What's the difference between `paymentInfo` and `gasRequired`?

Question

In polkadotJS there are two ways of getting gas estimates (specifically WeightV2) before you send a contract transaction.

The first uses query and returns a gasRequired value in the result.

    const extrinsic = contract.query[message.method](address, initialOptions, ...encodedArgs)
    const response = await extrinsic
    if (response.result.isOk) {
        // create a new set of options using gasRequired and storageDeposit
        let options = getOptions(this.api, message.isMutating, value, response.gasRequired, response.storageDeposit)

The second uses tx and takes a value from paymentInfo

        // options here uses the gasRequired from the initial query as the gasLimit
        const extrinsicTx = contract.tx[message.method](options, ...encodedArgs)
        const paymentInfo = await extrinsicTx.paymentInfo(address)

paymentInfo always gives a higher refTime value than gasRequired.

gasRequired 8,827,448,665
paymentInfo 9,536,660,665

Using the value from gasRequired causes OutOfGas errors when batching transactions. Using the value from paymentInfo causes the batched transactions to succeed.

Why are there two different ways of getting gas estimates and why do they differ in value?

Note: This answer suggests that the contract state being modified between transactions could be the reason for the difference in gas and to increase gas by 1%. However, the difference between gasRequired refTime and paymentInfo refTime is ~8%.

Answer 1

Are your calls failing with OutOfGas when submitted individually or only when batched?

The difference may be due to the different runtime apis called under the hood:

• transactionPaymentApi.queryInfo for tx.paymentInfo
• contractsApi.call for contract.query

There may be extra costs for batching that are not estimated by contractsApi