How Much Does It Cost To Make An NFT?

In a billion dollar business, how much does it cost to start?

NFTs are widely popular today, although many people are still unfamiliar with the technology behind them.  

If you're new to the world of crypto and blockchain, you may have heard about minting NFTs but have no idea about the cost or how to get started if you want to create your NFT.

Well, no worries. In today’s article, we have put together everything you need to know about the cost of creating your own NFTs.

Without further ado, let’s dive in. 

What Is an NFT?

To put it simply, an NFT serves as a digital certificate of ownership for digital assets, which can include anything that resembles real-world things and the arts, including paintings, photography, music, video, virtual real estate, games, etc.

NFTs stand for non-fungible tokens, which use blockchain technology and their own metadata codes to maintain ownership and uniqueness on digital ledgers. Non-fungible tokens are unique and cannot be swapped for other tokens. 

When a digital asset is produced, it is posted to the blockchain as a file along with metadata, also known as the NFT containing details about the asset and its creator. NFTs can be showcased, bought, sold, traded, and collected.

What is NFT minting?

NFT minting is the process of creating your NFT and registering it on a selected blockchain. 

Individual works of art and collectibles must first be minted on a blockchain like Ethereum, Solana, or another NFT-compatible chain to become one-of-a-kind NFTs. The artwork or item is encrypted using a special code and stored on the selected blockchain, enabling individual ownership. 

This entails using the native cryptocurrency wallet of the selected blockchain as well as the native currency of the blockchain to pay for the transaction costs. The selected network requires you to verify and add your transaction to its blockchain as all transactions require registration and a small gas cost.

How Much Does It Cost To Make An NFT?

NFTs creation costs start from around $0.05 and may increase to the hundreds, depending on the blockchain and platform. NFT creation costs vary depending on several variables, including blockchain costs, gas fees, marketplace account fees, listing fees, etc. 

The most expensive NFT creation blockchain is Ethereum while the least expensive blockchain is Solana. The blockchain fee includes the major portion of NFT minting cost.

When it's busiest, the Ethereum blockchain occasionally charges fees of up to $500 to create a single NFT.

NFTs' Minting Cost Factors

Multiple factors influence the cost of minting NFTs. Here are a few main factors.

Gas prices

The cost incurred to complete transactions on blockchains is known as a gas fee. The gas fee depends on the blockchain's demand at the time a transaction begins. 

There is a gas price associated with creating an NFT, listing it, accepting offers, transferring ownership, and purchasing. Gas prices increase when there’s higher usage on a particular blockchain platform. 

Account Fees

Account fees are the costs spent on the NFT marketplace. It is a one-time fee paid when the Marketplace account is created, and the crypto wallet is integrated into it.

List price

While certain NFT marketplaces offer free lazy NFT minting, others charge a fee to list NFTs for trading.

The most frequent expenses related to the creation of NFTs are these three. But because each blockchain has its own set of established mechanisms, the price varies. 

The price of producing a given NFT may vary even inside the same blockchain. The cost estimation may be impacted by factors such as data volume, transaction volume, blockchain demand, time of minting, and quality.

Features Cost

The cost of constructing an NFT is increased by several other factors. These include elements such as size, quality, format, version of the NFT, and how sophisticated your work of art is. 

Let's examine how each of these influences an NFT's creation cost. 

The NFT's Size

The size of the NFT is the first aspect that affects how much it costs to produce. The price will increase as the size and complexity of the design increase.

The Quality of the NFT

An NFT's pricing is significantly influenced by its quality. You have the option as an NFT artist or maker of creating a free NFT using already contributed photos and designs. 

The percentage of the royalty is another important factor here. The commission the original artist receives when one of their works of art is sold is known as "royalty."

Because the original creator will always receive a percentage regardless of how frequently the NFT is sold or resold, the higher the royalty percentage, the higher the price will be.

You should keep in mind that by including royalties, you are altering the NFT's design. As a result, it will eventually raise the cost of making an NFT overall.

The NFT Format

The format, in addition to the NFT's size and quality, contributes significantly to the NFT's creation cost. It fully depends on the artist's imagination and what they envision for their NFT.

Any supported NFT file, including PNG, JPG, GIF, MP4, FVG, WEBM, WAV, MP3, OGG, GLTF, and CLB are available to the artist. 

Compatibility with every media is one of the NFT world's invariant advantages. It implies that the developed NFT should work with all forms of media and that mobile devices should also be able to access digital material.

Platforms

Using Ethereum to Mint NFTs

The Ethereum platform, which was the first blockchain to facilitate the registration of digital products, is the most generally used blockchain for NFTs. 

Although the initial gas price for minting on Ethereum was higher, the recent proof-of-stake developments have lowered the NFT creation gas costs. 

It's also crucial to remember that gas fees affect the entire cost of the NFT you're creating. As a result, creating an NFT during a busy period when many users are utilizing the network may result in a higher overall gas fee.

The base cost and the tip make up the current Ethereum gas fee. The tip is given to the miner, and the base fee is burnt.

Here’s the formula to calculate gas fees,

Total transaction fee = Gas Units (Limit) × (Base Fee + Priority Fee)

• Gas limit: The most gas units (in gwei, which you can track with the alphaday ethereum dashboard) you're willing to spend

• Base Fee: The base charge is set by the blockchain network.

• Priority Fee: The amount you pay as a priority to encourage miners and validators to give your transaction priority over others

The majority of NFT creators continue to favor Ethereum for the straightforward reason that it was the initial blockchain for NFTs, making it the most well-liked. 

