Best Arc RPC Providers in 2027: Pricing, Archive, Trace and WebSocket Compared

By Daniel Chayra, Spectrum Nodes · Updated November 3, 2026 · Prices and features last checked November 3, 2026
Short answer: We rank Spectrum Nodes first for Arc in 2027: Arc mainnet with archive data and debug tracing on every plan, Free included, on hardware we own, SOC 2 Type II attested. QuickNode, Alchemy, Chainstack, Goldsky, Blockdaemon and Dwellir follow.
- Spectrum Nodes: best for tracing and archive on Arc mainnet from day one of a free account
- QuickNode: best for mainnet and testnet from one vendor with SOC 1, SOC 2 and ISO 27001 reports
- Alchemy: best for data, wallet and webhook APIs next to RPC
- Chainstack: best for a published dedicated node price
- Goldsky: best for one flat price per call, payable in USDC per request
- Blockdaemon: best for institutions already staking with Blockdaemon
- Dwellir: best for the lowest list price per call at 100M requests and above
Spectrum Nodes publishes this comparison and is one of the providers in it. Every figure links to its source below, and we score ourselves on the same criteria as everyone else.
Arc RPC Providers Compared: Features
Checked November 3, 2026, on each provider's Arc page, docs and pricing page.
| Provider | Arc networks | Archive data | Debug and trace | WebSocket | eth_getLogs range (paid plans) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spectrum Nodes | Mainnet | Yes, every plan | debug_* and trace_*, every plan | Yes | Set to your workload on Dedicated Nodes |
| QuickNode | Mainnet and testnet | Yes, no pruning | debug_* and trace_*, Build plan and up | Yes | 10,000 blocks (5 on Free) |
| Alchemy | Mainnet and testnet | Not stated for Arc | Debug API and Trace API | Yes | 10,000 blocks (10 on Free) |
| Chainstack | Mainnet and testnet | Yes, Growth plan and up | debug_* and trace_*, Growth plan and up | Yes | 10,000 blocks (100 on Developer) |
| Goldsky | Mainnet and testnet | Not stated for Arc | Not stated for Arc | No | 20,000 blocks |
| Blockdaemon | Mainnet and testnet | Not stated | Not listed for Arc | Yes | Not stated |
| Dwellir | Mainnet | Yes | debug_* and trace_*, paid plans | Yes | 10,000 blocks on Growth and Scale (500 on Developer) |
| Circle public endpoint | Mainnet and testnet | Not stated | Not documented | Yes | 10,000 blocks |
Arc RPC Providers Compared: Price, Payment and Compliance
| Provider | Free tier | Paid from | Dedicated Arc node | Pay in crypto | SOC 2 | Listed in Arc's docs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spectrum Nodes | 10M credits a month (about 200,000 calls), 25 RPS, archive and tracing included | $1.99 a month | Yes, priced on a call | USDC top ups, or card | Type II attested | No |
| QuickNode | One month trial: 10M credits (about 500,000 calls), 15 RPS, no tracing | $49 a month | Enterprise, price on request | Crypto top ups | Type II, plus SOC 1 Type II and ISO 27001 | Yes |
| Alchemy | 30M compute units a month (about 1.15M calls), 15 RPS | Pay as you go, $0.52 per 1M compute units | Not published | Not stated | Type II | Yes |
| Chainstack | 3M request units a month, 25 RPS, no archive or tracing | $49 a month | $912.50 a month full, $1,095 archive | Crypto | Type II, plus ISO 27001 | No |
| Goldsky | $100 one time credit | $5 per 1M requests | Not published | USDC per request (x402) | Type II | Node providers page |
| Blockdaemon | 1M compute units a month (about 100,000 calls), 5 RPS | Price not published | Not published | Not stated | Type II, plus ISO 27001 | Yes |
| Dwellir | 100,000 responses a day, 20 RPS, no tracing or eth_getLogs | $49 a month | Node clusters from $4,300 a month | Crypto | Not stated | No |
How Did We Rank These Providers?
