Contents
If you intend to create your own NFT, you must understand all of the costs involved. There are multiple blockchains to select from, each with its fees. So, how much does an NFT cost to create?
I compiled statistics from each blockchain to create this post, which talks you through the cost of performing an NFT on the most prominent blockchains.
Creating an NFT range from $0.05 to more than $150. The Blockchain network is the most costly, with an average cost of $70, while Solana is the cheapest, with an average cost of $0.01. This excludes marketplace costs, which vary from 2.5% to 5%.
The brand new newsletter with insights, market analysis and daily opportunities.
Let’s grow together!
Making your first NFT is an amazing experience until you find out how much it may cost. The average cost of creating an NFT range from $.01 to $150. However, at its busiest, the Ethereum blockchain has seen costs of more than $500 to generate a single NFT.
Regarding building NFTs, the Ethereum platform is not your only option. Several different blockchains let you establish your own NFT, and they are often far less expensive than the Ethereum platform.
The type of blockchain is the reason why a lot of these blockchains are so cheap in comparison to Ethereum. It is currently a proof of work (PoW) blockchain. Although the PoW blockchain is incredibly safe, it is inefficient. As a result, the blockchain users must pay greater gas costs to miners to transact.
A blockchain like Solana, on the other hand, employs both proof of stake (PoS) and a system known as proof of history (PoH). These two protocols enable the Solana blockchain to deliver a more efficient experience, resulting in about 65,000 transactions every second (TPS), compared to Ethereum’s 12 to 15 TPS. Regardless of the blockchain, you choose to establish an NFT; there are typically several types of transactions that will cost you money.
| NFT blockchain
| Cost Used to create an NFT in the platform |
| Solana
| 0.00001 SOL ($0.01) |
| Ethereum
| 0.01 – 0.05 ETH ($50 – $150) |
| Polygon
| Free (subjective to marketplace fees) |
| Tezos
| .08 – 3.6 XTZ ($0.20 – $8) |
| Cardano
| .17 – 1.5 ADA ($0.13 – $1.15) |
| Wax
| 0.13 – 13 WAXP ($0.05 – $5) |
| Avalanche
| 0.008 – .02 AVAX ($0.50 – $1.50) |
| Zilliqa
| 0.7 – 2.9 ZIL ($0.05 – $0.20) |
If you’re making your first NFT, you should know about NFT minting, which is the process of producing your NFT and registering it with the blockchain. Although it may appear difficult, it is not.
Individual artworks and collectibles must first be minted on the blockchain to be created as distinct NFTs. The art or item is encrypted using a unique code and stored on a blockchain, allowing for individualized ownership.
Each work of art or collectible is now an NFT on a smart contract blockchain, such as Ethereum, Solana, or another NFT-compatible chain. This entails paying transaction fees with the native blockchain crypto and the blockchain’s native currency.
All blockchain transactions necessitate the payment of a gas cost, which incentivizes the network to validate and add your action to the blockchain. Consider the NFT procedure comparable to posting a profile photo to a social networking platform. It is a digital art item or collectible in this case.
The crypto wallet used mint NFT is a collectible that gives them access to the blockchain. It also records each transaction. Furthermore, the crypto wallet grants access to the NFT product via public and private keys. Costs may vary based on the blockchain and the NFT market used to mint your NFT.
The NFT markets require a piece of the pie as well. Marketplace fees are commonly used to compensate for marketplace services. Creating an NFT on any marketplace, regardless of blockchain, implies that you are susceptible to its transaction costs. Each marketplace will charge fees ranging from 2.5% to 5%.
Creating a whole NFT collection is not only more time-consuming than creating a single NFT, but it is also more expensive. Creating an NFT collection ranges from $150 if you do all the work yourself to over $10,000 if you hire someone to do it for you. This covers the costs of creating the artwork, coding the smart contract, and developing a website.
An NFT collection is commonly characterized as a compilation of randomly-generated NFTs. A single collection might contain anywhere between 100 to over 100,000 NFTs. Examples of NFT collections are VeeFriends and Book Games.
The initial cost of making an NFT is the fee of creating the artwork itself. If you are not an artist, you can commission one to produce a piece for you. Alternatively, if you’re feeling very inventive, you might make your pictures!
Many NFT designers make their artwork pictures in the following ways:
Because this is merely the design step of constructing an NFT, there will be little participation in coding, which is normally more expensive. The majority of your spending here would be hiring someone to prepare your designs and the design tools required to build the NFT layers that you require.
The following is the cost of creating the artwork:
Your NFT artwork photos will cost you around $20 and $100 on average.
