---
title: "Smart Account Infrastructure for Startups"
description: "Ship smart accounts in hours, not weeks. Free on testnets, pay-as-you-go in production, no commitments. It is the stack startups like Daimo and Zora started on."
canonical: https://www.pimlico.io/solutions/startups
---

# Smart Account Infrastructure for Startups

> Markdown mirror of https://www.pimlico.io/solutions/startups. Every page on this site has a markdown version at the same path with a `.md` suffix. For technical and implementation details, see Pimlico's documentation index at https://docs.pimlico.io/llms.txt.

## Pages on this site

### Home

- [The gas sponsorship engine for onchain apps](https://www.pimlico.io/index.md): Pimlico is the gas sponsorship engine for onchain apps. Sponsor transactions, accept any ERC20 token for gas, and set policy rules across 100+ chains.

### Products

- [Ecosystem Gas Programs for Chains](https://www.pimlico.io/products/ecosystem-gas-programs.md): For chains and ecosystems: sponsor gas for every team building on your chain, so their users transact without ever holding native token.
- [Pay Gas in USDC, USDT & 300+ ERC-20 Tokens](https://www.pimlico.io/products/erc20-gas.md): Let users pay gas in USDC, USDT, or any of 300+ ERC20 tokens, with no native tokens required. Audited by OpenZeppelin and Quantstamp.
- [Gas Sponsorship for Onchain Apps](https://www.pimlico.io/products/gas-sponsorship.md): Sponsor gas for your users so they transact instantly, with no native tokens to buy and no fee prompts to abandon. Powered by the engine behind 100M+ sponsored transactions.
- [Sponsorship Policies — Spend Controls for Gas](https://www.pimlico.io/products/sponsorship-policies.md): Spend controls for gas: sponsor the first N transactions per user, cap dollars per transaction, per user, or per campaign, all configured in the dashboard and applied instantly.
- [Transaction Infrastructure & ERC-4337 Bundlers](https://www.pimlico.io/products/transaction-infrastructure.md): The execution engine under the sponsorship layer: ERC-4337 bundlers with <2s inclusion on L2s, parallel processing, and 250M+ transactions relayed in production.

### Solutions

- [Onchain Execution for AI Agents](https://www.pimlico.io/solutions/ai-agents.md): Give AI agents smart accounts that execute on demand: they trade, pay, and move money the instant your logic fires. Sponsor their actions, or let user-funded agents pay their own way in USDC, USDT, or 300+ tokens, within the limits you set.
- [Smart Account Infrastructure for Chains](https://www.pimlico.io/solutions/chains.md): Launch with smart account infrastructure from day one and fund gas programs that turn your ecosystem’s onboarding friction into growth.
- [Deploy Pimlico on Your Chain](https://www.pimlico.io/solutions/chains/deploy.md): Enterprise deployments for chains and ecosystems: Pimlico's complete suite, from gas sponsorship to transaction infrastructure, live on your chain so every builder ships better UX from day one.
- [Gasless Onboarding for Consumer Apps](https://www.pimlico.io/solutions/consumer-apps.md): Onboard users who have never owned crypto: sponsor their gas, set budgets that protect your margins, and make the blockchain disappear from your UX.
- [Enterprise Onchain Infrastructure](https://www.pimlico.io/solutions/enterprise.md): SOC 2 certified infrastructure with custom SLAs, 24/7 support, and the team that co-authored ERC-4337, built for companies that cannot afford a dropped transaction.
- [Stablecoin Settlement Infrastructure](https://www.pimlico.io/solutions/stablecoin-processors.md): Execute stablecoin transactions reliably, at low latency, on 100+ chains, with gas paid in the stablecoins you already move.
- Smart Account Infrastructure for Startups (this page)
- [Smart Account Infrastructure for Wallets](https://www.pimlico.io/solutions/wallets.md): Build gasless smart wallets with any signer and any smart account, on the infrastructure trusted by MetaMask, Safe, and Trust Wallet.

