NFT royalty percentages typically range from 5% to 10%, but vary by platform. ERC-2981 standardizes how royalties are encoded, but enforcement is voluntary. Creators rely on royalties for ongoing income, while traders sometimes bypass them-creating tension in the ecosystem.
NFT Royalty Percentage: What It Means and How It Affects Creators and Buyers
When you buy an NFT, you’re not just buying a digital image—you’re buying into a system where the original creator can keep earning every time it changes hands. This is thanks to the NFT royalty percentage, a fixed share of future sales automatically paid to the original artist or designer. Also known as creator royalties, it’s built into the smart contract and triggers without anyone having to ask. Unlike traditional art, where the artist walks away after the first sale, NFTs let creators benefit from the success of their work long after it leaves their wallet.
This system only works if marketplaces honor it. Platforms like OpenSea and Blur used to enforce royalties by default, but now some buyers and platforms ignore them entirely. That’s because there’s no legal requirement—just a code rule. When a buyer uses a different marketplace that doesn’t respect royalties, the creator gets nothing. It’s like selling a painting and then finding out the buyer resold it through a gallery that doesn’t pay you a cut. The NFT marketplace fees, the commission charged by platforms to list or sell NFTs, are often visible and predictable, but creator royalties, the ongoing payments to the original creator from secondary sales are the real heartbeat of sustainable digital art.
The royalty percentage usually sits between 5% and 10%, though some projects go higher. A 10% royalty on a $10,000 resale means $1,000 goes back to the artist. That’s life-changing money for someone who made the art as a side hustle. But when buyers start avoiding platforms that enforce royalties, or when marketplaces drop them to attract volume, creators lose. Some projects now tie royalties to utility—like access to exclusive Discord channels or future drops—so the value isn’t just financial. It’s about community. And that’s where the real power lies.
What you’ll find in the posts below are real examples of how NFT royalty percentage plays out in practice: from marketplaces that changed their rules, to artists who lost income overnight, to buyers who learned the hard way that ignoring royalties can kill a project’s future. You’ll see how fees stack up, how some platforms pretend to support creators while quietly undermining them, and what happens when the code breaks down. This isn’t theory—it’s what’s happening right now, in real time, on the blockchain.