Costs and deposits
Nobody pays to read or to publish on Cabdell. Each person pays only the small network costs of their own actions, and the platform takes nothing and pays for nobody. The website always shows the exact total before your wallet asks you to sign.
On TestNet, ALGO (the currency of Algorand) are free at the TestNet dispenser, so everything on this page costs you nothing real there. See TestNet and MainNet, and the glossary for blockchain terms such as transaction.
The amounts are those of contract v4 (D-163), measured on a test network to the microAlgo and reported in
projects/contracts/V4_REPORT.md.
Two kinds of cost
Section titled “Two kinds of cost”| Network fee | Storage deposit | |
|---|---|---|
| What it pays for | processing your transaction | keeping the record your action creates |
| How much | currently 0.001 ALGO per transaction | depends on the size of the record |
| Who receives it | the Algorand network | nobody: it stays locked in the Cabdell application |
| When | every transaction | only when an action creates a record |
Network fees. Every Algorand transaction pays a fee, currently 0.001 ALGO. The web app reads the fee from the network when you act; it is never fixed in advance.
Storage deposits. Algorand asks every account to keep a minimum balance for the data it stores, called the MBR (minimum balance requirement). Cabdell keeps its records in boxes: small named records in the storage of the Cabdell application, such as one per article, co-author, review, comment, vote, flag and reputation record. Each box raises the application’s minimum balance by 0.0025 ALGO plus 0.0004 ALGO per byte. When your action creates a box, you pay exactly that increase, in the same group of transactions, and the contract checks the amount. The deposit is not paid to anyone: it stays locked in the application, as storage, for as long as the record exists.
A flag adds a third amount, the bond, usually 1 ALGO, which is neither a fee nor a deposit: it is held for a while and then returned, paid in part to someone, or kept (see The bond of a flag).
The application’s spendable balance never falls below the bonds it holds: every deposit and every fee is covered by the person acting, and the only payments the application ever makes are the settlements of flags, each settling one bond and the deposit of the flag’s own record. What a settlement keeps stays in the application for good.
What each action costs
Section titled “What each action costs”| Action | Storage deposit (ALGO) |
|---|---|
| Publish | 0.2222, plus 0.0293 per declared co-author |
| Confirm co-authorship | 0 |
| Follow, link an ORCID iD, declare a DOI | 0 |
| Vote for an article | 0.0289, plus 0.0189 for each of its authors you have never given anything to before |
| Vote for a review or a comment | 0.0321, plus 0.0189 if you have never given anything to its author before |
| Resolve a comment | 0; 0.0189 when your resolution grants reputation to that commenter for the first time |
| Review | 0.0927 the first time in a field, then 0.0658 |
| Comment | 0.0834 the first time in a field, then 0.0565 |
| Claim reputation | 0.0269 per field the first time, then 0 |
| Flag | 0.0297, plus the bond (1 ALGO, or 2 to 16 after a cleared dispute); 0.0073 more for the flag that opens a dispute |
| Settle a flag, end an expired dispute | 0 |
| Claim the article token | 0.1 kept in your own account while you hold the token |
On top, each transaction pays the network fee (currently 0.001 ALGO per transaction; a publication is at least three, more with many co-authors). The website reads the exact amounts from the network and shows them before you sign.
What “the first time in a field” means
Section titled “What “the first time in a field” means”Reviews, comments and claims need your reputation record in the article’s primary field, a box of its own worth 0.0269 ALGO. The first of these actions in a field creates it, and later ones reuse it. So if you claimed reputation in a field first, your first review there costs 0.0658, not 0.0927. A claim creates the records for both the primary and the secondary field of the article, if you do not have them yet.
What “never given anything to before” means
Section titled “What “never given anything to before” means”Repeated votes for the same person count less each time (see Reputation and vote weight). To count them, the contract keeps one small record per pair of addresses: how many times you have given to that person, by any kind of vote or by resolving their comment. The first time you give to someone, your transaction creates that record, 0.0189 ALGO; later votes for the same person reuse it.
A vote for an article gives to all its authors at once, so it creates one record for each author you have never given to before: a first vote for a single-author article costs 0.0478 ALGO (0.0289 + 0.0189), a vote for an article whose three authors you already voted for costs 0.0289.
What a publication pays for
Section titled “What a publication pays for”The publication deposit covers the article token (0.1), the article record (0.0929) and your own author record (0.0293). Each declared co-author adds a record of 0.0293 ALGO, paid by the submitter when publishing.
Your own minimum balance
Section titled “Your own minimum balance”Every Algorand account keeps 0.1 ALGO that it cannot spend. Your account therefore needs the cost of the action plus those 0.1 ALGO. The cost box in the web app shows the ALGO your account can spend and warns when it is not enough.
The bond of a flag
Section titled “The bond of a flag”Every flag deposits a bond besides its 0.0297 ALGO storage deposit: 1 ALGO, or, for 365 days after governance cleared a dispute about the article, 2 ALGO (4, 8 and at most 16 after further clearances). The contract holds the bond until the flag is settled, which anyone may do once the flag’s round is over. The settlement pays:
| How the round ended | To the flagger | To the article’s submitter | Kept by the application |
|---|---|---|---|
| the article was retracted (by governance or by its submitter) | the bond and the deposit | nothing | nothing |
| the round lapsed: no dispute within 30 days of its first flag | the bond and the deposit | nothing | nothing |
| governance cleared the dispute | the deposit | half the bond | the other half |
| the dispute expired after 60 days | the deposit | nothing | the whole bond |
So a justified flag costs only network fees in the end. A flag on an article that is then cleared costs its bond, half of it paid to the article’s author; a flag whose dispute expires costs the whole bond, paid to nobody. What the application keeps cannot be taken out by anyone. The rules are in Flags, disputes and governance.
