Asking how much one NFT costs is like asking how much a pair of shoes costs.
The answer: It really depends.
There are so many factors that play into NFT pricing.
In this article, I am going through all the major factors that influence NFT pricing.
Let’s dive right into it, and as always, let us start with a short overview before we go more in-depth.
How much is one NFT?
There is no set price for NFTs. An NFT can cost anywhere from a few cents up to a few millions of dollars for the rarest and most sought-after NFT’s. However, at the time of minting, most NFT’s only cost a fraction of what they are traded for later on on secondary markets (=if we are talking about successful NFT projects that is).
NFT Pricing Factors
The price of an NFT depends on many different factors. Here are the most important ones:
- The blockchain the NFT is on
- The supply of the NFT (how big is the collection)
- The popularity of the NFT project and the team behind it
- The current cryptomarket conditions
Let us go through all of these to get a better picture about how NFT pricing works.
The Blockchain the NFT is based on
So far, most NFT’s are Ethereum-based. Traditionally, ETH-based NFT’s are more expensive than NFT’s on other blockchains.
The mint price for many ETH NFT’s has been in the hundreds and in some cases also in the thousands of dollars per NFT.
That doesn’t mean that there are no cheap NFT collections out there.
In fact, some of the most successful NFT collections such as the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) minted for an incredibly low mint price. In the case of BAYC, the mint price was a mere 0.08 ETH, back in April 2021.
However, prices decreased pretty substantially in the last couple of months as we are now in a bear market.
The market is bleeding heavily and so people are not ready to spend that much money on NFT’s anymore (at least not to mint them).
This is also why we see more and more free mints, both on Ethereum and also on Solana
The Popularity of the NFT Project and the Team behind it
As we have seen in this article, the price at which an NFT collection is selling for, depends on a whole range of factors.
One such factor is certainly the popularity of the founder/artist of an NFT collection.
For instance, well known brands that are entering the NFT space such as Adidas and Nike are likely to sell their NFT’s for a higher (mint) price than other projects.
Nike has just recently sold some of their Digital Sneakers for above six figures.
Then we also have these brands that emerged out of the NFT market such as the Bored Ape Yacht Club.
As mentioned earlier on, this collection originally minted for 0.08 ETH.
But since the mint, prices skyrocketed like crazy and the founders of Bored Ape Yacht Club, Yuga Labs, made millions of dollars with their NFT collection.
Now, due to the insane success of BAYC, it shouldn’t come as a surprise, that their second NFT collection after the original BAYC mint, namely the BAYC land sale, better known as Otherdeed NFT, sold for a very high mint price of 2.5 ETH (which was around 6’000 dollars the time) and quickly sold out despite the high supply of 87k items!
Who Determines the Price of an NFT Collection
First and foremost, the founders of the NFT collection decide by themselves how much they would like to initially sell their NFT’s for (=minting stage).
These prices heavily vary depending on the market conditions and also on the blockchain the NFT is based on.
For instance, NFT founders on Solana usually set a much lower mint price for NFT’s than it is the case with projects on Ethereum.
This has a lot to do with the actual popularity of NFT’s on these blockchains, though.
ETH NFT’s have always dominated the NFT market, however, Solana NFT’s have become much more popular in recent days.
To put this in perspective, for a long time, most NFT transactions took place on the Ethereum NFT platform “OpenSea.”
This is no longer the case, though, as Magic Eden, a Solana NFT marketplace, has recently surpassed the number of transactions that OpenSea is doing.
Yet, one of the main reasons why this is the case is that Solana is actually a much faster blockchain than Ethereum; Solana can handle much more transactions per minute than Ethereum and that obviously works in the favor of Solana as far as the amount of total transactions go.
Mint Price vs. Secondary Market Price
When talking about the price of an NFT, you always have to distinguish about the mint price (=the set price the nft is sold for in the very beginning), vs. the price of the NFT’s once they hit the secondary market.
Whereas the mint price is usually a set price, for instance, 0.2 ETH per NFT, the prices on the secondary market vary depending on the supply & demand.
In fact, the buyers of the NFTs can decide by themselves for how much they would like to sell their NFT for.
Most buyers typically list their NFT’s on or near the floor price, as this is where most new buyers will buy in and this also increases the chances of a quick sell.
If you are holding rare NFT’s out of a collection, listing on the floor price is obviously not encouraged.
In this case, you will want to list your NFT for a higher price, depending on how rare your NFT is.
Frequently asked questions on NFT pricing
What is the typical mint price of Ethereum NFT’s?
The average ETH-based NFT costs about 0.05 to 0.1 ETH to mint (+gas fees). However, mint prices change all the time and heavily depend on the project. Also, mint prices follow the market conditions and as we are now in a bear market, we see more and more free mints.
What is the typical mint price of a Solana-based NFT?
Mint prices heavily depend on the current market conditions. At the moment, Solana NFT’s are usually priced around 0.5 to 2 SOL per NFT.
How much is an NFT worth?
The worth of an NFT can range anywhere from 0 up to millions of dollars. To get a good understanding of how much your NFT is worth, make sure to check the rarity of your NFT (within the collection!) and check the Floor Price (FP) of the collection.
How much do Degen mints cost?
Degen mints are usually very cheap. In many cases they are even free, which means that you will only need to pay for gas fees. On Solana, Free Degen mints are literally almost free, as the fees are close to zero. On Ethereum, a free mint can still cost you a considerable amount of money as the gas fees are very high (ranging from a dozen dollars up to 100’s if not 1000’s of dollars at certain times.)