Wasm op-code cost table

KirillTroiak · June 24, 2026, 10:19am

Is there an up-to-date Wasm op-code cost table in cycles? Or is it all 1 wasm instruction==1 cycle?

All I could find is a 5 year old reddit post with broken links.

I am interested in doing research on canister cost optimization and this is an important first step for me.

brady · June 24, 2026, 11:28am

The execution cost formula is:

total = base_fee + per_instruction_fee × num_instructions

Where on a 13-node subnet:

base_fee = 5,000,000 cycles
per_instruction_fee = 1 cycle per Wasm instruction

Cycle costs | ICP Developer Docs

So there is no per-opcode cost table — all Wasm instructions are counted uniformly at 1 cycle each, regardless of opcode type.

michael-weigelt · June 24, 2026, 12:08pm

github.com/dfinity/ic

rs/embedders/src/wasm_utils/instrumentation.rs

master


      
          
          pub(crate) struct InjectedFunctions {
              pub out_of_instructions: u32,
              pub try_grow_wasm_memory: u32,
              pub try_grow_stable_memory: u32,
              pub internal_trap: u32,
              pub stable_read_first_access: u32,
          }
          
          // Gets the cost of an instruction.
          pub fn instruction_to_cost(i: &wirm::wasmparser::Operator, mem_type: WasmMemoryType) -> u64 {
              use wirm::wasmparser::Operator;
          
              // This aims to be a complete list of all instructions that can be executed, with certain exceptions.
              // The exceptions are: atomic instructions, and the dynamic cost of
              // of operations such as table/memory fill, copy, init. This
              // dynamic cost is treated separately. Here we only assign a static cost to these instructions.
              // Cost for certain instructions differ based on the memory type (Wasm32 vs. Wasm64).
              match i {
                  // The following instructions are mostly signaling the start/end of code blocks,
                  // so we assign 0 cost to them.

KirillTroiak · June 25, 2026, 7:17am

Thank you so much, this is exactly what I needed

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Wasm op-code cost table

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