How to Send Bitcoin: A Step-by-Step Guide

Sending Bitcoin is straightforward once you've done it once, but the first time can feel high-stakes — the network is unforgiving, and there's no “undo” button after you hit send. This is the whole flow, step by step: open your wallet, address the payment, set a sensible fee, and broadcast. The two things that matter most are getting the address exactly right and picking a fee that fits how soon you need it to land.

Open your wallet and choose Send

Open whatever wallet holds your Bitcoin — a phone app, a desktop wallet, or the companion app for a hardware device. Look for a Sendbutton (sometimes an up-arrow or “Withdraw”). Every real Bitcoin wallet works the same way here: you tell it where the coins are going, how much, and what fee to pay, then it builds and signs the transaction for you.

Paste or scan the recipient's address

The recipient gives you a Bitcoin address — a long string that usually starts with bc1, 3, or 1. You have two ways to enter it:

• →Scan the QR code. If they show you a QR code, use your wallet's scanner. This is the most reliable method because there's no copy-paste step to go wrong.
• →Paste the address. Copy the exact text they sent you and paste it into the address field. Never retype an address by hand — one wrong character sends the coins somewhere unrecoverable.

Many wallets also accept a payment request that fills in the amount for you. Either way, the address itself is the part you must treat as sacred.

Double-check the address before anything else

This is the single most important step, so slow down for it. Compare the first four and last four characters of the address in your wallet against the address the recipient actually gave you. If both ends match, the middle almost certainly does too.

Enter the amount

Type in how much you're sending. Most wallets let you switch between denominating in BTC, in sats (there are 100 million sats in one bitcoin), or in your local currency like USD. Sending in fiat terms is convenient, but remember the wallet is really moving a fixed amount of Bitcoin — the fiat figure is just today's conversion. If you want to empty the wallet, use the “Max”or “Send all” option so the fee is calculated correctly instead of leaving an awkward leftover.

Choose a fee rate

The fee is what you pay miners to include your transaction in a block, and it's priced per virtual byte (sat/vB), not as a percentage of the amount. A higher rate confirms sooner; a lower rate is cheaper but waits longer. Most wallets offer presets like fast, normal, and economy, and better ones show an estimated wait for each.

• →In a hurry? Pay a rate near the top of what the network is charging right now for next-block confirmation.
• →Not urgent? A lower rate saves money, and fees often fall overnight and on weekends when the network is quiet.

Before you commit, check a live fee trackerto see whether now is a good moment to send or whether it's worth waiting an hour. It reads the current mempool and tells you what rate is actually landing transactions. If you're unsure what number to aim for, see what counts as a good sat/vB fee, and if you're tempted to go rock-bottom, read whether a low fee is safe first.

Review and broadcast

Your wallet shows a summary before it sends: the recipient address, the amount, the fee, and the total. Read it one more time. On a hardware wallet, verify the address on the device's own screenrather than trusting the computer — that's the whole point of the device. When everything checks out, confirm. The wallet signs the transaction and broadcasts it to the Bitcoin network. There is no recall after this point, which is exactly why the review step exists.

What happens next

The moment you broadcast, your transaction enters the mempool — the waiting room of unconfirmed transactions that every node holds. It shows as pending or unconfirmed. Miners pick transactions out of the mempool, favoring higher fee rates, and pack them into the next block.

When your transaction makes it into a block it gets its first confirmation. Each new block on top adds another confirmation; many services treat a payment as final after a handful of them. If you paid a competitive fee this usually happens quickly, but it depends on how busy the network is — see how long a Bitcoin transaction takesfor the full picture. You can watch your transaction's progress on any block explorer, such as mempool.space.

The safety truths worth memorizing

• →No legitimate tool ever needs your keys or seed. Sending Bitcoin only requires the recipient's address, an amount, and a fee. SatSaver, your wallet, a fee tracker, an explorer — none of them ever need your private keys or seed phrase. Anything that asks for those is a scam, full stop.
• →You stay in control the whole way. Nothing leaves your wallet until you review the details and confirm. Your seed phrase stays offline and private; it's the master key to your coins and lives with you alone.
• →The address is the point of no return. Bitcoin follows the address you sign for, not the name you meant. Verify it, and there's nothing to undo because there's nothing to fix.

What to do if it gets stuck

If you paid too low a fee, your transaction can sit unconfirmed for a long time while higher-paying transactions jump ahead of it. Don't panic and don't send it again — the coins are still yours and the transaction is still valid; it's just waiting. You have three options:

• →Wait it out. When the network quiets down, your transaction usually confirms on its own.
• →Bump the fee. If your wallet enabled Replace-by-Fee, you can rebroadcast the same transaction at a higher rate to push it through.
• →Pull it through. A receiver can use Child-Pays-for-Parent to attach a high-fee follow-up that drags the stuck one along.

The full playbook — including how to tell which fix applies to you — is in what to do when a Bitcoin transaction is stuck.

The bottom line

Sending Bitcoin is: open Send, enter a verified address, set the amount, pick a fee, review, and broadcast. The address and the fee are the two decisions that matter — nail the address to protect your coins, and match the fee to your urgency to avoid overpaying or getting stuck. Do those two things and the rest is just waiting for confirmations.

Before you hit send, check the SatSaver trackerto see the live fee rate and whether to send now or wait a little. It's free, needs no signup, and never asks for anything but a question.