However, today there are more options available to creators, including Polygon and Solana. 

Using Polygon to Mint NFTs

You can mint NFTs on the Polygon blockchain by using the most well-liked NFT marketplace, OpenSea. The amazing news is that you can mint and list your NFT for free if you select the Polygon network.

To mine NFTs on Polygon, there are no upfront costs. The platform's default use of the lazy minting option when deciding to mint an NFT on Polygon makes this possible.

However, the platform charges a 2.5% service fee that is deducted from the selling price when the NFT is initially sold. Another thing to keep in mind is that the selling price will be in ether even though you are using the Polygon network.

Using Solana to Mint NFTs

In terms of NFTs, Solana is the second-most popular blockchain after Ethereum, with new projects being launched daily. Given the high gas cost for Ethereum, Solana is a more affordable choice for making NFTs.

Remember that NFT minting on the Solana blockchain requires the use of a wallet compatible with the Solana network, such as Phantom. You can choose from several well-known Solana marketplaces, such as SolSea, Magic Eden, and SolanaArt to mint your NFTs.

The costs are minimal because all on-chain operations require only paying the Solana transaction fees. The costs associated with minting NFT collections on Solana are significantly less expensive, averaging $0.03–$0.08 per NFT.

Lazy Minting

NFT creators can mint their NFTs for free by using lazy minting. When using lazy minting, the real blockchain registration of your NFT doesn't happen until after the NFT has been bought.

In this instance, the minting fee is paid for by the selling price of the NFT. In reality, the buyer—not the NFT creator—is in charge of minting the tokens.

Since only sold NFTs go through minting with lazy minting, there are fewer requirements for processing power. To help all digital artists and NFT creators gain more visibility, lazy minting is available on the most well-known NFT marketplaces. 

What Is the Cost to Create an NFT Collection?

NFT collections require more work and costs to create than individual NFTs.

A group of NFTs that were produced at random is known as an NFT collection. A single collection can contain anything from 100 to more than 100,000 NFTs. VeeFriends and Bored Apes are a few examples of NFT collections.

An NFT collection can be created for as little as $150 if you do it all yourself or for as much as $10,000 if you hire someone to do it for you. This covers the price of the smart contract, creating the website, and the artwork.

A collection as a whole is more challenging to sell than a couple of your own NFT creations, so keep that in mind when starting your own NFT collection. NFT collections are typically used by brands and companies to market to their current clientele. 

If you’re just starting off, you might want to consider making a few of your own NFTs before jumping in headfirst.

The four elements that commonly make up an NFT collection are the artwork, smart contract, metadata, rarities, and website.

Art

You can save anywhere between $50 and $500 on the creation of your own original works of art for your NFT collection if you are an artist. In any other case, you'll have to pay a freelance NFT artist around $50 to $1000 for a base character plus extra per trait if you want numerous variations of your NFT.

Metadata and Rarities

The content and the description of the material described in the contract are NFT metadata, and they are both kept on the blockchain. The rarities are part of the metadata. Certain NFTs will have varying rarity depending on how many distinct variations of features your NFT collection has.

Any NFT's metadata is a crucial component. It essentially serves as the "contract" or "terms" of every single NFT. Depending on how many features your NFT collection has, metadata integration typically costs $150 to $500.

The Smart Contract

All the coding required for your NFT collection to be minted on the blockchain is contained in the smart contract. The smart contract is essential for your NFT collection to operate, which is why hiring someone to design a smart contract often costs around $500.

Website 

You will require your own minting website if you do not intend to mint your NFT collection utilizing an NFT marketplace.

The website will serve as a landing page for customers who want to buy (mint) your NFT collection. Employing someone to develop a minting website often costs between $500 and $1,000.

How to Lower the Costs of Creating NFTs

It is advantageous to take all steps you can to lower the overall cost of making an NFT. Here are a few tried suggestions to assist you to cut costs when producing your NFTs.

• Mint your NFT when there’s less activity: Reduced transaction costs are frequently available late at night when the blockchain is less active. Less demand implies cheaper minting for you on the blockchain. However, remember the time differences, for example, if you’re living in an Asian country like India, then nighttime may have extra costs as it will be morning in other parts of the world like the U.S. 

• Utilize a marketplace that provides gasless or lazy minting: The use of lazy minting eliminates the requirement for up-front payment for your creation. You can mint an NFT with gasless minting at no cost.

• Try to create your own work: If you are creating a full NFT project, you can save a lot of money by creating your own artwork, writing your smart contracts, and creating your own minting website.

• Make use of cheap blockchains: In the end, the price to build an NFT mostly relies on the blockchain you employ. Although Ethereum is the most popular blockchain for building NFTs, there are alternative, more affordable blockchains available. Blockchains that provide affordable minting are Polygon, Solana, and Cardano. But keep in mind that these blockchains aren't as well-known as Ethereum.

Conclusion

In this article, we saw that NFT doesn't cost much. In fact, if you use a well-liked platform like OpenSea and enable lazy minting, it can be entirely free. 

Depending on the account, gas, and listing costs charged by the blockchain, the cost of producing an NFT may be more or lower. Price increases are also influenced by supply and demand.

Another important aspect of NFT's minting cost is its complexity. Size, quality, format, and single or different versions of NFT are all examples of this.

Last but not least, the time and day that the artwork will be made into an NFT are important. Days with on-chain activity could cost more than days with off-chain activities (weekends may be cheaper). 

So, keep these in mind when you’re creating your NFTs.