# Fees
### Performance Fee (6%)
**What it covers**
Funds protocol operations: contracts, validator monitoring, audits, the liquidity buffer for instant unstaking.
It's **6% of yield**, not 6% of principal. Your staked SUI is never touched.
**How it works**
At the end of each epoch, when rewards come in, 6% goes to the protocol. The other 94% adds to the pool and raises the exchange rate.
If network yield is 3.5% APR:
```
3.5% × (1 − 0.06) = 3.29% APR for stSUI holders
```
### Redemption Fee (0.01%)
**What it covers**
The cost of instant unstaking — mostly the liquidity buffer.
0.01% of the redeemed SUI. Redeeming 1,000 stSUI worth 1,000 SUI = 0.1 SUI fee.
**Where it goes**
Part of the redeem fee is redistributed back to the pool, where it boosts yield for remaining stakers. The rest is kept by the protocol.
When one user unstakes, a portion of their exit fee improves yield for everyone else. (Exception: if it's the very last unstake — no remaining stakers to redistribute to.)
Example
Hold 1,000 stSUI now worth 1,050 SUI (after rewards). Unstake:
* Gross value: 1,050 SUI
* Redeem fee (0.01%): 0.105 SUI
* **Received: 1,049.895 SUI**
The 6% performance fee was already deducted at each epoch as rewards came in — that's why your 1,000 stSUI is at 1,050 SUI instead of higher.
---
# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation
If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.
Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:
```
GET https://docs.alphafi.xyz/stsui-lst/fees.md?ask=
```
The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.
Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.