Cardano has over 30 network parameters–the mechanisms that control how the Cardano Blockchain works. In this installment of our ongoing exploration of Cardano's network parameters, we turn our attention to price_step, one half of the critical executionPrices configuration that determines how much users pay for smart contract operations. While its partner price_mem governs the cost of memory usage, price_step sets the price for computational processing power—every logical operation, cryptographic calculation, and algorithmic step executed by Plutus scripts. As of December 2025, the current value is 721/10,000,000 lovelace per execution step.

What is it

The price_step parameter establishes the cost per CPU execution step in Plutus smart contracts. Unlike simple ADA transfers that require minimal computational overhead, smart contract transactions…