Gas fee

Why does it decide viability?

Because it is paid per transaction rather than as a percentage. A fee of three dollars is trivial on a two thousand dollar payment and fatal on a fifteen dollar one.

This is the mechanism behind network choice, which the USDT network guide covers. The same stablecoin on a cheap chain and an expensive chain is commercially a different product, and a customer facing a transfer fee that is a meaningful share of the purchase will frequently abandon.

How does it affect payouts?

On the way out you pay it, once per transaction. A business paying five hundred affiliates individually pays it five hundred times.

This is what batching addresses, and mass payouts explains why it matters. Combining many outputs into one transaction shares the overhead, which is why providers offering real batch payouts can be substantially cheaper for anyone paying people out regularly, even at an identical processing rate.

Can you avoid it?

Not entirely, though you can make it small. Choose networks with low transfer costs for retail volume, as the USDT page recommends, batch payouts rather than sending them individually, and set payout thresholds so you withdraw on a sensible schedule rather than every time a balance moves.

What merchants get wrong about it

Two things, and both cost money. The first is treating it as a percentage: it is charged per transaction, so it is trivial on large invoices and decisive on small ones. The second is forgetting the outbound side entirely, where the cost scales with how often you withdraw rather than with revenue.

A business withdrawing daily pays it thirty times a month at any revenue level. Setting a payout threshold rather than withdrawing on every balance change is the single cheapest fix available.