Need help with understanding fees. [Beginner]

[DS33f]

Hi Guys, i have a beginners question to ask if you do not mind to answer...

im trying to make some payments using BTC and Electrum

I owe somebody $25 USD. And im trying to make the payment. But the recommended Fee is almost $9!! That is ridiculously high just to make a payment...

I need to make the payment in the next few hours, and would like a little help with some resources to learn on how to manage my fees better? Because im always paying an extremely high price on the fees.

I have no idea how many sat/byte to set to meet the payment deadline. Currently it is set at 66.6 sat/byte for a fee of 0.00014918 btc. = $8.42 usd. I have a legacy wallet.

The place in which i purchased the bitcoins were able to send me $50 worth of bitcoin instantly for a tiny fee. how are they able to send a higher amount for a smaller fee?

So yeah, sorry noob question, but i would just like to learn how to optimize my fees. thank you.

[1715271312]

1715271312

[1715271312]

1715271312

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

im trying to make some payments using BTC and Electrum

I owe somebody $25 USD. And im trying to make the payment. But the recommended Fee is almost $9!! That is ridiculously high just to make a payment...

I need to make the payment in the next few hours, and would like a little help with some resources to learn on how to manage my fees better? Because im always paying an extremely high price on the fees.

Next few hours, next few days, you will be in bad condition. The mempool is very heavy now with more than 200 MB of waiting transactions. The fee rates are using currently at the tip of mempool are from 170 to 200 sat/vbyte. Those fee rates are 40 or 50 times higher and more expensive than weeks ago.
Johoe's Bitcoin Mempool Statistics
Mempool.space
You can check mempool stats with one of two websites.

The panic on the market will not bring cheaper fee for you in next few days.

Currently it is set at 66.6 sat/byte for a fee of 0.00014918 btc. = $8.42 usd. I have a legacy wallet.

66.6 sat/vbyte is not bad at all but you need to wait. Your transaction can be confirmed today or next few days if bitcoin has a side way.

You use Electrum wallet that has options for Legacy and Segwit address. Why do you not use Segwit address (begins with bc1)?

The last newest version (4.1.1 and 4.1.2) of Electrum wallet only give you Segwit address if you use the newest versions to create a new wallet. Segwit (Bech32) address and Segwit transactions can help you to save transaction fees.
Electrum Download page
How to Safely Download and Verify Electrum. Read and practice to verify your wallet file that you download.

[DS33f]

thank you very much for your reply!

[c_atlas]

Just to add a bit more info, if you broadcast a transaction and find that it's not getting confirmed because the fees were set too low, you can submit the transaction hash to a transaction accelerator (they're free). Quoting myself from the other day,

According to https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#BTC,2h,weight
Your transaction seems to be taking a lot of time until it settles down from the 170-200 SATs/vbyte range till your 60 SATs/vbyte area. Why don't you ask some transaction accelerating people here? They might help you out in your case to get your transaction go through a bit quick. Anyways, I've also accelerated it my way and hope that it gets through fast.

I second this, I accelerated a transaction with < 45 SATs/vbyte the other day using viabtc's accelerator. It was stuck for nearly a day and I kept nervously checking the mempool but it got confirmed pretty quick after submitting it to the accelerator.

Here's a list of a few (free) accelerators you can submit to:
https://coinsutra.com/bitcoin-transaction-accelerators

It's a good idea to submit to multiple accelerators, since it'll increase the probability that your transaction will be part of the next block!

[Bitfort]

Bitcoin is not much suitable for small amount transfers.

I'll also provide you a couple notes to consider.

If you use the electrum it has function "replace by fee". It's useful when you notice the fee of sent transaction is way too low (no confirmation for hours...).
This rbf allows you to increase the fee of previously sent (still unconfirmed) transaction and speed the  process.

For these kind of small payments you could try  using custodial wallet like coinbase.
Transaction between coinbase accounts are free and almost instant. Quite lot of users and shops use them.

[SFR10]

The place in which i purchased the bitcoins were able to send me $50 worth of bitcoin instantly for a tiny fee. how are they able to send a higher amount for a smaller fee?

The amount you're about to send doesn't matter; You need to take note of the inputs and outputs ^{[apart from few other things]} since those directly contribute to the size of the transaction in question.
^{- To make it simple: A large transaction [in size] also needs a larger fee [you could always choose your own fee if the wallet that you're using has that feature but you risk getting your TX to stuck].}

you can submit the transaction hash to a transaction accelerator (they're free). Quoting myself from the other day,
~Snipped~

Not all of them are free. Only ViaBTC and AntPool are "real" accelerators that happen to be free.
<sup>- The former has a paid version as well.
- BTW, #4 on that list is a scam.</sup>

It's a good idea to submit to multiple accelerators, since it'll increase the probability that your transaction will be part of the next block!

