Running a Solana validator costs approximately $4,000–$5,000 per month. The biggest expense is voting fees: ~2.16 SOL per epoch (roughly 390 SOL/year), which at current prices translates to $50,000+ annually. Server costs add $500–$1,200/month depending on hardware tier. These costs are fixed regardless of how much stake you have, which is why breakeven stake matters.

It depends on your delegated stake and commission rate. Validators with under 50,000 SOL are typically running at a loss. At 200,000+ SOL with a 5% commission, most validators become profitable after server and voting costs. Delegation pools like SFDP, Jito, and Marinade can help new validators reach profitability faster by providing stake. Use the calculator above with your actual parameters to see your projected net earnings.

Enter your validator parameters — inflation fee, MEV fee, external stake, server costs, and voting cost model. The calculator instantly shows which delegation pools you qualify for, your total projected stake, breakeven threshold, and net monthly earnings in both SOL and USD based on current epoch data.

Each pool has specific requirements called commitments. These include actions (like contributing to the ecosystem or posting a bond), configuration (running specific software or choosing a data center), and fee tiers (your inflation and MEV commission percentages). Toggle the commitments you can meet to see which pools unlock.

Your commission directly determines which pools you can join. At 0% inflation + 0% MEV ("0-0"), you qualify for the most pools including SFDP, Jito, JPool, and Edgevana. At 5% inflation + 10% MEV, you still qualify for SFDP and several others but lose access to zero-fee pools. Higher commissions (7%+) limit you to only DoubleZero, JPool, and Edgevana. Lower commission means more pool options and more delegated stake, but less revenue per SOL staked.

SFDP requires maintaining a testnet node with acceptable performance, keeping your software updated, attracting external stake, and meeting decentralization criteria. SFDP matches your external stake at a 50% ratio up to a 50,000 SOL cap and covers voting costs on a tapering schedule: 100% for the first 3 months, then 75%, 50%, and 25%. To get accepted into the program, validators typically need to demonstrate meaningful ecosystem contributions — such as open-source tooling, community education, or infrastructure projects.

Yes. Most validators qualify for several pools simultaneously, and stake from different pools stacks. For example, a validator with 0% fees can receive SFDP matching, Jito StakeNet delegation, JPool allocation, and Edgevana stake all at once. Toggle your commitments in the calculator to see exactly which combination of pools you can join and the total stake you can attract.