Turnkey Gas Sponsorship: Simplify onchain fees for your users

Gas is one of the most persistent points of friction in crypto applications. It introduces complexity, requires users to hold native tokens, and creates failure modes that have nothing to do with user intent. 

Many Developers understand the impact of gas on users directly in their applications. Since ERC-4337 launched in 2023, over 87% of smart account transactions have used gas paymasters,  smart contract infrastructure that allows applications to cover or redirect transaction fees on behalf of users. And these smart accounts continue to see growth for this reason, reaching over 40 million accounts in 2024 and  

With Turnkey, applications can sponsor transactions across chains, shifting gas management out of the user experience and into infrastructure where it can be controlled and automated.

For developers, this provides a better user experience, allowing their applications to onboard and retain customers at scale.

What is gas in crypto?

Gas is simply the fees users pay to execute transactions on a blockchain. Every transaction in crypto requires computational resources, and gas is how networks price and prioritize that usage.

There is a noticeable effect on users when these fees are high. For example, when Ethereum's Dencun upgrade went live in March 2024 and reduced Layer 2 transaction fees by 60% to 90%, user behavior shifted immediately.

On Base, daily transactions surged from roughly 440,000 to 2.1 million in just three days, and active accounts more than tripled. Across all Ethereum L2s, total daily transaction count doubled from 5 million to 10 million in the weeks that followed.

While reducing these fees brings users in, removing fees entirely is what keeps them.

BNB Chain tested this directly. In 2025, the network sponsored gas fees for stablecoin transfers, processing over 25 million gasless transactions across 16 million users. Stablecoin supply on the chain more than doubled to $14 billion, and weekly stablecoin volume hit $30 billion.

Whether your users’ transactions are taking place on Solana, EVM, Tron, or Tempo, gas is still a requirement for execution. What matters is how that cost is surfaced to the user.

The problem with gas from a product perspective

With gas, users are required to acquire and manage native tokens before they can take action. This introduces an extra step that is unrelated to what the user is actually trying to do. 

For non-native users, this creates confusion and drop-off. The requirement to hold the network’s native token to execute a transaction, even when interacting with a different asset or application, introduces friction at the exact moment a user is trying to take action.

For developers, it introduces edge cases that complicate onboarding, support, and retention. Applications must handle insufficient gas errors, guide users through acquiring tokens, and build recovery flows for failed transactions. These are infrastructure problems that surface as product issues.

The result is a system where intent is often blocked by infrastructure requirements that users do not understand. Instead of executing actions directly, users are forced to navigate the mechanics of the network itself.

What is fee abstraction? Sponsoring users’ gas. 

Fee abstraction separates transaction execution from fee payment. The user expresses intent, and the application ensures that the transaction is funded, constructed, signed, and broadcast.

With Turnkey, customers can implement this through Transaction Management with Gas Sponsorship. Applications can cover fees incurred by users while maintaining control over how and when that sponsorship is applied.

This is not just about removing gas prompts. It is about turning transaction execution into a deterministic, policy-controlled process.

Why paying for gas is a strategic advantage

Gas sponsorship reduces friction and enables application growth.

By removing the requirement for native tokens from the user’s perspective, applications can:

• Onboard users instantly
• Reduce drop-off during first transactions
• Support users who never need to understand gas
• Enable new interaction models, including automation and agents

It aligns crypto applications more closely with traditional product expectations.

How Turnkey enables gas sponsorship on different chains

With Turnkey, gas sponsorship is integrated into the transaction lifecycle. Applications do not rely on users to supply gas. Instead, infrastructure funds and executes transactions at the point of signing.

Turnkey standardizes this across chains with different fee models:

• EVM (Ethereum, L2s): Account abstraction with EIP-7702 enables paymaster-based sponsorship, allowing smart accounts to transact without holding ETH.
• Solana: Transaction Management handles fees and execution details, allowing applications to cover costs on behalf of users.
• Tron: Energy and bandwidth resources are provisioned behind the scenes, so users transact without holding or managing TRX.
• Tempo: Fee abstraction is built into the protocol, supporting stablecoin-based fees and native sponsorship.
• Third-party AA wallets: Turnkey also integrates as a signer with providers like ZeroDev, Biconomy, and Alchemy Account Kit, where applications sponsor fees while Turnkey enforces key management and policy controls.

The result is a consistent execution model where gas is handled at the infrastructure layer, not the user interface.

The role of the gas station and funding infrastructure

Gas sponsorship is not just about covering fees. It requires a system that can fund, route, and account for transactions reliably at execution time.

Turnkey provides this functionality through infrastructure like its gas station, which manages how transactions are funded and ensures they can be executed without requiring user-held balances.

This functionality allows customers to:

• Monitor gas usage across applications in real time, providing visibility into how and where spend is occurring
• Fund transactions dynamically at execution, ensuring transactions do not fail due to insufficient balances
• Coordinate fee payment across chains, abstracting different gas models into a consistent execution layer
• Apply rules and limits that define when sponsorship is allowed and how much can be spent
• Integrate with policy enforcement so funding decisions are evaluated alongside transaction constraints

Developers can track spend, set budgets, and program how sponsorship is applied across different users, actions, and environments. Gas becomes something that can be measured, constrained, and optimized, rather than something users must manage directly.

This shifts gas from a user-facing requirement into an infrastructure-level system, where execution can be controlled, audited, and scaled predictably.

From gasless UX to programmable execution

Fee abstraction is just a starting point. Once applications control execution, they can define how transactions behave over time. This includes things like  scheduled transactions, agent-driven execution, and conditional logic enforced at signing.

Turnkey combines gas sponsorship with transaction management and policy enforcement to enable this model. The result is not just gasless transactions, but programmable, verifiable execution.

Abstract users’ gas fees with Turnkey

Gas has historically been treated as a user responsibility. With Turnkey, it becomes an infrastructure feature. Applications fund, manage, and enforce how transactions execute, instead of relying on users to supply and manage gas themselves.

Across EVM, Solana, Tron, and Tempo, fee abstraction is no longer chain-specific. Each network has different fee mechanics, but the execution model becomes consistent. Transactions are constructed, funded, signed, and broadcast through a single, controlled layer.

For developers, this means simpler onboarding, more predictable execution, and tighter control over how transactions are performed. Gas is no longer an edge case to handle. It becomes something that can be measured, constrained, and integrated into application logic.

For users, it means one less thing to think about. They do not need to acquire tokens, estimate fees, or retry failed transactions due to insufficient balance. They take action, and the system executes.

In practice, that shift is what makes applications usable at scale.

Get started with Turnkey gas abstraction today. 

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