How fees work
The platform fee is the small fee Stacked takes from each real-money pot to keep the platform running.
The basics
On every real-money hand, 4% of the pot is taken as the platform fee when the hand settles. The fee comes out of the pot itself — it's not added on top of bets, and players don't pay it as a separate line item. The winner takes the rest of the pot; of the fee, 25% goes to the Host of the table and the remainder is Stacked's share. Free Play tables have no platform fee.
The platform fee also funds the gas (the network fee for an on-chain action) Stacked pays to settle every hand and to deploy each table. That's why settling hands and creating tables are free for everyone at the table — you only pay the small network gas on the deposits and withdrawals you sign yourself.
The 4% is capped per hand. The cap scales with the table's big blind so a single oversized pot at high stakes doesn't generate a disproportionate fee. There's also a short-handed discount: heads-up and 3–4-handed tables pay less than full ring.
Why a curve, not fixed tiers
On Stacked, the Host picks the small blind and big blind freely when they create a table — there's no fixed list of stakes to choose from. A traditional poker room can publish a tier schedule ($0.50 / $1, $1 / $2, $2 / $5, etc.) because the room defines those stakes. We can't: a Host might run $0.07 / $0.15, $0.40 / $0.80, or anything else they like.
So instead of bucketing tables into tiers, the cap is a smooth curve that produces a sensible cap for any big blind a Host can set. Two tables with neighbouring big blinds end up with neighbouring caps — no cliffs at tier boundaries, no arbitrage from creating a table just under a tier line.
The cap, expressed in big blinds
The cap is published as a multiple of the big blind, the same unit poker players already think in. The multiplier is large at micro-stakes (where small caps would feel oppressive relative to a typical pot) and tapers as stakes climb.
Here's the cap at common big-blind values, broken out by table size. The short-handed columns apply the discount described in the next section.
| Big blind | Full ring (5+) | Short-handed (3–4) | Heads-up (2) |
|---|---|---|---|
| $0.10 | 13.00× BB | 6.50× BB | 4.42× BB |
| $0.25 | 9.34× BB | 4.67× BB | 3.18× BB |
| $0.50 | 6.56× BB | 3.28× BB | 2.23× BB |
| $1.00 | 3.79× BB | 1.90× BB | 1.29× BB |
| $2.00 | 2.00× BB | 1.00× BB | 0.68× BB |
| $5.00 | 1.20× BB | 0.60× BB | 0.41× BB |
| $10.00+ | 0.60× BB and lower | 0.30× BB and lower | 0.20× BB and lower |
The cap is also bounded in absolute terms: it never falls below $0.01 and never rises above $6.00 per hand, regardless of the big blind.
Calculator
Plug in any big blind to see the cap for that table. Caps are shown as a multiple of the big blind so you can compare across stakes at a glance.
| Table size | Fee cap per hand |
|---|---|
| Heads-up (2) | 4.42× BB |
| Short-handed (3–4) | 6.50× BB |
| Full ring (5+) | 13.0× BB |
The platform fee is still 4% of the pot — the cap only kicks in once the pot is large enough to exceed it. The cap is bounded by an absolute floor of $0.01 and a ceiling of $6.00 per hand.
Short-handed discount
Pots are smaller when fewer players see the flop, so the cap is reduced at short-handed tables:
| Players at the table | Cap multiplier |
|---|---|
| 2 (heads-up) | 34% of the full cap |
| 3 or 4 | 50% of the full cap |
| 5 or more | full cap |
So at a $0.05 / $0.10 table, the full-ring cap is 13× BB; three- or four-handed it's about 6.5× BB; heads-up it's about 4.4× BB.
Worked example
A $0.50 / $1 table is running six-handed. The full-ring cap there is about 3.79× BB (≈ $3.79), and with 6 players seated the full cap applies.
- A $40 pot generates 4% = $1.60 of platform fee. That's under the cap, so $1.60 is taken. The Host's share is $0.40; Stacked's share is $1.20.
- A $200 pot would generate $8 of fee at 4%, but the cap kicks in and only $3.79 is taken. The Host's share is about $0.95.
If that same table drops to three players for a stretch, the cap halves to about 1.9× BB for those hands.
How the platform fee is split
Every dollar of the platform fee splits two ways. The Host's share is the structural piece that makes the marketplace work — without it, there's no reason to run a public table.
- 25% goes to the Host of the table — credited to the Host's withdrawable balance at that table's smart contract (the on-chain program that holds the table's funds). See Hosting earnings.
- 75% goes to Stacked, which also funds the gas Stacked sponsors to settle hands and deploy tables.
Tournament fees
Tournaments charge the platform fee differently from cash games. There's no per-pot fee during a tournament; instead, the fee is part of the buy-in, taken once when the tournament starts. A player's buy-in covers their place in the prize pool plus this fee — nothing is added on top.
The tournament fee is a percentage of the buy-in, and it steps down as buy-ins get larger:
| Buy-in | Platform fee |
|---|---|
| Freeroll (no buy-in) | 0% |
| Under $10 | 8% |
| $10 – $24.99 | 6% |
| $25 – $99.99 | 5% |
| $100 – $499.99 | 4% |
| $500 – $999.99 | 3.5% |
| $1,000 and up | 3% |
So a $20 buy-in carries a 6% fee: $1.20 of each $20 entry is the platform fee, and $18.80 goes into the prize pool. With 40 entries, that's $48 of total fee and a $752 prize pool from the buy-ins.
The split is the same as cash games: 25% of the tournament fee goes to the Host of the tournament, and 75% goes to Stacked. The Host's share is held by the tournament contract and paid out once the tournament has finished and prizes are settled. Freerolls carry no fee, so there's no Host share on a freeroll. For how tournaments work end to end, see Tournaments.
Variations
There's one platform fee schedule today, applied uniformly to every real-money table. The rate, the cap curve, and the short-handed discounts are all tunable — Stacked may adjust them over time as we calibrate. If anything changes meaningfully, this page updates with it. We may also add promotional fee-free periods, discounts, or special table types in the future; those will be documented here when they exist.
Free Play
Free Play tables don't generate any platform fee. No fee, no Host earnings — Free Play exists for trying things out and playing with friends, not for revenue.
What's next
- Hosting earnings → — the Host's 25% share, in detail.
- Per-hand settlement → — what happens on-chain after each hand.