How Much Does It Cost to Send Monero?
Almost nothing. A normal Monero transaction costs a fraction of a cent, and — unlike a bank wire — the fee does not depend on how much money you send. Here is the live cost right now, straight from our own node, and why Monero keeps fees this low.
| Priority | Fee (XMR) | Fee (USD) | Typical wait |
|---|---|---|---|
| Loading… | — | — | — |
At Normal priority a standard payment costs roughly a cent or two, often less — the exact figure is in the live table above. The fee is set by the transaction's size in bytes, not the amount, so a $5 payment and a $50,000 payment with the same number of inputs cost the same. Leave your wallet on Normal and you never have to think about it.
Fees depend on the transaction's size, not the amount
On a bank transfer or a card payment, the fee tracks the money moved. Monero doesn't work that way. A transaction is a piece of data, and the fee pays miners to store that data in a block, so what counts is how many bytes it takes up — not the value inside it.
A typical payment has a couple of inputs and a couple of outputs and weighs about 1.5 kB. That's roughly the same whether you're sending pocket change or a fortune, which is why the fee barely moves with the amount. The one thing that noticeably raises it is the number of inputs your wallet has to combine: if you've received many small payments, spending them all at once makes a bigger, slightly more expensive transaction. Sending from your own node and consolidating small amounts when the network is quiet keeps costs at the floor.
The four priority levels
Your wallet lets you pick a priority. All it changes is how much you pay to jump the queue when the network is busy. It does not make a block arrive faster — blocks come about every two minutes no matter what — and under normal, uncongested conditions every tier is still a fraction of a cent.
| Priority | Relative weight | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Slow (Unimportant) | 1× | Cheapest. Fine when you're not in a hurry. |
| Normal | 5× | The default and the right choice almost always. |
| Fast (Elevated) | 25× | A busy network and you'd like it in the next block or two. |
| Fastest (Priority) | 1000× | Racing a deadline during a real backlog. Rarely needed. |
The multipliers are relative. Because the base fee normally sits at its floor, even "Fastest" stays cheap unless the mempool is genuinely congested. The GUI's "Automatic" setting reads the current backlog and picks for you. And remember: received funds unlock after 10 confirmations (~20 minutes) whatever fee you pay — if a payment looks "stuck," that's the unlock wait, not the fee. You can watch it on the transaction checker.
Why Monero's fees stay low when Bitcoin's and Ethereum's spike
Two design choices keep fees calm:
- The block size adjusts to demand. Bitcoin and Ethereum cap how much fits in a block, so when everyone wants in at once, users bid against each other and fees spike into the dollars. Monero has no fixed cap — blocks can grow past a 300 kB comfort zone when there's demand (miners pay a penalty for oversized blocks, which keeps it in check). Because there's no fixed space to auction, there's no auction to blow the price up. Even during heavy mempool activity, Monero fees have stayed in fractions of a cent.
- Tail emission pays miners forever. Monero gives miners a small permanent block reward (0.6 XMR), so the network's security doesn't depend on squeezing high fees out of users the way a fee-only chain eventually must. Fees can stay tiny without starving security.
Monero fees vs Bitcoin and Ethereum
| Monero | Bitcoin / Ethereum | |
|---|---|---|
| Fee based on | Transaction size in bytes | Demand for fixed block space |
| Typical cost | A fraction of a cent | Cents to many dollars, spiking with congestion |
| Does it spike? | No — block size expands with demand | Yes — users bid against each other |
How to pay the lowest possible fee
- Leave the wallet on Normal (or Slow if you're patient).
- Consolidate lots of small received amounts into fewer outputs when the network is quiet, so future sends have fewer inputs.
- Check current conditions — mempool size and the live fee — on the network stats page before sending anything time-sensitive.
MoneroHelp is free, ad-free, and runs on its own Monero node. A little XMR keeps it online.
Frequently asked
How much does it cost to send Monero?
A normal Monero transaction costs a fraction of a cent — usually a cent or two at Normal priority, often less. The fee is based on the transaction's size in bytes, not the amount you send.
Do Monero fees depend on how much you send?
No. The fee is based on the transaction's size in bytes, so sending a small or large amount costs about the same. What raises the size is the number of inputs your wallet combines and the priority you pick.
Why are Monero fees so cheap?
Monero's block size grows with demand, so there is no fixed-space fee auction to spike prices, and a permanent 0.6 XMR tail-emission block reward means the network doesn't rely on high fees for security.
Will Monero fees ever spike like Bitcoin?
Because blocks expand with demand rather than competing for fixed space, Monero avoids the fee auctions that cause Bitcoin and Ethereum spikes. Even during heavy mempool activity, fees have stayed in fractions of a cent.