Network fees per action
Section titled “Network fees per action”With an ordinary wallet, at today’s fee of 0.001 ALGO per transaction:
| Action | Transactions | Network fee (ALGO) |
|---|---|---|
| Publish (up to 4 co-authors, or 5 without a secondary field) | your payment, the call, and the creation of the article token | 0.003 |
| Vote for an article with one or two authors | your payment and the call | 0.002 |
| Vote for a review or a comment, review, comment, claim reputation, flag, resolve a comment | your payment and the call | 0.002 |
| New version | the call, and the update of the article token | 0.002 |
| Change status | the call | 0.001 |
| Retract | the call, and the revocation of the article token | 0.002 |
| Confirm co-authorship | the call | 0.001 |
| Follow one person, link an ORCID iD, declare a DOI | the call | 0.001 |
| Settle a flag (anyone) | the call, and one or two payments the contract makes | 0.003 when half the bond goes to the submitter, 0.002 otherwise |
| End a dispute after 60 days (anyone) | the call | 0.001 |
| Save to a public list (up to 50 changes in one note) | one payment of 0 ALGO to yourself | 0.001 |
| Claim the article token | your opt-in to the token, the call, and four steps that move and freeze it | 0.006 |
A publication that declares many co-authors needs a few extra calls in its group, one for every 8 more records it touches: with 9 co-authors it is four transactions, with 25 it is six. A vote for an article with three or more authors (the submitter and every declared co-author, confirmed or not) needs extra calls too, because it updates one record per author: one more call for 3 to 6 authors, two for 7 to 10, and so on (six for 26 authors), at 0.001 ALGO each.
Fees for Falcon accounts
Section titled “Fees for Falcon accounts”An Algorand account can sign with an ordinary key (Ed25519) or with Falcon-1024, a post-quantum signature. Algorand charges each transaction signed with Falcon two extra minimum fees, so it costs 0.003 ALGO instead of 0.001. The steps the contract makes on your behalf (creating or updating the article token, the payments of a settlement) stay at 0.001.
| Action | Ordinary wallet | Falcon account |
|---|---|---|
| Follow, link an ORCID iD, declare a DOI | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Vote, review, comment, claim reputation, flag, resolve a comment | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Settle a flag | 0.002 or 0.003 | 0.004 or 0.005 |
| Publish (few co-authors) | 0.003 | 0.007 |
The cost box in the web app says that its fees assume an Ed25519 wallet. Deposits are the same for every account. Cabdell’s governance account signs with Falcon (see Flags, disputes and governance).
Actions that cost only the network fee
Section titled “Actions that cost only the network fee”These create no box, so there is no deposit:
- confirming co-authorship;
- following and unfollowing, linking or unlinking an ORCID iD, declaring or withdrawing a DOI: each one is only an event recorded on the blockchain;
- public lists: each change is a note on a payment of 0 ALGO from you to yourself, outside the contract; one note carries up to 50 changes, and the wallet signs up to 16 notes at once (see Lists and bibliographies);
- new versions and status changes;
- settling a flag and ending a dispute after 60 days;
- resolving a comment, except the first time it grants reputation to a given commenter;
- claiming reputation, once your reputation records exist.
Reading, searching, keeping private lists, receiving browser notifications and preparing a Zenodo draft need no transaction at all.
Do deposits come back?
Section titled “Do deposits come back?”Almost never. Nothing on Cabdell is deleted, so the records stay, and their deposits stay locked in the application for as long as the records exist, which is forever. That makes a deposit permanent, not a fee: nobody receives it, the Cabdell project included. The status page of the web app shows the deposits the application holds.
There are two exceptions:
- A flag. The settlement of a flag deletes the flag’s record, the only record the contract ever deletes, and pays its 0.0297 ALGO deposit back to the flagger, together with the bond when the bond goes back too. (Only when the flagger has closed their account does the deposit go with the submitter’s half, or stay with what the application keeps.) The 0.0073 ALGO record of a dispute’s outcome stays.
- The article token. Its 0.1 ALGO is not paid to the application: it is part of the minimum balance of your own account while you hold the token.
A typical month
Section titled “A typical month”An active researcher who already has reputation records in the fields involved, on one month:
| Activity | Deposits (ALGO) | Network fees (ALGO) |
|---|---|---|
| Publishes one article with 2 co-authors | 0.2808 | 0.003 |
| Writes 3 reviews | 0.1974 | 0.006 |
| Writes 6 comments | 0.3390 | 0.012 |
| Votes for 10 single-author articles, by people they never voted for before | 0.4780 | 0.020 |
| Votes for 8 reviews or comments, by people they never voted for before | 0.4080 | 0.016 |
| Claims reputation from 2 articles | 0 | 0.004 |
| Follows 4 people | 0 | 0.004 |
| Total | 1.7032 | 0.065 |
That is about 1.77 ALGO for the month, almost all of it deposits. Votes for people they have voted for before cost less: 0.0189 ALGO less each. In a first month, the first review, comment or claim in each field also pays 0.0269 ALGO for the reputation record, once.
Cabdell itself runs on donations: the deposits pay for storage on the blockchain, not for the server, the website or the copies of the articles. If it is useful to you, you can support it.