Bitcoin

Sats per vbyte

By Paul Brock·Updated on 22-04-2026
TL;DR

Sats per vbyte is the unit for Bitcoin transaction fees: how many satoshis you pay per virtual byte of block space.

The vbyte (virtual byte) is a SegWit concept: witness data weighs only 1/4 as much as regular bytes. This makes SegWit transactions cheaper than legacy. Fee calculation: transaction size in vbytes × sats/vB = total fee. Wallets compute this automatically; sats/vB is the knob you tune.

Example

A SegWit P2WPKH tx is ~141 vbytes. Same tx in legacy P2PKH is ~225 vbytes. At 20 sat/vB: 2,820 sats (SegWit) vs 4,500 sats (legacy). SegWit saves 37%.

Frequently asked questions

What is the minimum sat/vB?

Network minimum is 1 sat/vB. Some relay nodes use 1 or 1.1 minimum. Below 1 sat/vB you fall below many nodes' thresholds.

Related terms

Further reading

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