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Why is transaction sending hard on Solana?

Every interaction with Solana โ€” trading on a DEX, minting an NFT, transferring tokens, or calling a program โ€” requires a transaction that lands onchain. During network congestion, unoptimized transactions are frequently dropped before reaching a leader. Helius provides staked connections that route directly to leaders, priority fee optimization, and enterprise-grade redundancy to ensure your transactions confirm quickly and reliably.

Transaction Sending Options

We offer multiple pathways for sending transactions, each designed for different needs and use cases.

Staked Connections

Recommended for production systems. Direct routing to block leaders with priority lane access, bypassing public queues for reliable delivery.

Sender (Ultra-Low Latency)

Specialized service for high-frequency traders requiring ultra-low latency. Dual routing to validators and Jito infrastructure with global endpoints.

Transaction Rebates

Earn automatic SOL rebates via post-trade backruns with no additional risk of toxic MEV. One parameter addition to your sendTransaction calls.

Key Concepts for Reliable Transactions

Regardless of the method you choose, understanding these concepts is key to success on Solana.

Optimizing Transactions

Learn best practices for setting priority fees and compute units to maximize your transactionโ€™s chances of landing quickly.

What is the difference between staked and unstaked connections?

Helius offers both staked and unstaked connections for sending transactions.
  • Staked Connections (Recommended): When you send transactions through our endpoints (available on paid plans), your transactions are routed directly to the current and upcoming block leaders. This provides a priority lane, bypassing the public transaction processing queue and offering near-guaranteed delivery. Using the Helius Priority Fee API ensures you pay the optimal fee required by the leader.
  • Unstaked Connections: On our free plan, transactions are sent through high-performance, but unstaked, RPC nodes. They are subject to the same network congestion and competition for leader processing as any other public transaction.
For any production application, using staked connections is the single most effective way to ensure reliable transaction delivery.