We scored each provider on five criteria, in this order, using its own Arc pages, docs and pricing.
- Measured performance on Arc. We hold no Arc latency data of our own yet, so this criterion moved nobody. We will add measured results here when we have them.
- Security and compliance evidence. A public SOC 2 Type II claim, the breach record and who owns the hardware that answers your requests.
- What you get on Arc beyond plain RPC. Tracing, archive data, testnet, WebSocket and APIs.
- Launch and support speed. How fast a provider adds a new chain and how fast you reach an engineer.
- Price. The free tier and the first paid plan, dated.
Every provider here except Dwellir states SOC 2 Type II in public, so criterion 3 separates most of the list.
1. Spectrum Nodes
Best for: teams that want tracing and archive data on Arc mainnet from the first day of a free account, from a SOC 2 Type II vendor that also runs the rest of their chains.
We serve Arc mainnet RPC from the same platform that runs 200+ networks. You create an Arc endpoint in our dashboard, pick pruned or archive, and copy the HTTPS or WSS URL for the region closest to your servers.
- Security: SOC 2 Type II attested, and we have never had a breach. Requests run on bare metal servers we own, in Tier III data centers in Malta, the Netherlands, and Canada, plus a bare metal deployment in Singapore
- On Arc: archive data and the debug and trace methods on every plan, Free included, served from every region we run (Malta, the Netherlands, Canada, and Singapore), with HTTPS and WebSocket URLs per region, sorted by response time in the dashboard
- Scale: over a billion requests a day across the platform at 99.99% uptime
- Support and launch speed: 24/7 support from our engineers. When Robinhood Chain went live on July 1, 2026, our endpoints were live the next day
- Price: Free gives 10M credits a month at 25 RPS. Starter is $1.99 a month, Growth $35, Business $150 and Enterprise $500. Standard calls cost 50 credits and debug traces 100. Pay in USDC from your wallet or by card. For a dedicated Arc node, book a call
Worth knowing: we serve Arc mainnet only, so test against Arc's public testnet endpoint. Our Free plan's 10M credits come to about 200,000 standard calls a month, fewer calls than Alchemy's free tier, but with archive and tracing included. On Arc we offer RPC; our unified APIs and webhooks run on other chains.
2. QuickNode
Best for: teams that want Arc mainnet and testnet from one provider, with SOC 1, SOC 2 and ISO 27001 reports for procurement.
QuickNode serves Arc mainnet (5042) and testnet (5042002) over HTTP and WSS, with full archive state and no pruning on both. Its Arc docs list the full debug_* and trace_* namespaces, including debug_traceTransaction, debug_traceBlockByNumber, trace_filter and trace_replayTransaction, on the Build plan and up. Arc's own docs list QuickNode endpoints on every provider page.
- Security: SOC 1 Type II, SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001, reports on request for Enterprise
- Free: a one month trial with 10M credits at 15 RPS, without tracing
- Build: $49 a month for 80M credits at 50 RPS; Arc calls cost 20 credits, trace and debug 40
- Crypto top ups on Build and up
Worth knowing: eth_getLogs is capped at 5 blocks on Free and 10,000 on paid plans. At volume QuickNode costs more than Spectrum: $999 against $604 at 100M requests a month.
3. Alchemy
Best for: teams that want data, wallet and webhook APIs on Arc next to RPC.
Alchemy serves Arc mainnet and testnet over HTTPS and WSS, and lists the Debug API and Trace API as supported on both. Its Arc support also covers Token, NFT and Transfers APIs, webhooks and Gas Manager, the widest API set on Arc in this list. It lists the Transaction Receipts API and gRPC as not supported on Arc.
