A common mistake when estimating Storj node earnings is to use Storj's customer pricing. Node operators are not paid the customer rate — they're paid the Node Operator Terms payout, and the two are very different.
Storage and egress
Storj is unusual among storage DePINs because it pays operators for two things:
- Storage held — a monthly rate per TB of data stored on your node.
- Egress bandwidth — a rate per TB of data your node serves (downloads).
In our 2026 audit we anchored the operator payout to Storj's Node Operator Terms — notably $2/TB for egress (the operator share), distinct from the higher price Storj charges customers. Using the customer price would overstate operator earnings significantly.
The held-amount ramp
New nodes also face a held-amount schedule: Storj withholds a portion of earnings early on (released as the node proves reliability), so first-months payouts are lower than steady-state. Our model accounts for this ramp rather than showing a flat figure.
Estimate it honestly
Put together — storage + egress, minus the held-amount ramp — a small starter node (0.5–1 TB) earns only a couple of dollars a month, while a large home NAS on fibre can reach the tens of dollars. Run your own numbers in the Storj calculator, and see the full assumptions in the Storj methodology.
Verified 2026-05-21 against Storj's Node Operator Terms. Educational summary, not financial advice. DePINly is not affiliated with Storj.
Source
storj.io