When you click Connect, the route's price (the exit's price, plus the entry's on a 2-hop route, plus the 20% network fee) is saved with your session. Every GB the route carries is charged at that price for as long as it stays in your subscription, with one exception: when a node on the route lowers its price, the route's price drops with it once the lower price has stood for 3 hours.
olcRTC traffic is charged differently from 20 November 2026: it is charged at the network's olcRTC price, read when the traffic moves and never locked when you connect. The marketplace shows that price and every step ahead beside the routes' own prices. See olcRTC.
What this protects you from
- An operator raising the price after you started using the route.
- A price change in the middle of a long download.
What operators can do
- Change their price at most once per 24 hours, up or down.
- Raise it by at most 3× in one step (0.002 → 0.006 is allowed, 0.002 → 0.01 is not). A rise applies only to routes added after it.
- Lower it within those limits; a drop reaches routes that are already running once the lower price has stood for 3 hours, and every change of the price starts those 3 hours again.
- Undo a drop within 2 hours 50 minutes of making it, by raising the price back up to at most what it was, with no 24-hour wait and no 3× limit. Put back all the way, the drop never reaches your route; put back only part of the way, your route gets the remaining lower price 3 hours after that change. A route you added while the price was low keeps that price.
Clicking Connect on a route you already have keeps the existing route and its price. The price is shown on each route on your dashboard.