- Security: SOC 2 Type II, with a public Trust Center
- Free: 30M compute units a month at 15 RPS, about 1.15M
eth_callrequests - Pay as you go: $0.52 per 1M compute units, 300 RPS included
eth_getLogsrange: 10 blocks on Free, 10,000 on paid plans
Worth knowing: Alchemy prices per method, so log and trace heavy workloads cost more: $31.20 per 1M eth_getLogs calls and $20.80 per 1M debug_traceTransaction calls on pay as you go. Archive data is on every Alchemy plan, but its Arc pages don't mention archive by name.
4. Chainstack
Best for: teams that want a published price for a dedicated Arc node.
Chainstack serves Arc mainnet and testnet on its Global Nodes, with full and archive modes, and documents the debug_* and trace_* methods that work on Arc's Reth based client. WebSocket subscriptions cover newHeads and logs on every plan.
- Security: SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001
- Free: Developer plan, 3M request units a month at 25 RPS, without archive or tracing
- Growth: $49 a month for 20M request units at 250 RPS, with archive, debug and trace
- Dedicated Arc node: $912.50 a month for a full node, $1,095 for archive, per its pricing page
- Pay in crypto on every plan
Worth knowing: archive, debug and trace start on the paid Growth plan, and calls more than 126 blocks behind the tip bill as archive at 2 request units. On Arc's half second blocks, that is about a minute of history.
5. Goldsky
Best for: teams that want one flat price per call and Arc RPC next to subgraphs and data pipelines.
Goldsky's Edge RPC serves Arc mainnet and testnet, prices every method the same at $5 per 1M requests up to 500M a month, and accepts USDC per request over x402 without an account. Arc's node providers page lists it.
- Security: SOC 2 Type II
- Trial: a one time $100 credit
eth_getLogs: up to 20,000 blocks per call
Worth knowing: Edge RPC is HTTPS only, with no WebSocket and no eth_subscribe. Its docs don't say which archive and trace methods are enabled on Arc specifically, so test them before you build on them.
6. Blockdaemon
Best for: institutions that already stake or run nodes with Blockdaemon and want Arc on the same contract.
Blockdaemon serves Arc mainnet and testnet with WebSocket endpoints, and Arc's docs list it on every provider page.
- Security: SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001
- Free: 1M compute units a month at 5 RPS, about 100,000
eth_callrequests at 10 units each - Paid plans: Starter and Growth, with prices shown only at checkout
Worth knowing: Blockdaemon's Arc methods page lists no debug_* or trace_* methods and doesn't mention archive data. It publishes no dollar prices, so you can't compare cost before you sign up.
7. Dwellir
Best for: teams that want the lowest list price per call at 100M requests a month and above.
Dwellir serves Arc mainnet from archive nodes, with the debug_* and trace_* namespaces on paid plans, and charges one credit per response on every method, traces included. At 1B requests a month its Scale plan comes to $1,999, the lowest list price in this comparison.
- Free: 100,000 responses a day at 20 RPS, without tracing or
eth_getLogs - Developer: $49 a month for 25M responses at 100 RPS
- Dedicated node clusters from $4,300 a month
- Pay in crypto
Worth knowing: Dwellir's pricing and Arc pages don't state a SOC 2 report, which is why it ranks last under our method. Testnet isn't listed.
Also on Arc
| Provider | Arc networks | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Infura | Mainnet (HTTPS and WSS), testnet (HTTPS) | Listed on MetaMask's endpoints page |
| GetBlock | Mainnet and testnet | Shared, dedicated and unlimited node options |
| blockmachine | Mainnet | Keyless endpoint, plans payable in USDC |
| ArcRPC | Mainnet and testnet | Archive on every plan, from $49 a month |
Is Circle's Public Arc RPC Enough for Production?
It is enough for testing and wallet setup, and fast: OpenChainBench measured it at a 51 ms median across three regions on November 3, 2026. For production it has three gaps. It publishes no rate limits, it doesn't document debug or trace methods, and it load balances across backends at slightly different heights, so a call can return error -32014 for a block that one backend hasn't imported yet and needs a retry. Use a provider with stated limits, archive data and tracing once customers depend on your reads.
