Stablecoins & Markets
Kim Min-jun
Coverage focuses on reserves, redemption and the flow of money through digital-asset markets.
View articlesBuy TRON energy: rental services compared, energy and bandwidth explained
Every USDT transfer on TRON needs energy and bandwidth. Without them, the network burns TRX from the sender’s wallet to pay: at the current energy price, about 6.4 TRX for a transfer to an address that already holds USDT and about 13 TRX for one that has never held it. Renting energy for an hour costs a fraction of that. This page explains how the two resources work and compares the services that rent TRON energy, with prices read from each service’s own site on September 30, 2026.
| Name | Type | Price of ~65,000 energy | Price basis | Rental periods | Payment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| APITRX | Direct energy seller | 1.10 TRX | 65,000 energy for 1 hour through the bot or API; a direct transfer of 2.5 TRX returns 65,000 energy | 1 hour, 24 hours, 72 hours, 7, 14 or 30 days; per-transfer plans without a time limit | TRX |
| CatFee | Direct energy seller | 1.30 TRX | 65,000 energy for 1 hour, off-peak (peak: 1.82 TRX) | 1 hour | TRX, USDT and other TRON tokens |
| Netts | Aggregator | 1.30 TRX | 65,000 energy for 1 hour at 20 sun per energy (5 minutes: 1.235 TRX) | 1 hour or 5 minutes; Host Mode keeps an address supplied in 24-hour cycles | TRX or USDT |
| TronBid | Direct energy seller | 1.60 TRX | 65,000 energy for 1 hour (15 minutes: 1.5 TRX) | 15 minutes or 1 hour | TRX |
| TronZap | Direct energy seller | 2.45 TRX | 65,000 energy for 1 hour (131,000 for 4.90 TRX) | 1 hour | TRX |
| TR.ENERGY | Direct energy seller | 2.48 TRX | 65,150 energy for 15 minutes | 15 minutes, 1 hour, 24 hours (Pro), 72 hours; 72 hours with auto-renewal | TRX (account balance) |
| iTRX | Direct energy seller | 3.12 TRX | One USDT transfer (64,000 energy), 1 hour | 1 hour on the website; 1 hour, 1, 3 or 30 days through the API | TRX |
| Feee.io | Rental marketplace | 1 hour, 3 hours, 1 to 30 days; API also 10 minutes | TRX or USDT | ||
| imToken energy rental | Wallet feature | Set by Feee.io (support example: 10 minutes) | TRX | ||
| JustLend DAO energy rental | On-chain protocol | By the hour or by the day, up to 30 days | TRX | ||
| TokenPocket energy rental | Wallet feature | 1 hour (Fast Trading); 3 days by default (Freedom Trading) | TRX, USDT or USDD | ||
| TronSave | Rental marketplace | 15 minutes, 1 hour, 3 days or custom, up to 30 days; ZapBuy 1 hour | TRX |
Energy and bandwidth: what each one pays for
Bandwidth pays for the size of a transaction: one byte uses one unit of bandwidth. Every account gets 600 units of free bandwidth a day, a figure set by TRON’s governance in proposal 87 in July 2023. A USDT transfer is about 345 bytes, so the free allowance covers one USDT transfer a day. Without bandwidth, the network burns 1,000 sun (0.001 TRX) per byte, or about 0.35 TRX for a USDT transfer.
Energy pays for running smart contracts, and USDT on TRON is a smart contract (TR7NHqjeKQxGTCi8q8ZY4pL8otSzgjLj6t). There is no free energy. Without it, the network burns 100 sun (0.0001 TRX) per unit of energy, the price set by proposal 104 from August 29, 2025. The price was 210 sun before that and 420 sun before September 2024.
Both resources refill over a rolling 24-hour window when they come from staked TRX. More detail in TRON energy vs bandwidth.
How much energy a USDT transfer takes
TRON’s developer documentation gives about 64,000 energy for a transfer to an address that already holds USDT and about 130,000 for one that has never held it, because writing a new balance to the contract’s storage costs more. The two example transactions the documentation links to used 64,285 and 130,285 energy.
Most of that is a surcharge. Under TRON’s dynamic energy model, heavily used contracts pay up to 4.4 times their base energy, and the USDT contract is at that maximum: in the 64,285-energy example, 49,635 units were the surcharge. That is why rental services sell energy in packages of 65,000 and 131,000 units.
| USDT transfer | Energy | TRX burned without energy | Typical 1-hour rental |
|---|---|---|---|
| To an address that holds USDT | about 64,300 | about 6.4 TRX | 1.1 to 3.1 TRX for 65,000 energy |
| To an address that never held USDT | about 130,300 | about 13 TRX | about double |
The burn figures are energy multiplied by 100 sun; bandwidth adds about 0.35 TRX when the free allowance is used up. A USDT transfer does not activate a new TRON address. Activation takes a TRX transfer, which costs the sender 1 TRX plus bandwidth.
Three ways to get energy
- Burn TRX. The default: the wallet pays automatically. It is the most expensive option.
- Stake TRX. Under Stake 2.0, staking TRX for energy gives a share of the network’s daily energy supply, and the energy can be delegated to another address. Staked TRX takes 14 days to unlock. Covering one USDT transfer a day takes thousands of TRX: CatFee’s calculator put it at about 6,700 TRX for 65,000 energy on September 30, 2026.
- Rent energy. Holders of staked TRX delegate energy to your address for a set time, from a few minutes to 30 days, and you pay in TRX or sometimes USDT. This is what the services in the table at the top of this page sell.
TRON energy rental services compared
The table compares the price each service showed for about 65,000 energy, enough for one USDT transfer to an address that already holds USDT. Durations differ, so check the basis column: a 15-minute rental and a 1-hour rental are not the same product. Marketplaces and on-chain protocols set prices per order, so they have no single list price. Prices change during the day and with demand; each service page links to the source.
Before you rent, check that the receiving address is activated, and rent 131,000 energy if the recipient has never held USDT. For how USDT itself works, see the stablecoin list and USDT and USDC: reserves, redemption and access.
Which service fits which need
- Everything in one place, no account: TronZap combines energy, bandwidth and bundles, address activation, a USDT-to-TRX swap, address risk checks and recurring rentals behind one payment address and one Telegram bot, in 24 languages.
- Lowest 1-hour price on September 30: APITRX through its bot or API, then CatFee off-peak and Netts.
- A named company behind the service: Netts (Recorise Ltd, Seychelles) and TR.ENERGY (Petrovskogo LLC, UAE).
- Rentals of days or weeks: APITRX, TronSave, Feee.io and JustLend DAO, up to 30 days.
- Without leaving your wallet: TokenPocket and imToken.
Guides
- How to send USDT on TRON (TRC-20): steps, fees and common mistakes.
- What is TRC-20? USDT TRC-20 explained.
- How to fix the OUT_OF_ENERGY error when a USDT transfer fails.
- TRON energy vs bandwidth: what each one pays for.
Ratings and reader reviews
Each service page shows the service’s Trustpilot rating and number of reviews where a Trustpilot profile exists, with a link to it and the date we checked. On September 30, 2026 only four of the twelve services had rated profiles, most with few reviews; the wallet ratings cover the whole wallet, not only energy rental. Service pages also collect reviews from CJSOI readers. Rented energy from one of these services? Write a review.
Sources
- TRON developer docs: bandwidth and energy
- TRON developer docs: paying for resources
- TRON developer docs: smart contract errors (USDT transfer energy)
- TRON developer docs: Stake 2.0
- TRON developer docs: accounts and activation
- TRONSCAN: chain parameters
- Tether: supported protocols (USDT contract on TRON)
