A $5,000 donation can be sent over almost any network and nobody will notice the fee. A $10 donation is a different problem. At that size the network fee stops being a rounding error and starts being a percentage — and on the wrong network, a meaningful one.
This is a practical guide to giving roughly $5 to $50 in crypto: which networks keep almost all of your gift intact, which quietly take a bite, and the one thing that catches most small donors out — the minimum payment amount.
The two costs, and only one is obvious
The network fee is what you pay the blockchain to process your transfer. It varies by network and, on some of them, by how busy the network is at that moment. This is the number people think about.
The minimum payment amount is the one that actually causes problems. A payment processor sets a floor per coin, below which it will not accept a payment — because underneath that floor, the cost of moving and converting the funds exceeds what is being moved. Send less than the minimum and the payment will typically be rejected at checkout, or accepted and then held as an underpayment. The minimum is not proportional to the fee, and it is not the same for every coin.
At the time of writing, TraceGood's minimum for USDT on TRON is around $12, Monero around $6, and Zcash around $17. These are not permanent numbers — processors recalculate them as prices and network conditions move, so always treat the amount shown at checkout as the real one. The accepted coins page lists what is currently supported across 200+ coins and networks.
Before sending a small gift, check two things on the checkout screen: the minimum for your coin, and the network it expects. Sending USDT on Ethereum to an address expecting USDT on TRON is not a fee problem — it is a lost donation, and no one can reverse it.
The comparison
Figures below are typical at the time of writing and are meant for ranking networks against each other, not as quotes. Fees on busy networks move constantly.
| Network | Typical fee on a small transfer | Typical confirmation | Good for a $5–50 gift? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stellar (XLM) | A fraction of a cent | Seconds | Excellent |
| XRP | A fraction of a cent | Seconds | Excellent |
| Solana (SOL) | Well under a cent | Seconds | Excellent |
| Base (ETH, USDC) | About a cent or less | Seconds | Excellent |
| Polygon (POL, USDT, USDC) | A cent or so | Seconds | Excellent |
| TRON (TRX, USDT) | A few cents to about a dollar, depending on account state | Under a minute | Very good |
| TON (Toncoin, USDT) | A few cents | Seconds | Very good |
| Litecoin (LTC) | A few cents | A few minutes | Very good |
| Dogecoin (DOGE) | A few cents | A few minutes | Very good |
| Bitcoin Cash (BCH) | A fraction of a cent | A few minutes | Very good |
| Bitcoin (BTC) | Varies widely with demand — often a dollar or more, sometimes much more | 10 minutes to an hour | Poor at this size |
| Ethereum mainnet (ETH, USDT, USDC) | Varies widely — commonly over a dollar, sometimes far more | Under a minute | Poor at this size |
The pattern is clear enough. Bitcoin and Ethereum mainnet are the two most recognisable names in crypto and the two worst choices for a small gift, for the same reason: their block space is genuinely scarce and priced by auction. On a $20 donation, a $3 fee is 15% of the gift gone before it arrives — worse than the card fees crypto is supposed to beat.
That is not an argument against Bitcoin or Ethereum. It is an argument about size. Above a few hundred dollars the same fee is negligible and their liquidity and familiarity are real advantages. For $5 to $50, use something else.
Choosing, in practice
If you already hold one of the cheap assets, just use it. Do not swap to optimise a few cents — the swap will cost more than the saving.
If you want a predictable dollar amount, send a stablecoin on a cheap network: USDT or USDC on TRON, Polygon, Solana, Base or TON. Ten dollars of USDC is ten dollars, with no chance of the value moving between sending and settling. More on that trade-off in stablecoin donations.
If your crypto is on an exchange, the exchange's withdrawal fee is usually the dominant cost, not the network fee — and exchanges often charge more than the chain actually costs. Check the withdrawal fee for each network before you pick. Most exchanges let you choose the network for USDT and USDC; picking the cheap one there is the single biggest saving available to a small donor.
If your ETH is on Base, send it from Base. You do not need to bridge back to mainnet, and bridging would cost more than the donation.
If you hold only Bitcoin and want to give $20, you have three reasonable options: send it anyway and accept the fee, wait for a quiet period when fees drop, or combine several months of intended giving into one larger gift. The third is usually the best value.
Memos and tags
A few networks — XRP, Stellar, TON and some exchange deposits — use a memo or destination tag alongside the address. If the checkout shows one, include it. A transfer sent without a required memo can still be recoverable, but it turns a two-minute donation into a support ticket. Copy and paste both fields; never retype either.
Work out the real number first
Fee percentages are easier to reason about with actual figures in front of you. The donation fee calculator lets you put in an amount and see what the costs look like, which is a faster way to settle the "is $10 worth sending?" question than reading a table.
Broadly: on the cheap networks in the table above, a $10 gift arrives essentially whole. On Bitcoin or Ethereum mainnet at a busy moment, it may not. That is the entire decision.
Small gifts are still worth making
There is a temptation, reading a page about fees, to conclude that small donations are not worth the trouble. They are — that is exactly why cheap networks matter. A $10 gift that arrives as $9.98 is a better outcome than most card processors can offer at that size, and it is verifiable on a public ledger in a way a card receipt is not.
At TraceGood, name and email are optional, every confirmed donation appears on the public transparency ledger with a link to the blockchain transaction, and you can give in any of 200+ coins and networks. If you are still deciding which asset to part with, which cryptocurrency should you donate covers the broader trade-offs.
Pick a cheap network, check the minimum, and send your gift.