Smart Wallet vs EOA Wallet
An **EOA** (externally owned account) is the classic private-key wallet. **Smart contract wallets** add programmable rules—social recovery, session keys, and gasless txs via paymasters—at the cost of contract risk and complexity.
Step by step
1. List recovery needs
Lost seed vs guardian-based recovery paths.
2. Model gas
Smart wallets may batch actions but deployment costs gas once.
3. Audit contract vendor
Use audited wallets; understand upgrade keys.
Smart wallet vs EOA
Power users mix EOAs for cold savings and smart wallets for daily spending.
- EOA: Simple; widest support; seed phrase single point of failure.
- Smart wallet: Programmable limits; recovery options; contract audit risk.
Use our calculators
Common mistakes
- Skipping backup of guardian list
- Assuming all dApps support 4337 yet
FAQ
Are smart wallets non-custodial?
Usually yes—but guardians and paymasters add trust assumptions.