NFT Marketplace Fees Explained: What You Actually Pay
The number on the listing page is never the whole cost. Here’s the full stack — and where each marketplace sits in it.
The four layers
- Marketplace fee — what the venue takes. Ranges from 0% (Blur, OKX NFT) to ~15% (SuperRare’s curated gallery commission). OpenSea currently charges sellers 1%; Magic Eden 2% on Solana; Rarible runs tiered/regressive fees.
- Creator royalty — set by the collection, not the venue. Optional on many marketplaces (buyer or seller chooses), enforced at protocol level on Immutable and for Solana pNFTs on Tensor.
- Gas / network fee — the chain’s transaction cost. Tiny on Solana and L2s, meaningful on Ethereum mainnet.
- Payment processing — card on-ramps (MoonPay and similar) add their own fee, shown at checkout.
A worked example
Sell an NFT listed at the equivalent of $1,000 on a venue with a 2% seller fee and a 5% royalty: marketplace takes ~$20, creator ~$50, gas varies. You receive roughly $930 before any funding or withdrawal costs. Always compute the full stack before listing — the comparison table shows each venue’s buyer/seller split with the date we verified it.
Where the traps are
- “0% fees” usually means 0% marketplace fee — royalties and gas still apply.
- Aggregated listings (Rarible, OKX) carry the source marketplace’s fee, sometimes plus a fee on top.
- Tiered/regressive fees (Rarible) charge small sales a higher percentage — a $50 sale can cost 7.5%.
- Mint fees (Zora ~0.000777 ETH per mint) aren’t percentages at all — different model, different maths.
Bottom line
Never compare marketplaces on the headline fee alone. Compute marketplace fee + royalty + gas + on-ramp for your actual transaction size — and confirm the current figure on the venue’s own fee page, since these change often.