Transaction fee (network fee)

Every Bitcoin transaction on the blockchain pays a fee to the miner who includes it in a block. The fee is the difference between the sum of the inputs and the sum of the outputs.^[1]

How the fee is calculated

Fee = size in vbytes × fee rate in sat/vBGlossarysat/vB (satoshis per virtual byte)Unit for the fee rate of a Bitcoin transaction: how many satoshis you pay per virtual byte of its size. The higher the rate, the sooner miners will include the transaction in a block.In the glossary →×

A typical payment with one input and two outputs (native SegWit, address starting with bc1q) is about 141 vbytes.^[2] At an example price of $80,000 (currently $85,533), that gives (own calculation):

Fee rate	Fee	≈ in US dollars
1 sat/vB	141 sats	$0.11
5 sat/vB	705 sats	$0.56
20 sat/vB	2,820 sats	$2.26

The recommended rate is currently 2 sat/vB for the next block and 1 sat/vB for confirmation within about an hour.^[3] When demand is high, rates rise sharply – check them right before you send.

What to look out for

• The rate determines the wait: miners prefer high fee rates; if you bid low, you wait longer in the mempoolGlossaryMempoolThe buffer in which a node collects valid but still unconfirmed transactions until a miner includes them in a block. There is no central mempool – every node keeps its own.On the learning path: Stage 5 · Step 4 – First withdrawal →In the glossary →×.
• Many small inputs cost more: every additional UTXOGlossaryUTXO (Unspent Transaction Output)An output of an earlier transaction that hasn’t been spent yet – like a single banknote in your wallet. Bitcoin has no account balances: your balance is the sum of all the UTXOs you can spend with your keys.On the learning path: Stage 5 · Step 4 – First withdrawal →In the glossary →× makes the transaction larger.
• Provider fee isn’t network fee: exchanges and apps often charge their own withdrawal fee, which differs from the actual network fee.
• Set it too low? With replace-by-feeGlossaryReplace-by-fee (RBF)A method of replacing a still-unconfirmed transaction with a new version that pays a higher fee. This lets you speed up a stuck payment, as long as it isn’t in a block yet.On the learning path: Stage 5 · Step 4 – First withdrawal →In the glossary →× or CPFPGlossaryCPFP (Child Pays for Parent)A way to speed up a stuck transaction: a follow-up transaction (the ‘child’) spends one of its outputs and pays a high fee. It then pays off for miners to include both transactions together.On the learning path: Stage 5 · Step 4 – First withdrawal →In the glossary →×, you can speed up a stuck payment.

You can compare providers’ cost models with the fee calculator.