Methodology
RouteCompare asks several bridges and aggregators for a quote for the same transfer and shows the answers side by side. This page explains what the numbers mean and where they come from.
Sources
Live quotes come from LI.FI, deBridge DLN and Across. Each provider is asked for the same token contract on both networks and the same amount. Which networks and tokens a provider supports is read from the provider's own API, not maintained by hand.
Amounts and freshness
Quotes for $100, $1,000 and $10,000 are collected on a schedule and served from a cache no older than 10 minutes. Other amounts are requested live with a 6-second limit; providers that do not answer in time are listed as such. Open pages refresh quotes every 60 seconds.
You receive
The expected amount on the destination network, not the guaranteed minimum. The dollar value uses one token price for all providers, so differences come from the routes, not from price feeds.
Fee
Everything lost between the amount sent and the amount received: provider fees, our integrator fee, gas on the destination network and price impact, plus fixed charges paid in the network's native coin. Shown as a percentage of the amount and in dollars.
Gas on the source network
The cost of the transaction on the network you send from. Some providers do not return it for an estimate; then the table says "no data" instead of showing zero.
Time
The provider's own estimate of how long the transfer takes, or "no data" when the provider gives none.
Highlighted route
The route that costs the least in total, counting fees charged on top in the network's native coin — which is not always the route that shows the largest amount received. It is not a recommendation and does not account for provider risk, which you should assess yourself.
Our fee in the quotes
Our integrator fee is added only where the transfer actually goes through us — the LI.FI widget on this site — and in those quotes it is already inside the fee shown, never on top of it. Quotes from providers we do not execute through are their own price, with nothing added by us, so the comparison shows what each route really costs.
Exchange row
The withdrawal fee and minimum of major exchanges for the destination network, from their official fee pages, with the date of the check and a link to the source. Exchanges can change these fees without notice; we recheck them at least weekly. Deposits, trading fees and account requirements are not included. The exchange row is shown even when it is cheaper than every bridge.
History
For every route we keep the collected quotes and show the daily median fee per provider for 30 or 90 days. The chart appears once at least 7 days are collected; days without data are counted, not filled in.
Missing data
When a value is unknown we write "no data". We do not estimate, interpolate or copy values from other providers.
Questions
Where do the prices come from?
Directly from each provider's own API, asked for the same token contract on both networks and the same amount. Which networks and tokens a provider supports is read from that provider, not maintained by hand here.
Why is a quote here different from the same provider's own website?
Because a transfer made through this site carries our integrator fee, and those quotes are labelled as including it. Providers we do not execute through are shown at their own price, with nothing added. That is also why the comparison sometimes shows that going direct is cheaper.
How is the fee calculated?
It is everything lost between what you send and what you receive: the provider's charges, gas on the destination network, price impact and any fixed charge paid in the network's own coin. Gas on the network you send from is listed separately, because you pay it separately.
How fresh are the quotes?
Common amounts are collected on a schedule and served from a short-lived cache; other amounts are requested live, and a provider that does not answer in time is shown as such rather than dropped silently. An open page keeps refreshing while you read it.
Are providers ordered by what you earn from them?
No. The table is ordered by the amount you receive, and the highlighted route is simply the largest of those. It is not a recommendation, and it does not account for provider risk, which is yours to judge.
What happens when a provider returns nothing?
The value is shown as "no data". We do not interpolate, estimate, or borrow a figure from another provider — a gap in the data is shown as a gap.