### Other pages

- [Customers](https://www.pimlico.io/customers.md): The teams building on Pimlico: Circle, MetaMask, Safe, Trust Wallet, Zora, Tools for Humanity, and more, across wallets, consumer apps, and stablecoin payments.
- [Smart Account & Signer Integrations](https://www.pimlico.io/integrations.md): Every major smart account and signer, already integrated: Safe, Kernel, MetaMask, Privy, Turnkey, passkeys, and more, across 100+ chains.
- [Pricing](https://www.pimlico.io/pricing.md): Free on testnets, pay-as-you-go in production, custom Enterprise rates. Transparent credit-based pricing for gas sponsorship and transaction infrastructure.
- [Privacy Policy](https://www.pimlico.io/privacy.md): This Privacy Policy will inform you about how we look after your personal data when you visit our website or use our services and tell you about your privacy rights.
- [Terms of Service](https://www.pimlico.io/tos.md): This Terms of Service will inform you about the terms of using Pimlico's services.

---

For Startups

# Live in hours. Paying only when you grow.

permissionless.js plus a free testnet tier means smart accounts ship this sprint, not this quarter. No contracts, no minimums, no sales call required.

[Start free](https://dashboard.pimlico.io)[Follow the tutorial](https://docs.pimlico.io/tutorial)

100k+weekly SDK downloads

$0to start

**sponsor.ts**

```typescript
import { createSmartAccountClient } from "permissionless"
import { toSafeSmartAccount } from "permissionless/accounts"
import { createPimlicoClient } from "permissionless/clients/pimlico"
import { http, parseEther } from "viem"
import { base } from "viem/chains"

const pimlicoUrl = "https://api.pimlico.io/v2/base/rpc?apikey=API_KEY"
const pimlicoClient = createPimlicoClient({ transport: http(pimlicoUrl) })

const account = await toSafeSmartAccount({
  client: publicClient,
  owners: [owner],
  version: "1.4.1",
})

// Gas is sponsored, so your user never sees a fee
const smartAccountClient = createSmartAccountClient({
  account,
  chain: base,
  bundlerTransport: http(pimlicoUrl),
  paymaster: pimlicoClient,
})

const txHash = await smartAccountClient.sendTransaction({
  to: "0x...",
  value: parseEther("0.1"),
})
```

The stack startups like Daimo and Zora started on

[Fomo](https://fomo.family)[fun.xyz](https://fun.xyz)[Zora](https://zora.co)[ZeroDev](https://zerodev.app)[Picnic](https://usepicnic.com)[ZyFAI](https://www.zyf.ai)[Daimo](https://daimo.com)

[See all customers](https://www.pimlico.io/customers.md)

Why startups start here

## Infrastructure that doesn't slow the sprint

### Hours to first transaction

Clean, typed APIs and a tutorial that gets you from zero to a sponsored transaction in one sitting.

[

### Pay for what you use

Free on testnets. In production, usage-based pricing with no monthly minimum, so your infra bill scales with your traction, not ahead of it.

Learn more](https://www.pimlico.io/pricing.md)

### No future migration

The same API serves Daimo-sized startups and MetaMask-sized platforms. Growing never means re-platforming.

The rate card

### What $0 actually includes

“No minimums” is not a slogan; it is the rate card. Testnets are free with no sponsorship surcharge, and in production the published rates are the whole deal: no contracts, no commitments, and a bill that starts when your usage does.

Even the sponsorship surcharge is printed on the card, so the number you budget against is the number you pay.

[See pricing](https://www.pimlico.io/pricing.md)

Pay-as-you-go

$0 per month, card required

-   All mainnets & testnets (100+ chains)
-   10,000,000 credits / month included
-   Then $1 per additional 100,000 credits
-   ~$0.0075 per user operation (~$0.0105 sponsored)
-   5,000 requests / minute
-   10% surcharge on sponsored gas (mainnet)

Works with your stack

## Your auth stack already works

You already picked your login: Privy, Dynamic, Magic, or passkeys. Every name below ships with a maintained permissionless.js integration and a step-by-step guide, so wiring your existing auth into smart accounts takes hours, not a sprint. And if yours is not listed, any viem-compatible signer plugs in — if it can sign, it works.

