How do I choose a stake pool?
Important metrics and considerations when delegating your ADA.
Evaluating Stake Pools
Choosing a stake pool is a personal decision, but you should consider a mix of financial returns, reliability, and network decentralization:
- Reliability (Uptime): Look for pools that consistently produce all blocks they are assigned. If a pool is offline, you miss out on rewards.
- Fees (Margin & Fixed): The fixed fee is usually 170 or 340 ADA per epoch (taken from the total pool rewards, not your wallet). The margin fee is a percentage. Lower fees mean slightly higher returns for you, but be wary of "0% fee" pools as they may not be sustainable long-term.
- Pledge: This is the pool operator's own "skin in the game". A high pledge demonstrates commitment and slightly increases the pool's reward factor.
- Saturation: Pools have a saturation point (currently around 60 million ADA). If a pool is overly full, rewards start to diminish. Always delegate to a pool below 90% saturation to ensure maximum returns and help decentralize the network.
- Mission-Driven Pools: Many operators donate a portion of their profits to charitable causes or build open-source infrastructure for Cardano. Supporting these single-pool operators (SPOs) strengthens the entire ecosystem.