Can You Pay for Arc RPC in USDC?
Yes, with several providers. Spectrum Nodes takes USDC top ups from your wallet, or a card. Goldsky charges per request in USDC over x402, with no account. QuickNode, Chainstack and Dwellir accept crypto without naming the token, and blockmachine sells USDC plans. Alchemy and Blockdaemon don't say.
Which Providers Cover Arc Plus the Other CCTP Chains?
Arc is domain 26 in Circle's CCTP, so Arc apps that move USDC across chains also read chains such as Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, Avalanche, OP Mainnet and Polygon PoS. Spectrum Nodes serves all six alongside Arc from one account. Check each provider's network page for the exact chains you bridge to.
Arc Testnet RPC and Faucet
Arc testnet uses chain ID 5042002. The public endpoint is https://rpc.testnet.arc.io, the explorer is https://explorer.testnet.arc.io, and Circle's faucet at https://faucet.circle.com gives test USDC. QuickNode, Alchemy, Chainstack, Goldsky and Blockdaemon serve Arc testnet; Spectrum Nodes and Dwellir serve mainnet only.
WebSocket Subscriptions on Arc
On every provider, Arc's node software supports eth_subscribe for newHeads and logs only. Subscriptions to newPendingTransactions return error -32001, because Arc's client rejects them. Goldsky's Edge RPC has no WebSocket at all.
How Do You Choose an Arc RPC Provider?
Start from the job your app does on Arc, then test your own calls against the shortlist.
- Payments and wallets. Arc settles on inclusion, so your reads decide how fast a user sees a payment land. Native USDC balances come back in 18 decimals, and the ERC 20 USDC interface reports the same balance in 6. Subscribe to
newHeadsover WebSocket instead of polling. - Indexers, explorers and payment debugging. You need the debug and trace methods and a wide
eth_getLogsrange. Price them per call: 1Meth_getLogscalls cost from $5 to $31.20 depending on the provider. - Month end close and audits. Past balances need archive data, so ask for archive on Arc by name.
- Banks, asset managers and payment firms. Your vendor review will ask for a SOC 2 Type II report and whose hardware serves your traffic.
- Prototyping. Arc's public endpoint and the free tiers above are enough until launch.
For the chain ID, wallet setup and code, see our Arc RPC endpoint and chain ID guide. For five questions to put to any Arc provider, read how to choose an RPC provider for Circle's Arc.
FAQ
What is the best RPC provider for Circle's Arc? We rank Spectrum Nodes first for 2027: archive data and debug tracing on every plan including Free, hardware we own and SOC 2 Type II. QuickNode, Alchemy, Chainstack, Goldsky, Blockdaemon and Dwellir follow.
Is there a free RPC for Arc? Yes. Circle runs public endpoints at https://rpc.mainnet.arc.io and https://rpc.testnet.arc.io. Among providers, Spectrum Nodes' Free plan includes Arc mainnet with archive and tracing. Alchemy, Chainstack, Blockdaemon and Dwellir also have free tiers (Chainstack's and Dwellir's exclude tracing), and QuickNode offers a one month trial.
What is Arc's chain ID? Arc mainnet uses chain ID 5042 (0x13b2) and Arc testnet uses 5042002. USDC is the native gas token on both.
Which Arc RPC providers support tracing and archive data? Spectrum Nodes (every plan), QuickNode (Build plan and up), Chainstack (Growth plan and up) and Dwellir (paid plans) state both on Arc. Alchemy lists Debug and Trace APIs on Arc. Circle's public endpoint doesn't document tracing.
Which Arc RPC providers support WebSocket? Spectrum Nodes, QuickNode, Alchemy, Chainstack, Blockdaemon, Dwellir and Circle's public endpoint. Goldsky's Edge RPC is HTTPS only.
