Payment seen, then paid: how Bitcoin confirmations work when you buy something

You press Send, your wallet says the payment is done, and the shop says it's waiting. Both are right. A Bitcoin payment has two stages that look the same from your side of the screen: the moment it's broadcast, and the moment it's settled in a block. Knowing the difference saves a lot of refreshing and a few panicked support emails.

Stage one: the mempool

When your wallet sends a transaction, it hands it to Bitcoin nodes, which check it and pass it on. Within seconds, thousands of nodes hold a copy in their mempool, the waiting room for transactions that aren't in a block yet.

At this point anyone watching the receiving address can see your payment. That's what a shop means by "payment seen" or "pending". The amount is right, the address is right, but nothing is final. The transaction can still be replaced, and in rare cases it can drop out.

Why can it be replaced? Since Bitcoin Core 28, released in 2024, nodes accept a replacement for any unconfirmed transaction that pays a higher fee. This is called full Replace-by-fee. It's useful when you set the fee too low and want to speed things up. It also means a dishonest payer could, in theory, replace a payment with one that sends the same coins back to themselves. That's the reason a shop doesn't hand over goods on a mempool sighting alone.

Stage two: the first block

Miners pick transactions from the mempool, mostly in order of fee rate (sats per virtual byte), and try to add them to the next block. A block is found roughly every 10 minutes on average, but the gaps vary a lot: two blocks can arrive a minute apart, or forty minutes can pass with none.

Once your transaction is in a block, it has one confirmation. Every block mined on top adds another. Reversing a transaction with one confirmation would mean someone out-mining the rest of the network to rewrite that block, which costs serious money and gets harder with every block that follows.

How many confirmations do shops ask for?

It depends on what they lose if a payment is reversed.

Six confirmations became the rule of thumb from the Bitcoin whitepaper's maths on how quickly an attacker's odds fall. In practice, for a $56 subscription such as three months of ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro, one confirmation is a sensible balance between safety and waiting.

What happens on our order page

Our store watches its own Bitcoin address directly. When you pay:

1. Payment seen. As soon as your transaction reaches the mempool, the order page says so, with a "Confirming on Bitcoin" bar showing the usual wait.
2. Paid. When the transaction gets its first confirmation, the order counts as paid and a person starts preparing your plan.
3. Ready. Your gift link, code or activation steps appear on the same page. Miss the 24-hour mark after confirmation and we return every sat you paid.

The quoted price is held for 30 minutes. That window is for sending, not for confirming. If your transaction is broadcast inside it, a confirmation an hour later still counts. Our watcher stays on the address for a full day after the window closes, and a full payment that lands late is still accepted. The how it works page shows the whole sequence.

Choosing a fee that confirms in time

Your wallet estimates a fee rate from the current mempool. Take its "normal" or "within an hour" suggestion and you'll rarely wait long.

How much is that? It moves with demand. On 12 October 2026, mempool.space showed 1 sat/vB enough for the next block. A typical payment from a SegWit wallet is around 140 virtual bytes, so that's roughly 140 sats. When the mempool fills up, rates of 20 to 50 sat/vB or more have been common, and the same payment can cost several thousand sats. If you're not in a hurry, a low fee will confirm eventually. If you are, look at the mempool before you send.

When a payment is stuck

Almost every "stuck" Bitcoin payment is a fee that was too low for the traffic at the time. You have three options:

• Wait. Busy periods pass. When they do, low-fee transactions get mined.
• Replace-by-fee (RBF). Most current wallets, including Sparrow, Electrum and BlueWallet, have a "bump fee" button. It sends a new version of the same payment with a higher fee. The amount and address stay the same.
• Child-pays-for-parent (CPFP). If you received change from the stuck transaction, you can spend that change with a high fee. Miners include both to collect it.

What you shouldn't do is send the payment a second time. Two payments mean one has to be refunded, minus the network fee.

If a transaction is never mined, nodes eventually forget it. Bitcoin Core drops unconfirmed transactions after 14 days by default. Your coins never left your wallet, and your wallet will show them as spendable again once it notices.

Exchanges add their own delay

If you pay from an exchange rather than your own wallet, the clock starts later. Many exchanges batch withdrawals, hold first withdrawals to a new address for review, or send at set intervals. Your order page can only see the payment once the exchange actually broadcasts it. That's one more reason to pay from a wallet you control, and to add the exchange's withdrawal fee on top of the amount due so the full sum arrives. The Bitcoin payment guide covers both, and how to pay has the same advice for every other coin.

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Questions about Bitcoin confirmations

How many confirmations does this store need for Bitcoin?

One. The order page shows "Payment seen" when the transaction reaches the mempool and "Paid" when it's in a block.

Why doesn't a shop accept the payment the moment it appears?

Because an unconfirmed transaction can still be replaced by one paying a higher fee. Since full Replace-by-fee became the default in Bitcoin Core 28, that's easier than it used to be. One block removes almost all of that risk.

My wallet says "sent" but the shop says "waiting". Who is right?

Both. Your wallet broadcast the transaction, and the shop has seen it in the mempool. It's waiting for a miner to put it in a block.

Can I pay with a lower fee and just wait?

Yes, as long as you broadcast inside the 30-minute price window. We watch the address for 24 hours, so a slow payment still counts. Your order simply starts when the block arrives.

What if my transaction drops out of the mempool?

Then it never paid the order, and the coins are still yours. Send us the order ID and the transaction ID, and we'll sort out a new quote with you.

Sources

• Bitcoin Core: 28.0 release notes (full Replace-by-fee by default)
• Satoshi Nakamoto: Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, section 11
• mempool.space: recommended fees
• Bitcoin Core: mempool expiry option