A quote, as the confirmation screen itemises it
| Line | Goes to | Example |
|---|
| Network Gas FeeFee rate times transaction size |
Miners |
1,500 |
| Service FeeFlat, once per order |
Universe |
1,500 |
| Mint UTXO ValueThe satoshi your inscription sits on |
You |
546 |
| Total Cost | | 3,546 sats |
The example is a small inscription at 10 sat/vB. Your own network fee moves with the size
of what you are inscribing and the rate you choose. The other two lines do not.
## How big is the transaction?
The size is decided by what you are inscribing, not by a setting. Inscribe estimates it
from the actual script it is about to build, so the figure on screen describes a real
transaction rather than a flat guess.
Two things worth knowing:
- **Inscribing a child under a parent adds about 101 virtual bytes**, because the parent
output has to be spent and returned.
- **The service fee output costs bytes too.** It is a real output on the transaction, so
you pay a little network fee for carrying it. That is already inside the total.
The figure shown before you create the order is a preview. The order the backend builds
carries the authoritative price, and that is the amount the payment screen asks for.
## Choosing a fee rate
Inscribe offers three tiers, quoted from Universe's own Bitcoin infrastructure and
refreshed every 30 seconds.
| Tier | What it targets |
| --- | --- |
| Normal | A place in the blocks mined over roughly the next half hour |
| Fast | A place in the next block, roughly ten minutes |
| Custom | Any rate you type |
Normal is selected when you arrive, and it is the tier marked Recommended. The default is
never the more expensive option.
The wait shown on each tier is the wait its rate has earned, not a label fixed in advance.
Bitcoin block times are random, so these are averages rather than promises.
Rates are accepted between 0.1 and 10,000 sat/vB. Some protocols raise that floor or round
to whole satoshis, and the fee control uses the protocol's own minimum where it has one.
### When Normal and Fast cost the same
Blocks are not always full. When there is room in the next block, the rate that gets you
into it is the same rate that would have got you in within half an hour, and both tiers
quote the same number.
Inscribe says so, on both tiers, rather than printing a shorter wait next to the
higher-sounding option:
> Blocks have room right now, so Normal costs the same as Fast and confirms just as soon.
Two prices that are the same number are the same purchase. Paying more for one of them
would buy nothing, so the screen does not offer it as if it would.
Some protocols round fee rates up to whole satoshis or apply a higher relay floor. That
can also land both tiers on one rate, and the same note appears for the same reason.
### Rates below 1 sat/vB
The **Sub 1** control accepts rates under one satoshi per virtual byte. These are real
rates that real miners sometimes accept, and they can take a long time or never confirm.
The control is marked Beta, shows the exact rate you have chosen, and never becomes the
default.
## Choosing the output size
The satoshi your inscription sits on defaults to 546. You can lower it to 330, or type a
value of your own.
330 is not an arbitrary floor. Bitcoin relays refuse outputs below a dust threshold that
depends on the address type, and for the Taproot and P2WSH addresses inscriptions use,
that threshold is 330 satoshis. An order asking for less falls back to the computed dust
limit rather than building a transaction the network would reject.
| Address type | Dust threshold |
| --- | --- |
| P2WPKH | 294 sats |
| P2WSH and Taproot | 330 sats |
| Legacy or unrecognised | 546 sats, used as a safe fallback |
Lowering the output saves 216 satoshis and makes that output harder to move later, because
a smaller output leaves less room to pay a fee out of it. That is why 546 is the default.
## Why the cost is shown first
An inscription is not reversible. Once a transaction is signed and broadcast, the fee is
spent whether or not the result is what you wanted. Showing the amounts before the wallet
opens is the only point at which the choice is still yours.
The same rule shapes the rest of the flow:
- The content preview shows exactly what will be inscribed, before payment.
- The confirmation screen names the receiving address and the operation type.
- No automatic funding flow picks an output holding an inscription, Rune, or token balance
to pay a fee. Read [asset safety](/docs-inscribe/concepts/asset-safety/).
## If you overpay
Pay more than the quote and the surplus comes back. The reveal transaction adds a third
output sending the extra to the address that funded the order, as long as that surplus is
large enough to survive the extra bytes it costs and still clear the dust threshold. If it
is not, it is added to your inscription output instead, where you still own it.
This matters most for manual payments, where it is easy to send a round number rather than
the exact quote.
## If you underpay
The order is not lost. It stays waiting, records that the payment was below the quote, and
keeps checking. Top the address up to the quoted amount and the flow resumes. Nothing is
cancelled and no key is discarded. See
[recovery routes](/docs-inscribe/manage/recovery/).
## Reading a cost with a screen reader
Each fee tier is a button whose accessible name carries the tier, the rate in satoshis per
virtual byte, and the wait, so the price is available without reading the visual card. The
recommended tier says that it is recommended.
## When fee data is unavailable
Fee rates come from Universe-operated Bitcoin infrastructure. If that source stops
answering, the fee control says **Cached fees** instead of counting down to the next
refresh, so you can see that the number in front of you is not fresh. A stale quote is
never presented as a live one.
On networks where a made-up rate would be worse than no rate, Inscribe refuses to quote at
all rather than serve a fallback price. Read
[where the data comes from](/docs-inscribe/concepts/source-freshness/).
## Related
- [The life of an order](/docs-inscribe/concepts/order-lifecycle/), which spends this money
- [Fee tiers](/docs-inscribe/reference/fee-tiers/), as a reference table
- [Asset safety](/docs-inscribe/concepts/asset-safety/), which decides what pays the fee
---
Source: bitcoinuniverseio/docs-inscribe@77304a4e9700 (2026-09-06T11:50:08.197Z)
Last verified: 2026-09-01
===== inscribe-docs/create/batch =====
# Inscribe in a batch
Inscribe up to 1,000 items in one job, how the payment is fanned out, why bigger batches wait for confirmations, and what the service fee does across a batch.
**Who this is for.** Anyone inscribing many items at once: a numbered series, a word list,
a set of files.
**Goal.** Many inscriptions from one payment and one signature.
## Prerequisites
| Requirement | Detail |
| --- | --- |
| Chain and network | Bitcoin mainnet |
| Workspace | **Inscribe**, at `/inscribe`, the **Text** sub-tab in bulk mode |
| Destination | **Ordinals only.** Drops, OP_RETURN and Stamps force single-item mode |
| Wallet | Universe, UniSat, Xverse, OKX or Wizz |
| Maximum | **1,000 inscriptions per bulk job** |
| Reversible? | No, and a batch multiplies the consequence |
## How bulk text works
One line per inscription. Each non-empty line in the box becomes its own inscription, and
empty lines are skipped.
That is the whole rule. It means a list you already have, pasted in, is a batch.
## What it costs
The batch is one order with one payment, so the pricing is not simply the single-item cost
times the number of items.