When is gas cheapest on Ethereum?
Timing is worth real money on Ethereum. The same swap costs $0.026 at its cheapest hour and $0.457 at its most expensive — 18× the price for an identical transaction.
The cheap stretch runs from 23:00 UTC to 08:00 UTC — 9 consecutive hours below the 0.144 gwei median, covering the US afternoon and evening. The single cheapest cell in six months of data was Sunday at 02:00 UTC; the most expensive was Thursday at 14:00 UTC.
Weekends are genuinely cheaper: 0.124 gwei against 0.309 gwei on weekdays, 60% lower. If a transaction can wait until Saturday, it should.
Right now
Ethereum is at 0.062 gwei — 57% below its six-month median. A cheaper-than-usual window.
Every hour, ranked
Mean gas price for each hour of the day (UTC), averaged across all days over six months.
| # | Hour (UTC) | Mean fee | vs median | Swap cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 00:00 UTC | 0.106 gwei | -26% | $0.037 |
| 2 | 01:00 UTC | 0.108 gwei | -25% | $0.038 |
| 3 | 04:00 UTC | 0.115 gwei | -20% | $0.040 |
| 4 | 05:00 UTC | 0.122 gwei | -15% | $0.042 |
| 5 | 07:00 UTC | 0.124 gwei | -14% | $0.043 |
| 6 | 23:00 UTC | 0.126 gwei | -13% | $0.044 |
| 7 | 03:00 UTC | 0.126 gwei | -12% | $0.044 |
| 8 | 02:00 UTC | 0.128 gwei | -11% | $0.045 |
| 9 | 06:00 UTC | 0.130 gwei | -9% | $0.045 |
| 10 | 22:00 UTC | 0.157 gwei | +9% | $0.055 |
| 11 | 08:00 UTC | 0.160 gwei | +11% | $0.056 |
| 12 | 21:00 UTC | 0.177 gwei | +23% | $0.061 |
| 13 | 11:00 UTC | 0.177 gwei | +23% | $0.061 |
| 14 | 09:00 UTC | 0.189 gwei | +31% | $0.065 |
| 15 | 20:00 UTC | 0.196 gwei | +37% | $0.068 |
| 16 | 10:00 UTC | 0.197 gwei | +37% | $0.068 |
| 17 | 12:00 UTC | 0.273 gwei | +90% | $0.095 |
| 18 | 19:00 UTC | 0.281 gwei | +95% | $0.098 |
| 19 | 18:00 UTC | 0.351 gwei | +144% | $0.122 |
| 20 | 13:00 UTC | 0.410 gwei | +185% | $0.142 |
| 21 | 17:00 UTC | 0.478 gwei | +232% | $0.166 |
| 22 | 14:00 UTC | 0.632 gwei | +339% | $0.219 |
| 23 | 16:00 UTC | 0.672 gwei | +367% | $0.233 |
| 24 | 15:00 UTC | 0.677 gwei | +370% | $0.235 |
What it costs
At the cheapest hour versus the most expensive, priced at $2313.42 per ETH.
| Transaction | Gas units | Cheapest hour | Most expensive |
|---|---|---|---|
| Send native token | 21,000 | $0.0036 | $0.064 |
| Send an ERC-20 token | 65,000 | $0.011 | $0.198 |
| Swap on a DEX | 150,000 | $0.026 | $0.457 |
Gas units are typical values, not measurements — real usage varies with the contract and with state.
Six months, by day and hour
Each cell combines about 7,325 readings from 25–26 occurrences of that hour. Green is cheaper, red dearer.
Questions
When is gas cheapest on Ethereum?
Averaged over six months, the cheapest single hour is Sunday at 02:00 UTC, at 0.074 gwei. The broader cheap window runs 23:00 UTC to 08:00 UTC.
How much can timing actually save on Ethereum?
The most expensive hour runs 1.32 gwei against 0.074 gwei at the cheapest. On a 150,000-gas swap that is $0.457 against $0.026.
What data is this based on?
1,230,640 block observations for Ethereum between 2026-04-30 and 2026-10-27, sampled every 12 seconds and averaged by day and hour: each of the 168 cells combines about 7,325 readings from 25–26 occurrences of that hour. All hours are UTC.