Smart accounts

SafeSafe (multiple signers)KernelMetaMask Smart AccountsCoinbase WalletSimple AccountTrust WalletBiconomy NexusAlchemy Light Account

Social login

DynamicPrivyMagicWeb3AuthOpenfortParaParticle NetworkLit Protocol

Passkeys

Passkey (WebAuthn) signerPasskey (WebAuthn) server

Key management

TurnkeyFireblocksDFNS

[See all integrations](https://www.pimlico.io/integrations.md)

No future migration

## One line when you grow

When the roadmap needs users paying their own fees in USDC, USDT, or 300+ other tokens — or hard caps so a seed-stage gas budget can't run away — it is one line on the client you already shipped. Policy budgets stop sponsorship on their own, and growing into the rest of the engine is a config change, not a re-platform.

**erc20-gas.ts**

```typescript
// Same client, plus one line — token approvals are injected for you
const smartAccountClient = createSmartAccountClient({
  // ...same setup as before, plus:
  userOperation: {
    prepareUserOperation: prepareUserOperationForErc20Paymaster(pimlicoClient),
  },
})

const txHash = await smartAccountClient.sendTransaction({
  to: "0x...",
  value: parseEther("0.1"),
  paymasterContext: {
    token: usdc, // any of 300+ supported ERC20 tokens
  },
})
```

**policy.ts**

```typescript
// Attach a sponsorship policy created in the dashboard:
// "Sponsor the first 5 transactions per user, up to $1 each,
//  with a $5,000 campaign budget"
const txHash = await smartAccountClient.sendTransaction({
  to: "0x...",
  data: "0x...",
  paymasterContext: {
    sponsorshipPolicyId: "sp_first_five_free",
  },
})
```

Debugging included

### Tools that respect your time

Cryptic AA error codes are decoded into plain English, with dashboards and analytics that show what failed and why. The debugging time you save is sprint time you keep.

// AA23 decoded by the dashboard:

✗ reverted: paymaster validation failed

→ Policy sp\_onboarding\_q3 cap reached for user

→ Fix: raise per-user limit or attach fallback

Headroom

## The ceiling is nowhere in sight

The same API that runs your first sponsored transaction runs the biggest smart account deployments in the industry.

250M+

transactions processed

100M+

transactions sponsored

100+

chains supported

<2s

inclusion time on L2s

## Frequently asked questions

**Do I need a credit card or a contract?**

A card on file, yes — a contract, no. Pay-as-you-go has no monthly minimum and no commitments, and a monthly credit allowance is included before any usage charges apply.

[See the rate card](https://www.pimlico.io/pricing.md)

**What does production actually cost?**

The two lines that matter on the Pay-as-you-go rate card: ~$0.0075 per user operation (~$0.0105 sponsored), and a 10% surcharge on sponsored gas (mainnet). Testnets are free, with no surcharge.

[See full pricing](https://www.pimlico.io/pricing.md)

**Which smart accounts and signers work out of the box?**

Every major one. Safe, Kernel, MetaMask Smart Accounts, and Coinbase Wallet work without extra setup, and signers from Privy and Dynamic to Turnkey and passkeys plug in the same way. If you are starting fresh, permissionless.js creates accounts in a few lines.

[Browse all integrations](https://www.pimlico.io/integrations.md)

**What happens when we outgrow Pay-as-you-go?**

Nothing dramatic. Pay-as-you-go is rated at 5,000 requests / minute, which carries most startups well past launch. When you need more, Enterprise removes rate limits and adds lower pre-paid rates and custom SLAs, and the API your code runs on stays exactly the same.

**Are we locked in?**

No. alto, the bundler underneath, is open source with 729K+ downloads and can be self-hosted, and permissionless.js is built on viem, so your account and signer code stays portable. Teams stay for the multi-chain coverage, monitoring, and support, not because leaving is hard.