FAQ - Data Credits
What are Data Credits? Do I need them?
If you’re a Hotspot owner, you do not need to worry about holding individual Data Credits.
Data Credits for Hotspot owners are created on-demand through the implicit burn mechanism and used to pay all Hotspot transaction fees such as adding Hotspots, sending HNT, and asserting location. These Data Credits are burned automatically from the available HNT in your wallet or by the CLI.
Device users and developers who wish to transmit data via the Helium Network, your transactions will require the use of discrete Data Credits held in a Helium Console account.
One Data Credit pays for 24 bytes of LoRaWAN payload. Payloads exceeding 24 bytes are rounded up to the next 24 bytes, so a packet with a 25-byte payload would cost two Data Credits, the same as one with 48 bytes.
Although Data Credits are produced by burning HNT, the price of a Data Credit is fixed in USD. Data Credits are non-transferable and are only usable by their original owner. Data Credits cannot be re-sold or traded.
Data Credits are similar to pre-paid cellphone minutes or airline miles.