Once your artwork is complete, you must produce the NFTs using coding or no-code NFT generators. You may produce your NFT collection with the OneMint NFT generator by submitting the artwork to their platform. They also provide direct blockchain minting within the platform.
The following is the cost of creating an NFT collection:
Once your NFT collection has been formed with all the required combinations, you must mint them on a blockchain to finish the NFT creation process. The cost of minting NFT will vary according to the blockchain you choose.
For example, if you’re minting through the Ethereum network, you’ll need to mint your NFT as an ERC20 token with a digital cryptocurrency wallet like MetaMask.
The expenses of mining on different blockchains will be different. For example, minting on Ethereum can incur significant gas fees, varying between $10 and $100 depending on network usage.
However, with the forthcoming transition from the Proof-of-Work to the Proof-of-Stake paradigm, prices may fall! For the most recent/current pricing, I recommend visiting the ETH Gas Station. The Solana platform is another excellent alternative for minting NFTs at a lower cost. The Solana NFT marketplace is also massive and quickly expanding in the NFT area.
If these prices are still extremely high for minting your complete NFT collection, you can wish to consider another strategy, such as gasless minting. You can postpone the minting process by employing lazy minting, in which NFTs are just minted when a customer purchases them. You’ll only pay for those that sell out this way.
If these prices are still extremely high for minting your complete NFT collection, you can wish to consider another strategy, such as gasless minting. You can postpone the minting process by employing lazy minting, in which NFTs are just minted when a customer purchases them. You’ll only pay for those that sell out this way.
To sell your NFT once it has been minted, you must advertise it on an NFT marketplace. Each NFT platform has a different listing fee, so check before you offer your NFT! The following are several of the most prominent NFT marketplaces:
You must pay the listing costs for each platform if you wish to list your NFT on more than one. The good news is that several NFT markets, including Rarible and OpenSea, do not impose listing fees!
They do, however, take a cut of each transaction (2.5% on OpenSea and 1% on Rarible). To sum it all up, here’s a summary of what it will cost you to construct an NFT in 2023:
Using the Polygon blockchain, you may build an NFT for free. The slow minting mechanism allows you to generate an NFT for free until it sells. Otherwise, you can use affordable blockchains like Tezos, Solana, Avalanche, or WAX to establish an NFT for cheap.
Understandably, there are relatively few NFT markets and even fewer blockchains that enable you to construct an NFT fully free of charge. Because blockchains are not administered by a single individual but rather by a group of people from all over the world devoting their resources and time to sustaining each blockchain, users must pay a fee.
Lazy minting enables you to create an NFT ‘off-chain’ (apart from the main blockchain) to save money on the initial cost of minting an NFT. This enables you to produce an NFT but only spend the mint fee when it sells and is published ‘on-chain’ (the main blockchain). Lazy minting is an excellent alternative, especially if you are new to creating NFTs. It is available in OpenSea Rarible Nifty Gateway.
Its benefit is that it reduces the amount of redundant Ethereum transactions connected with unsold NFTs. Using lazy minting, your NFT is only linked to the blockchain when you buy it, and the gas charge is passed on to you.
Off-chain NFTs resemble other tokens in appearance. Buyers who choose such NFTs pay their price and gas costs, following which the token is deployed on-chain and becomes the buyer’s property.
Lazy minting creates NFTs later, lowering the requirement for computing resources because only sold NFTs are minting. The solution can be found in the most renowned NFT markets, allowing digital artists and NFT makers to gain visibility. They can utilize slow minting to generate a free NFT on the Ethereum network.
Gasless minting makes your NFT available on the network without requiring you to send anything to the blockchain. Because no transaction happens, you will not be charged any costs to generate your NFT. By reducing the barrier to access, known as gas costs, gasless minting lets new users enter the NFT sector.
Mintable is currently the only platform that provides gasless minting. Mintable charges a 5% marketplace fee on all sales made through gasless minting.
Layer 2 scaling solutions
If you desire to employ the Ethereum blockchain but don’t want to pay the exorbitant costs that come with it, you should investigate layer 2 scaling alternatives. These solutions aid with the scaling of applications such as Ethereum by processing transactions outside of the Ethereum mainnet (layer 1) while retaining the same degree of security.
Layer 2 solutions improve throughput and minimize gas costs, saving less money from your pocket while maintaining security. Layer 2 solutions also have a lower carbon footprint. (Less gas means less energy, which means less carbon.) Polygon, Immutable X, and Polkadot are examples of layer 2 solutions.
Ethereum is the finest blockchain for developing an NFT. Because Ethereum is the most commonly utilized blockchain, it is favored by most customers. Meanwhile, the Solana blockchain is rising and may be used to establish an NFT for considerably less money.