Unfortunately, most of the other free accelerators out there are just broadcasting services pretending to be accelerators...
^{- Fishing for tips and giving false hopes.}

[Pmalek]

Unfortunately, there isn't much you can do right now when it comes to paying with Bitcoin. If you insist on using Bitcoin and need to send that payment in the next couple of hours, you have to consider the extremely high network fees.
If you can get a postponement until the weekend, that would be the best thing right now. It's not a guarantee, but the fees tend to drop between Saturday-Sunday.

If the other person you are sending to is a crypto trader, one option would be to purchase fresh coins from an exchange that facilitates P2P transfers. Binance for example. Transferring bitcoin from Binance account A to Binance account B is free of charge.

Or look into stablecoins. Tether can be transferred via the Tron network free of charge in some cases via crypto exchanges. Dogecoin transactions require 1 DOGE ($0.38) currently as mining fees.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Quoting myself from the other day

That is a bad list of accelerators.
Number 2 charges absolutely ridiculous prices, in the region of 50x higher than necessary if you just did a CPFP transaction yourself.
Number 3 requires you to import your seed phrase to their software, which is always high risk.
Number 4 is an outright scam.

The only one on there worth anything is ViaBTC's accelerator.

It's a good idea to submit to multiple accelerators, since it'll increase the probability that your transaction will be part of the next block!

This also is not accurate. Many accelerators out there simply rebroadcast your transaction, which in many cases does nothing to speed up its confirmation and can actually be more harmful since it delays your transaction being dropped from the mempool so you can try again with a better fee.

[c_atlas]

you can submit the transaction hash to a transaction accelerator (they're free). Quoting myself from the other day,
~Snipped~

Not all of them are free. Only ViaBTC and AntPool are "real" accelerators that happen to be free.
<sup>- The former has a paid version as well.
- BTW, #4 on that list is a scam.</sup>

Quoting myself from the other day

That is a bad list of accelerators.
Number 2 charges absolutely ridiculous prices, in the region of 50x higher than necessary if you just did a CPFP transaction yourself.
Number 3 requires you to import your seed phrase to their software, which is always high risk.
Number 4 is an outright scam.

The only one on there worth anything is ViaBTC's accelerator.

Oof... My bad, I had used ViaBTC but didn't want to seem biased towards them or anything so I just posted the list I found when searching.

Worked well in my case since:
1. My wallet had RBF disabled (not sure why??).
2. I sent the funds to cold storage and so there wouldn't be a child transaction paying for the parent (which was stuck in the mempool) for quite a while.

It's a good idea to submit to multiple accelerators, since it'll increase the probability that your transaction will be part of the next block!

Unfortunately, most of the other free accelerators out there are just broadcasting services pretending to be accelerators...
^{- Fishing for tips and giving false hopes.}

Another great example as to why it's so important to DYOR, thanks for bringing this up!

[CryptocurencyKing]

When timing is of the essence, there is little you could do. Your best chance is always with the fee to beat time but, they both are a problem here and its either you use high fee to beat time or you owe time (by that o mean wait on time) to get a lower fee as they are mutually exclusive.

With regards to the current state of things in the Mempool, a fee of 5 sat/byte would place your transaction at about 70mb and that would take perhaps 24hrs to confirm. Should you be aiming at beating time with lower fees like this and you don't have the patience to wait, its best you always transact a day or 2 days before you actually need the transaction to be confirmed. It all adds up to give desired result that way.

[o_e_l_e_o]

With regards to the current state of things in the Mempool, a fee of 5 sat/byte would place your transaction at about 70mb and that would take perhaps 24hrs to confirm.

5 sat/vbyte would actual put you around 110 vMB from the tip. And regardless of whether he was 70 vMB or 110 vMB from the tip, both have pretty much zero chance to confirm in the next 24 hours. Hashrate is down, average block time is much longer than 10 minutes, and the mempool is continuing to fill. I suspect a 5 sat/vbyte transaction will be dropped from the mempool after the default 14 days before it confirms.

Should you be aiming at beating time with lower fees like this and you don't have the patience to wait, its best you always transact a day or 2 days before you actually need the transaction to be confirmed.

I don't think that's good advice. The mempool can do a lot of things in two days. Recently it has gone from requiring 20 sats/vbyte to requiring 200 sats/vbyte, and the opposite is also true. If you transact two days in advance, you could end up with a stuck transaction dozens of vMB from the tip, and you could also paying a 10x higher fee than is needed. It's far better to either transact when you need it and pay an appropriate fee, or keep an eye on the mempool and transact when it is relatively empty, rather than just firing a transaction away and hoping for the best.