If like many of us you are looking at NFT collections that sell out providing the founders with a $1million to $3million fund, and have thought about launching your own NFT collection, you may be wondering about the cost.
Any project which can provide multimillion-dollar fund, profit or make you a millionaire in just a few months must cost a fortune, right?
It may surprise you that launching an NFT collection can cost as little as $500!
It depends on how technically minded you are, how much of the work you can do yourself and how many of you are involved, but it is possible to launch for just $500.
I know because I have just launched my own NFT collection for the exact sum of $497.56.
Launching an NFT collection can cost from just $500. The biggest expense will be the smart contract necessary for buyers to mint from. The more complex the smart contract the more expensive the gas feel will be. Other costs include website, domain name and hosting, marketing, and graphic design.
In this article I will break down the costs I incurred during the launch of our NFT collection. Much of the technical and graphical work was completed in-house, so did not cost us, but for these tasks I will provide some estimated fees.
Costs Involved Launching NFTs
If you have decided to launch your own NFT collection you will need some very high-level necessities.
These include:
- Website, Domain Name and Hosting
- Twitter Account
- Discord Account
- NFT Graphic Design
- Smart Contract
Let’s take a look at each item in turn, and how much each item is likely to cost.
Website, Domain and Hosting
To promote any NFT collection, and promote the brand and the concept, you really do need a website.
Without a website you can only try and promote the concept of your NFT collection, and its benefits, on social platforms such as Twitter and Discord, which is very difficult.
You can see a good example of an NFT collection website here from NFT Crowdfunding Group which explains the concept of the NFT project, and its benefits, very well.
Being a web designer for many years this is a task we were able to complete in-house without any additional spending.
If though you are new to web design it is something you can learn but it is a steep learning curve, even using web design tools such as WordPress.
I would advise against using web builders such as Wix for a NFT project. These are too restrictive and will be much more difficult to customize for an NFT collection website.
If though this is going to be beyond your technical abilities, or you simply do not have time to do this yourself, you could use the services of a website designed on service marketplaces such as Upwork or Fiverr it should be possible to have a website designed based on your own requirements and NFT project for around $300-$500.
In addition to this you will also need a domain name and hosting for your website.
Fortunately, these are not overly expensive.
The price of a domain name will depend on which company you choose to register your domain, and the extension you choose.
For example, a .com domain name will cost approx… $15 per year whereas a .io domain (which are being used a lot more for NFT project websites) will cost approx… $60 per year.
Hosting should cost no more than $10 per month, and in some cases hosting companies offer a free domain name with each hosting plan.
Total Cost
- $120-$160 – if you can build the website yourself
- $420-$660 – if you also hire a website developer to build your NFT collection website
Twitter Account
Twitter has become the top social media platform to talk about and promote NFTs.
Every NFT influencer will be on Twitter, almost every NFT Collection will have a Twitter account and almost every NFT buyer will have a Twitter account.
If you’re not on Twitter promoting and tweeting about your NFT collection as much as you can, you will be missing out on a huge market and massive potential.
Fortunately opening a Twitter account is free!
Total Cost
- $0 – it’s free to open a Twitter account
Discord Account
If you want to create an NFT collection, and have not used Discord yet, you need a quick crash course!
Discord has quickly become a community hub for NFT collections.
It has become an official social platform for NFT collections to build the all-important community who will support the collection, help it grow and promote to their friends and family.
The Discord channel is also an information hub providing roadmaps, official links, whitepapers, FAQs and NFT project announcements from the founders.
As Discord supports both text messages and voice, it is a great place for NFT projects to hold regular AMA or community updates providing a real voice and person behind the avatar.
Fortunately, like Twitter, opening a Discord channel for your NFT collection is free!
Total Cost
- $0 – it’s free to open a Discord account and channel
NFT Graphic Design
There are two types of NFT buyer, and ideally both need to be catered for when releasing an NFT collection.
These two distinct NFT buyer types are:
- NFT Collector
- NFT Investor
Collectors buy NFTs because they like and appreciate the artwork, or a fan of the artist.
Investors buy NFTs because they feel there is a strong chance of the NFT being worth more in the future and will be able to sell on for a profit.
Unless you are, or are using the services of an established artist, the majority of NFT collections will be attracting investors.
Investors care about artwork too.
The artwork, story and brand behind the collection can be a strong factor in its promotion and future growth.
