Bitcoin Network Fees Explained: sat/vB in Plain English
Why bitcoin fees are measured per byte, what the mempool is, and how to read the fee tiers on our network check.
· 5 min read
Fees are paid per byte, not per bitcoin
Each block has limited space, and miners fill it with the transactions that pay the most per unit of space. That unit is the virtual byte (vB), and fees are quoted in satoshis per virtual byte (sat/vB). A typical payment with one input and two outputs is about 141 vB, so at 10 sat/vB it costs 1,410 sats, whether it moves €10 or €10,000.
The mempool is the queue
Unconfirmed transactions wait in the mempool. When it holds less than a block's worth, almost any fee confirms quickly. When it holds many blocks' worth, the fee needed to jump the queue rises. Our check shows how many blocks it would take to clear the queue right now.
Reading the fee tiers
- Next block: the rate that should confirm in the next block or two.
- ~30 minutes and ~1 hour: cheaper rates for when you can wait.
- Economy: the cheapest rate that is still likely to confirm, with no time promise.
Stuck transaction?
If your wallet supports replace-by-fee (RBF), you can rebroadcast the same payment with a higher fee. Otherwise the receiver can speed it up with child-pays-for-parent. Either way, a stuck payment is not lost: it confirms or drops out of the mempool and the coins return to your wallet.