How to Choose Between RBF and CPFP
If the transaction is unconfirmed, you are the sender and your wallet supports RBF — choose RBF, because you have the initiative and the operation is simple. If the transaction is stuck and you are the receiver, or the sender did not enable RBF — choose CPFP, which is the only way you can proactively accelerate it.
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What's the Difference Between RBF and CPFP
RBF (Replace-By-Fee) is when the sender resends the same amount with a higher fee transaction, replacing the stuck one. The prerequisite is that the original transaction was marked as "replaceable" (Opt-in RBF) when sent.
CPFP (Child Pays For Parent) is when the receiver uses the unconfirmed coins received to initiate a new transaction (to themselves or someone else), setting a very high fee for this second transaction. Miners, in order to get the high fee of the child transaction, will include both transactions in a block simultaneously.
Scenario-Specific Operations:
Case A: You are the sender, transaction not yet confirmed, original transaction had RBF enabled
Use RBF. Open your wallet, find the stuck transaction, click the "Accelerate" or "Speed Up" button, and the wallet will automatically rebroadcast a higher-fee transaction. If your wallet doesn't have this button, you can also find the transaction in the send history, select "Replace", manually set a new fee rate, and rebroadcast.
Most mainstream wallets (Ledger, Xverse, TokenPocket, etc.) support Opt-in RBF by default.
When is it done? After the new transaction is broadcast, you should see the replacement transaction's fee rate updated in a block explorer or wallet, then just wait for confirmation.
Case B: You are the receiver, the sender's transaction is stuck (and RBF not enabled)
Use CPFP. Using your wallet (e.g., Ledger with Electrum), find the pending incoming transaction, right-click and select "Child pays for parent" (CPFP). The system will automatically construct a new transaction spending that unconfirmed UTXO, set a high fee rate, and broadcast it.
When is it done? After the child transaction is broadcast, you can see that the parent and child transactions are linked in the mempool, and the confirmation status starts to progress.
Case C: You are the sender, but the original transaction did not enable RBF
RBF cannot be used. If you have another unused UTXO in your wallet, you can try CPFP — but only if you can link a new transaction to the stuck one. If your wallet doesn't support manually constructing this relationship and has no "accelerate" option, you can only wait for the transaction to time out and be dropped from the mempool, or contact a mining pool accelerator service.
How to Choose — Two Key Criteria
Criterion 1: Who has the initiative?
Sender has initiative → RBF (adjust fee yourself)
Receiver has initiative → CPFP (only receiver can operate)
Criterion 2: Privacy considerations RBF exposes change addresses more obviously than CPFP — in a replacement transaction, whichever output amount decreases is likely the change. CPFP does not expose this information because the output spent by the child transaction is not necessarily the change; it could be the receiver spending the money they received.
If this transaction involves privacy-sensitive operations, CPFP is better than RBF, even if the total cost of CPFP may be higher.
How to Verify the Operation
RBF: After the replacement transaction is broadcast, check your wallet's transaction list to see that the original transaction has disappeared or is marked as "replaced". Enter the transaction hash in a block explorer to see the new fee rate.
CPFP: After the child transaction is broadcast, enter the parent transaction hash in a block explorer (like mempool.space); you will see a child transaction linked below it, and the total fee rate of both combined will be displayed.
Common Reasons for Failure
Failure reason 1: The fee increase for the RBF replacement transaction is not large enough. The new transaction's fee must be higher than the original, and the increase must be at least the network's minimum relay fee, otherwise nodes will reject forwarding the replacement transaction.
Failure reason 2: The fee rate for the CPFP child transaction was set too low. Miners calculate a weighted average fee rate by dividing the total fees of the parent and child transactions by the total bytes. If this average rate is still lower than the current mempool's minimum fee rate, both transactions will remain stuck.
Risk Reminders
RBF may confuse the recipient: The recipient will see the pending transaction disappear and reappear in their wallet because the transaction has been replaced.
CPFP may cost more than RBF: CPFP requires paying an additional miner fee for a transaction, while RBF only replaces the original, so the total cost is usually lower.
In inscription transaction scenarios, RBF could be used for "sniping": An attacker gets the public signature data and uses RBF to replace the transaction, voiding the original buyer's transaction.
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How to Confirm Completion
After the transaction is confirmed, check the confirmation status on a block explorer. Bitcoin blocks are produced on average every 10 minutes, so after acceleration it typically takes 10 to 60 minutes to be confirmed.
Next step: If you frequently need to manually accelerate transactions, it's recommended to set a fee rate slightly above the current network average when sending (check the real-time suggested fee rate on mempool.space) to avoid spending extra costs on remediation later.