In order to create 5,000 individual NFTs you will either need to be able to graphic design the various features, accessories and traits or have a designer create those for you.
Then with all the individual pieces you can use software to ‘join’ all the layers together to create hundreds or thousands of different and unique NFTs with the combination of all the layers.
Just 5 types of 6 individual layers are enough to create over 10,000 unique NFTs!
An example of a layer would be the background, another layer could be the characters eyes, another layer their accessories such as laser eyes or a scarf.
This is something again, through the experiences of our team, we were able to create ourselves in-house.
Experienced artists with followings could cost thousands of dollars to have artwork commission, or you could convince an experienced artist with very little NFT knowledge, to become part of the team for a share in the revenue.
An alternative would be to use the services of an NFT artist on a platform such as Fiverr. The cost to create 10,000 individual NFTs is on average $300.
Total Cost
- $0 – if you can design the NFTs in-house, there are various YouTube videos and free software available to help
- $300 – using the services of an NFT creator on Fiverr
Smart Contract
If all the technical talk and processes so far haven’t frightened you away, this one is a whole new level.
Solidity is the programming language used to create smart contracts on the blockchain, such as the Ethereum Network.
So, what is a smart contract?
A smart contract is nothing more than a piece of code that is used whenever someone buys (or mints) and NFT from you.
It sets out the rules of the mint, such as quantity, meta descriptions, images, founder wallet for the revenue to be sent to as well as royalty earnings and which wallet should receive ongoing royalty earnings.
Fortunately, there are many free open-source smart contracts that can be used and tweaked for your NFT project.
There are also free and low-cost courses and tutorials available that can help you take the template code for the smart contract and tweak it for your NFT collection.
This can all be done within an hour.
You can outsource the creation of the smart contract to a developer, but there needs to be an element of trust. Millions of dollars can be generated as a result of the smart contract through minting, and an unscrupulous developer could add their own wallet to receive funds instead of yours.
If you need to find a developer to create the smart contract for you, this can cost anywhere between $100-$500.
Before and after the smart contract code is set live on the blockchain it needs to be checked to make sure all wallet addresses are correct.
If you can create the smart contract yourself and do not incur development cost here, there is an additional cost (a gas fee) for taking the code and setting it live to the blockchain, such as Ethereum.
The gas fee cost depends on how complex the smart contract is.
For an average and relatively basic NFT smart contract it is wise to budget around $500 for gas fee.
It can be considerably cheaper to set the smart contract live during off-peak hours when the demand for miners is lower.
During off-peak hours (between 2am-6am in your local time-zone) this can save between 30%-50% in fees.
Total Cost
- $500 – if you can create the smart contract in-house
- $600-$1,000 – if you need a developer to create the smart contract
Additional Costs to Mint an NFT Collection
The costs mentioned so far are the minimum required to launch an NFT collection.
One cost not covered so far is marketing.
It is possible to keep marketing costs very low by spending time instead of money networking, messaging, tweeting, and growing an audience organically.
This tends to be the best way to build a community but is often the slowest.
There are influencers in the NFT space who can help spread the word of a new NFT collection in the eyes of their huge audience. Some influencers have reach to a strong 100,000+ community looking for new NFTs to buy in to.
Influencer marketing comes at a cost of course. The cost depends on how bullish the influencer is on your project; how big their audience is and what type of promotion they make about your collection.
If you need to launch quickly and want to fill a gap in the market before a competitor gets there, influencer marketing may be the only option.
Costs in the online influencer world, especially in the NFT industry, can spiral quickly!
A budget of $5,000 or more may be needed, but it is still possible to grow an audience slower and more organically for free.
Costs to Launch an NFT Collection – In Conclusion
There are a number of costs to consider when launching an NFT collection.
Here in summary is all the costs involved and potential costs:
Type | Cost Range |
---|---|
Website, Domain and Hosting | $120-$660 |
Twitter Account | $0 |
Discord Account | $0 |
NFT Graphic Design | $0-$300 |
Smart Contract | $500-$1,000 |
Influencer Marketing | $0-$5,000 |
Total | $620-$6,960 |
A 10,000 strong NFT collection selling for 0.08 ETH each would raise capital of $2.4m (!) based on today’s Ethereum price.
This is a huge sum!
Even the highest range of costs associated with a launch are far overshadowed by the potential returns.
Many NFT founders have become millionaires in this very early stage of NFTs before the large businesses with empty pockets take over the space.
Now is the very best time to launch an NFT collection!