If you’re new to the scene, it isn’t out of the norm to ask: “how much does an NFT cost?” Although obviously the cost of NFTs differ depending on the asset’s price, you can’t forget there are other hidden costs involved—gas fees, royalties, and transaction fees, to name a few.

So before diving head first into a new and upcoming “no roadmap” NFT project, it may benefit you to know all the costs associated with NFTs, including the listing price.

First-time fees

For the purpose of this article, we’ll only be looking at the costs associated with buying, selling, and trading NFTs through OpenSea, using the Ethereum blockchain.

Are you a creator? Or maybe you run an NFT project, and you’re looking to list your collection for the first time ever—either way, if you’re asking yourself, “how much does an NFT cost?” on the seller-side, you’re in for a treat.

OpenSea requires that all first-time sellers pay two fees before their first sale: a one-time initialization fee and listing fees. 

You’ll have to pay a one-time variable fee when listing an NFT (or initializing it) on OpenSea’s storefront if you’re a new user or using a new wallet. The reason? OpenSea has to confirm they can transact with your wallet each time a sale is about to be completed for your listed—and future—collections. So basically, this fee is the metaphorical “thumbs up” on your end.

Since your account is connected to your cryptocurrency wallet, we recommend you stick to a single wallet for your transactions. You don’t want to end up paying an initialization fee each time you list something.

Initialization fees vary depending on network congestion, although there have been reports that it ranges between $70 and $300. Quite a hefty fee if you ask me.

Next up: listing fees. As the name suggests, this is a fee for initially listing a particular token or contract. Think of it as the fee you must pay when listing your second, third, and fourth collections on the platform.

Remember, you’re only playing for the initial approval of a collection. So, if the collection contains hundreds of PFP NFTs, you’ll only be paying for the first NFT in the pool.

Again, the fee depends on the network’s current gas levels, but people tend to pay less for listing fees—$10 to $30, to be exact.

Recurring fees

You can’t ask yourself, “how much does an NFT cost?” without mentioning recurring fees. They’re the fees you’ll be paying the most if you plan to stick around for the long run.

Recurring fees are both on the buyer and seller sides. For the most part, if you’re a trader, you’ll be paying the bulk of OpenSea’s service fees, plus any royalty fees if the collection you bought from opted for this.

Luckily, OpenSea’s service fees are fixed and aren’t too bad. For each NFT you buy, you’ll have to pay a 2.5% transaction fee. 

If you dread paying this fee, just remember: OpenSea needs to make an earning to keep the marketplace running. Its 2.5% transaction fee is the largest source of its revenue, so if you’re big on OpenSea, or you despise the competition, you may want to rethink your position on this matter.

Don’t forget—you’ll also probably pay a “creator” fee, or royalty fee, each time you buy an NFT from a collection. Think of it as supporting your favourite artist… I mean, isn’t that what NFTs are all about?

Royalty fees go directly into the pockets of the collection’s creator or the person who uploaded the NFT collection onto OpenSea. What’s interesting about royalty fees is that they have a 10% cap; regardless, the creator and quite often the community are the ones who set the fee. 

And this fee can be changed at any time. For example, if the creator isn’t earning much, they could always up the royalty fee to 10%, which means you as the buyer will be paying 12.5% in fees for each NFT bought off the collection. 

As the buyer, you’ll also have to pay additional gas fees if you cancel a bid on an NFT. It’s basically OpenSea’s way of charging you for going back on your word. That isn’t cool, anon.

Onto the seller side: how much does an NFT cost if you’ve already paid the initialization and listing fee?

Surprisingly, there aren’t that many additional fees you have to pay if you’re looking to sell your NFT. They include:

• Accepting an offer
• Transferring your NFT to another wallet
• Cancelling a listing
• Lowering the price more than once

And like most other fees, they’re all dependent on gas prices at the time.

One more thing: for any user on the platform, if you ever convert WETH to ETH, or vice-versa, you’ll have to pay gas fees. 

Listing prices

We covered the fees associated with purchasing and selling NFTs… but what about the actual cost of an NFT? Let’s be honest, it carries the most weight when answering the question “how much does an NFT cost?” and it’s the first thing you think about when you first start your journey in the NFTverse. 

Like I said, the price of an NFT varies depending on the collection and market conditions. For example, the legendary Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) was valued at a staggering floor price of $423,154 back in March/April of 2022. 

But if you peep the collection as of June 2022, it fell by quite a bit. BAYC dropped to less than a quarter of its all-time high—now it’s sitting at $82,252. You can search it up if you don’t believe me.

In this situation, we’re only talking about the big players. These are called “blue chips” in the NFT scene, and collections like RTFKT, CryptoPunks, CyberKongz, Cool Cats, Azuki, and a couple others are a part of this coveted group. All you have to know is that they often sell for five to six figures.

But if we disregard the larger collections, you’ll see that most NFTs are listed for a couple hundred to a couple thousand USD. Take Karafuru and Alien Frens: they exemplify robust projects with reasonable floor prices. 

And that’s not saying they’re worse than the big blue chips—it’s just  that they don’t have a community or history of building like their bigger counterparts.

So really, how much does an NFT cost?

If you ever wondered how much does an NFT cost, you’ll know by now that it depends on numerous factors.

All in all, if you’re looking to sell an NFT for the first time ever on OpenSea, you’ll have to spare some ETH for an initialization and listing fee. You might also be required to pony up some ETH for additional fees if you cancel your listing, accept an offer, or transfer an NFT to another wallet.

Suppose you’re in the market to buy. In that case, you’ll have to pay up to hundreds of thousands of dollars for the NFT listing, OpenSea’s 2.5% service fee, plus any royalty fees set by the creator of the collection.