When is gas cheapest on Optimism?
Timing is worth real money on Optimism. The same swap costs $0.00000028 at its cheapest hour and $0.0000051 at its most expensive — 18× the price for an identical transaction.
The cheap stretch runs from 18:00 UTC to 00:00 UTC — 6 consecutive hours below the 0.00000159 gwei median, covering the US afternoon and evening. The single cheapest cell in six months of data was Monday at 02:00 UTC; the most expensive was Thursday at 08:00 UTC.
Weekends are genuinely cheaper: 0.00000135 gwei against 0.00000258 gwei on weekdays, 48% lower. If a transaction can wait until Saturday, it should.
Right now
Optimism is at 0.000000441 gwei — 72% 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 | 21:00 UTC | 0.00000130 gwei | -18% | $0.00000045 |
| 2 | 20:00 UTC | 0.00000133 gwei | -16% | $0.00000046 |
| 3 | 22:00 UTC | 0.00000135 gwei | -15% | $0.00000047 |
| 4 | 19:00 UTC | 0.00000142 gwei | -11% | $0.00000049 |
| 5 | 23:00 UTC | 0.00000153 gwei | -4% | $0.00000053 |
| 6 | 18:00 UTC | 0.00000157 gwei | -1% | $0.00000055 |
| 7 | 17:00 UTC | 0.00000162 gwei | +2% | $0.00000056 |
| 8 | 16:00 UTC | 0.00000173 gwei | +9% | $0.00000060 |
| 9 | 00:00 UTC | 0.00000178 gwei | +12% | $0.00000062 |
| 10 | 15:00 UTC | 0.00000189 gwei | +19% | $0.00000066 |
| 11 | 01:00 UTC | 0.00000199 gwei | +26% | $0.00000069 |
| 12 | 02:00 UTC | 0.00000210 gwei | +33% | $0.00000073 |
| 13 | 03:00 UTC | 0.00000213 gwei | +34% | $0.00000074 |
| 14 | 09:00 UTC | 0.00000239 gwei | +51% | $0.00000083 |
| 15 | 10:00 UTC | 0.00000242 gwei | +52% | $0.00000084 |
| 16 | 04:00 UTC | 0.00000244 gwei | +54% | $0.00000085 |
| 17 | 11:00 UTC | 0.00000266 gwei | +68% | $0.00000092 |
| 18 | 14:00 UTC | 0.00000267 gwei | +68% | $0.00000093 |
| 19 | 05:00 UTC | 0.00000292 gwei | +84% | $0.0000010 |
| 20 | 12:00 UTC | 0.00000305 gwei | +92% | $0.0000011 |
| 21 | 08:00 UTC | 0.00000314 gwei | +98% | $0.0000011 |
| 22 | 06:00 UTC | 0.00000317 gwei | +100% | $0.0000011 |
| 23 | 07:00 UTC | 0.00000319 gwei | +101% | $0.0000011 |
| 24 | 13:00 UTC | 0.00000353 gwei | +123% | $0.0000012 |
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 | $0.000000040 | $0.00000072 |
| Send an ERC-20 token | 65,000 | $0.00000012 | $0.0000022 |
| Swap on a DEX | 150,000 | $0.00000028 | $0.0000051 |
Gas units are typical values, not measurements — real usage varies with the contract and with state. L2 execution fee only — excludes the L1 data fee, which is usually the larger share of what you pay.
Six months, by day and hour
Each cell combines about 7,671 readings from 25–26 occurrences of that hour. Green is cheaper, red dearer.
Questions
When is gas cheapest on Optimism?
Averaged over six months, the cheapest single hour is Monday at 02:00 UTC, at 0.000000813 gwei. The broader cheap window runs 18:00 UTC to 00:00 UTC.
How much can timing actually save on Optimism?
The most expensive hour runs 0.0000148 gwei against 0.000000813 gwei at the cheapest. On a 150,000-gas swap that is $0.0000051 against $0.00000028.
What data is this based on?
1,288,804 block observations for Optimism 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 7,671 readings from 25–26 occurrences of that hour. All hours are UTC.
Why do Optimism fees look so low here?
Optimism is a rollup. The fee measured on this page is the L2 execution fee only; settling the transaction on Ethereum adds an L1 data fee that is usually the larger share of what you actually pay and is not included in these figures.