Operation cost for invoking smart contract

Question

I would like to find out if the smart contract's code size/storage or an operation's parameters helps to derive to the cost.

Is there a formula to calculate the cost of the operation to be invoking a smart contract? How does it derive to this value on estimate transfer using taquito, which is pretty expensive for an operation.

{
  burnFeeMutez: 0,
  minimalFeeMutez: 23843,
  suggestedFeeMutez: 23943,
  usingBaseFeeMutez: 23843,
  totalCost: 23843
}

Answer 1

There is no formula that will give you the full cost and gas usage of smart contract invocation. The best method is to simulate. Contract code size and storage directly affects costs through storage burn. Parameter size indirectly affect fees through gas size.

See:

• Here for an overview on different fees and burns in Tezos.
• Here for a more detailed description on how storage and parameter size affects costs and gas usage.
• Here for a complete guide to transaction costs.

Answer 2

You can estimate your operation before executing it using Taquitos estimate API. Taquito uses the run_operation to get an estimate from the RPC.

You can find documentation with examples on how to estimate originations, transfers and smart contract calls here: https://tezostaquito.io/docs/estimate