Polygon network were auto-converted; Ethereum-based MATIC needs a one-time migration through Polygon's official contract before it functions as POL on Polygon PoS.
No. Polygon PoS is an independent EVM-compatible sidechain with its own Proof-of-Stake validator set. It periodically checkpoints its state to Ethereum as a security anchor, but that happens in batches rather than as a per-transaction fee, so Polygon fees don't carry the L1 data-fee component that rollups charge.
Polygon enforces a protocol-level minimum priority fee — raised to 25 gwei in 2024 to price out spam — so the gas price has a floor it won't fall below regardless of how quiet the network is.
Polygon's fee tracks its own traffic, not Ethereum's. A popular NFT drop, game, or payments app on Polygon itself is the more likely cause — the chain has seen network-wide spikes from single high-traffic apps before.
No, they're separate chains under the same Polygon brand. Sending funds to a Polygon PoS address using the wrong network label — including confusing it with zkEVM or another Polygon-connected chain — still sends the transaction, just to a chain you can't access those funds on without bridging.
Typically a few hours through the official PoS bridge, which waits for the next periodic checkpoint before releasing funds on Ethereum. Third-party bridges can deliver faster by fronting the liquidity themselves, for a fee.
There's no fixed number to target — check the tiers at the top of this page, which read Polygon's live fee data rather than a cached average. In practice it moves in a fairly narrow band above the protocol's fee floor unless a specific app is driving a spike.
No. This page reads public on-chain fee data through a public RPC endpoint. There is no sign-up, no wallet connection, and nothing about you is stored.
BTCETHSOLBNBXRPUSDTDOGEADAAVAXDOTLINKMATICBTCETHSOLBNBXRPUSDTDOGEADAAVAXDOTLINKMATICFree Tool
Real-time Polygon PoS gas price suggestions based on live on-chain fee history. See slow, average, and fast fee tiers in POL — no sign-up required.
Base Fee
Current EIP-1559 base fee per gas unit
max fee
For non-urgent transactions. May take several blocks.
max fee
Balanced speed and cost for most transactions.
max fee
Priority inclusion in the next block.
Save on fees — swap POL at the best rate
Try ZestHow does Polygon PoS gas work?
Polygon PoS is an EVM-compatible sidechain with its own Proof-of-Stake validator set. Gas fees are paid in POL (formerly MATIC), not ETH. Because Polygon runs its own consensus, fees are independent of Ethereum mainnet congestion.
What is the priority fee?
Also called a "tip", this is paid to the validator who includes your transaction. On Polygon the base fee adjusts dynamically per EIP-1559, and tips are usually very small — often under 1 Gwei.
Why is Polygon so cheap?
Polygon PoS uses its own validator set running on delegated Proof-of-Stake, rather than inheriting Ethereum's full security model. This allows much higher throughput and drastically lower fees — typically 100× cheaper than Ethereum mainnet.
Polygon PoS moved to an EIP-1559-style fee model in January 2022, the same two-part structure Ethereum uses: a base fee that adjusts block to block and gets burned, plus a priority fee (tip) that goes to whichever validator produces the block. Every fee is paid in POL, the network's native gas and staking token. POL replaced MATIC as Polygon's on-chain gas token in September 2024 — the swap happened automatically for anyone already holding funds on the network, so a wallet balance that used to read MATIC now reads POL for the same tokens.
The bigger difference from an Ethereum Layer 2 is architectural, not cosmetic. Polygon PoS isn't a rollup — it's an independent EVM-compatible sidechain with its own Proof-of-Stake validator set, running a two-layer stack (Bor for block production, Heimdall for consensus) that periodically checkpoints its state back to Ethereum as a security anchor. Because that checkpoint is a batched, infrequent operation rather than something billed per transaction, Polygon fees carry no L1 data-fee line item the way Arbitrum, Base, or OP Mainnet do. What you pay is just the base fee plus tip, in POL, for the transaction itself.
Polygon also enforces a protocol-level floor on the priority fee — raised to 25 gwei in 2024 specifically to price out spam after the chain saw sustained bot traffic clogging blocks. That floor means Polygon's gas price has a minimum it won't drop below even during quiet hours, unlike Ethereum mainnet or most L2s, which can fall close to zero when nobody's transacting.
Because Polygon PoS runs its own consensus instead of leasing Ethereum's block space, its gas price tracks its own traffic almost entirely — a busy stretch on Ethereum mainnet doesn't touch it the way it would ripple through a rollup's L1 data fee.
Most Polygon confusion traces back to the MATIC-to-POL rename and to Polygon's growing family of separate chains, not the fee math itself.
Want the fundamentals first?
Our explainer covers gas units, gwei, base fees, and how chains like Polygon keep costs low, with worked examples.
Read: Understanding gas feesReal-time Ethereum gas price suggestions for slow, average, and fast speeds — powered by live on-chain fee history.
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Compare real-time gas fees side-by-side across ETH, Arbitrum, Base, Optimism, Polygon, BSC, and Avalanche. Track costs for transfers, swaps, and NFT mints.
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Live Beacon Chain stats — current staking APR, total ETH staked, active validator count, and entry/exit queue depth.
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