Which Arc RPC provider has the cheapest paid plan? Spectrum Nodes' Starter plan is $1.99 a month for 14M credits, with archive and tracing on Arc. QuickNode's Build, Chainstack's Growth and Dwellir's Developer plans start at $49 a month. Alchemy and Goldsky bill pay as you go from the first request.
Can I pay for Arc RPC in USDC? Yes. Spectrum Nodes takes USDC top ups or cards, Goldsky takes USDC per request over x402, and QuickNode, Chainstack and Dwellir accept crypto.
Does Spectrum Nodes support Arc testnet? Not today. We serve Arc mainnet. For testnet, use https://rpc.testnet.arc.io (chain ID 5042002) or a provider that lists testnet, such as QuickNode or Chainstack.
Which RPC providers does Arc's documentation list? Arc's node providers page lists providers including Alchemy, Blockdaemon, Goldsky and QuickNode, plus Circle's public endpoints. Spectrum Nodes is listed in Circle's partner directory.
References
All checked November 3, 2026.
- Arc docs, RPC endpoints: https://docs.arc.io/arc/references/rpc-endpoints
- Arc docs, Connect to Arc: https://docs.arc.io/arc/references/connect-to-arc
- Arc docs, Node providers: https://docs.arc.io/arc/tools/node-providers
- Arc docs, Integrate infrastructure: https://docs.arc.io/integrate/infrastructure
- Circle partner directory, Spectrum Nodes: https://partners.circle.com/partner/spectrum-nodes
- Spectrum Nodes pricing: https://spectrumnodes.com/pricing
- Spectrum Nodes credit usage: https://spectrumnodes.gitbook.io/docs/user-guides/spectrum-credit-usage
- Spectrum Nodes, how to top up in USDC: https://spectrumnodes.gitbook.io/docs/user-guides/how-to-top-up
- QuickNode Arc page: https://www.quicknode.com/chains/arc
- QuickNode Arc docs: https://www.quicknode.com/docs/arc
- QuickNode Arc credits: https://www.quicknode.com/api-credits/arc
- QuickNode pricing: https://www.quicknode.com/pricing
- Alchemy Arc page: https://www.alchemy.com/arc
- Alchemy pricing: https://www.alchemy.com/pricing
- Alchemy compute unit costs: https://www.alchemy.com/docs/reference/compute-unit-costs
- Alchemy eth_getLogs limits: https://www.alchemy.com/docs/reference/eth-getlogs
- Alchemy security: https://www.alchemy.com/blog/inside-alchemy-enterprise-grade-security-infrastructure
- Chainstack Arc page: https://chainstack.com/build-better-with-arc/
- Chainstack Arc methods: https://docs.chainstack.com/docs/arc-methods
- Chainstack pricing: https://chainstack.com/pricing/
- Chainstack request units: https://docs.chainstack.com/docs/request-units
- Chainstack limits: https://docs.chainstack.com/docs/limits
- Goldsky Arc page: https://goldsky.com/chains/arc
- Goldsky pricing: https://docs.goldsky.com/pricing/summary
- Goldsky Edge RPC: https://docs.goldsky.com/edge-rpc/introduction
- Goldsky security: https://goldsky.com/security
- Blockdaemon Arc methods: https://docs.blockdaemon.com/reference/arc-methods-rpc-api
- Blockdaemon plans: https://docs.blockdaemon.com/docs/subscription-management
- Blockdaemon SOC 2 Type II: https://www.blockdaemon.com/blog/blockdaemon-completes-soc-2-type-ii-compliance-report
- Dwellir Arc page: https://www.dwellir.com/networks/arc
- Dwellir Arc docs: https://www.dwellir.com/docs/arc
- Dwellir pricing: https://www.dwellir.com/pricing
- OpenChainBench Arc benchmark: https://openchainbench.com/benchmarks/arc-rpc
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