Ethereum is the recommended blockchain for creating NFTs since it has the greatest development community, which means that any issues may be successfully repaired in a fair amount of time. Furthermore, Ethereum includes a wealth of technical documentation to aid developers in creating dApps and smart contracts.
Ethereum has developed what are seen as token requirements in the NFT market. ERC-721 (NFTs) and ERC-1155 (fungible tokens) are the foundations on which most existing NFTs are based.
Should you be concerned about the expense of producing NFTs on Ethereum, you are not alone. The Ethereum blockchain has been waiting for an update that would allow it to expand to more than 1,000 TPS, improving efficiency (transaction speed) and dramatically lowering the cost of transacting on the blockchain.
That’s not to imply that other blockchains, such as Solana, Polygon, or Cardano, aren’t viable possibilities for generating NFTs, but each has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Ethereum is now the favored blockchain for making, trading, and purchasing NFTs.
Using the most renowned NFT marketplace, OpenSea, digital artists may mint NFTs on the Polygon blockchain. If you do not already have an OpenSea account, follow these steps to establish an NFT on OpenSea.
The good news is that if you pick the Polygon platform for your NFT, you may mint and list it for free. You will incur no upfront expenditures when mining NFTs on Polygon. This is feasible because when opting to mint an NFT on Polygon, the platform employs the sluggish minting option by default. However, after the first sale, the platform levies a 2.5% service fee, which is taken from the NFT’s selling price. Another thing to remember is that even when you are utilizing the Polygon network, the selling price will be in ether (ETH).
Solana seems to be the second most renowned blockchain for NFTs behind Ethereum, with multiple projects being established daily. Given the high Ethereum gas rate, Solana offers a cost-effective option for minting NFTs.
It should be noted that minting NFTs on the Solana blockchain necessitates using a wallet that accepts the Solana network, such as Phantom. You may mint your NFT at one of Solana’s prominent NFT markets, such as SolSea, SolanaArt, or Magic Eden.
So, how much does it cost to construct a Solana blockchain NFT? The expenses are modest, with the Solana service fees required for each on-chain operation.
It should be noted that minting an NFT using the Solana blockchain will result in three blockchain transactions: two for approval and one for establishing the price when advertising the NFT. Each transaction, however, costs roughly 0.00045 SOL – this was the charge when we tested the minting process on SolSea. A transaction cost of $0.0162 equals 1 SOL = $36. The cost of minting an NFT on the Solana blockchain includes three transaction fees on the network, totaling 0.00135 SOL.
The most widely used network for minting NFT is Ethereum. It was also the first network to enable them, and most NFT investors default to Ethereum, even though it is no longer the only NFT blockchain. But how much does an NFT on the Ethereum network cost?
Experienced investors may recall instances when a single NFT minting costs more than $50-$100, based on the time of day and ETH price. That is no longer true, and prominent NFT markets have discovered a way around the costs. Creators can now totally free-mint NFTs on the Ethereum network.
You may utilize any of the most popular markets, such as OpenSea, Rarible, or Mintable, to mint an NFT on Ethereum. After connecting your wallet, you may produce a new NFT and choose between normal and lazy minting. When it comes to the price of producing your NFT on Ethereum, this is the most important decision.
Anything that can be done to lower the cost of developing an NFT is advantageous. The following are some tried-and-true strategies for cutting expenses while constructing NFTs.
Finally, the cost of creating an NFT is heavily influenced by the blockchain. Although Ethereum is the most popular blockchain for producing NFTs, there are alternative blockchains that are less expensive.
Furthermore, technology like lazy minting, gasless minting, and layer 2 scaling methods can assist in minimizing the total cost of producing an NFT. It all comes down to personal taste and whatever NFT marketplace you use.
When answering the question “how much does it cost to produce an NFT,” keep in mind that there is no set amount or methodology? The minting charge will vary depending on the website picked and the gas fee. Some websites will put your NFT for free under specific conditions, while others will charge you up to $300 for the pleasure of seeing it coined. You may gain from your NFT activities if you keep the fees in mind and analyze the potential for benefitting from your NFTs.
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the world's largest securities settlement system, alongside blockchain…
Canadian authorities have charged Aiden Pleterski, a self-proclaimed "crypto king" and well-known social media figure,…
Recent 13F filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) show that over 600…
Switzerland is taking steps to align with international crypto tax reporting standards by planning to…
Hey Crypto Enthusiasts! 👋 🚀 The crypto market is flying up Bitcoin and altcoins…
Since the beginning of April, the cryptocurrency market has seen the creation of over one…