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Everything you need to know about satograms and how to send one.
What is a Satogram?
A satogram is a lightning payment that includes a custom message. When you send a satogram, your message is delivered to thousands of lightning nodes and lightning addresses across the network — and each recipient gets paid in sats as part of the delivery.
Think of it like an email blast, except the recipients get paid to receive it. You write a message, choose how much to spend, and your satogram is broadcast to up to ~44,000 nodes and addresses. Whether you're promoting a project, sharing a message with the community, or just wishing the network a good morning, satograms put your words directly in front of real lightning users.
How to Create a Satogram
Head to the Create Satogram page and fill out the form. Here's what each field means:
Total Cost
This is the total amount of sats you'll be invoiced. The minimum is 500 sats and the maximum is 250,000 sats. A 10% service fee is deducted from this amount — for example, if you set the total cost to 65,000 sats, 6,500 goes to our service fee and the remaining 58,500 sats are used to send satograms. Keep in mind that lightning network fees also apply for each satogram sent — for example, a 1 sat satogram will typically incur 1 sat or more in routing fees, so the effective cost per satogram is the amount the recipient receives plus the network fees.
Your budget directly determines how many people your satogram reaches. After the 10% service fee is collected, the remaining sats are your campaign budget. Each satogram sent deducts the amount per satogram plus any lightning network routing fees from that budget, and this process repeats until the budget is exhausted. A budget of 1,000 sats won't reach 44,000 people — to maximize your audience, set a total cost that accounts for the per-satogram cost and network fees across the number of recipients you want to reach. At 1 sat per satogram, roughly 65,000 sats is a good starting point to reach all ~44,000 addresses.
Example
- Total Cost: 10,000 sats
- 10% service fee: 1,000 sats
- Campaign budget: 9,000 sats
- Amount per satogram: 1 sat
- Avg. lightning network fee per send: ~1 sat
- Cost per satogram: 1 + 1 = 2 sats
- People reached: 9,000 / 2 = ~4,500 recipients
Amount Per Satogram
The number of sats sent to each individual recipient. The minimum is 1 sat and the maximum is 10,000 sats. A higher amount per satogram may get more attention from recipients, but your budget will reach fewer people. At 1 sat per satogram you maximize your reach.
Satogram Message
Your custom message, up to 500 characters. This is exactly what recipients will see alongside the payment. Make it count — this is your chance to get your message in front of thousands of lightning users. Links included in your message are clickable in many wallets, so feel free to embed a URL to drive traffic to your site or project.
Who to Send To
Choose which group of recipients should receive your satogram. There are four options:
- All — Lightning nodes, lightning addresses, and site signups. Maximum reach.
- Signups — Only people who have signed up on the Satogram website.
- Nodes — Lightning nodes with keysend enabled, including signed-up nodes.
- Lightning Addresses — Lightning addresses that support comments, including signed-up addresses.
Your Address (optional)
Your node pubkey or lightning address. This is optional but if provided, you will be the first to receive your own satogram, allowing you to see it in your own wallet.
After You Submit
Once you fill out the form and hit "Create Satogram," you'll receive a Lightning invoice. Pay the invoice with any Lightning-compatible wallet and your satograms will start sending automatically.
To check on your satogram's progress, use the "Check Satogram Status" section at the bottom of the Create page. Paste in the payment request (the lnbc... string) from your invoice to see how many satograms have been delivered.
Still Need Help?
Reach out to us on X (@Satograms), Telegram, or email us and we'll be happy to help.