NFT Royalty Calculator: Creator Royalty on a Secondary Sale
Work out the creator royalty an NFT generates on a secondary sale from the resale price and the royalty percentage — and see what's left of the sale price after the royalty is taken.
Adjust the inputs and select Calculate for a full breakdown.
Compare Common Scenarios
How the numbers shift across typical situations for this calculator:
| Scenario | Creator royalty | Rest of sale price |
|---|---|---|
| 10% of $2,000 ($200) | 200 | 1,800 |
| 5% of $5,000 | 250 | 4,750 |
| 7.5% of $800 | 60 | 740 |
| 2.5% of $20,000 (high-value) | 500 | 19,500 |
How This Calculator Works
Enter the royalty percentage set on the NFT and the price it resold for. The calculator returns the royalty paid to the creator and the remainder of the sale price. It models the headline royalty only — marketplace fees and gas are separate.
The Formula
Percentage of an Amount
Amount is the base value, Percentage is the rate applied to it
Worked Example
A 10% royalty on a $2,000 resale is $200 to the creator, leaving $1,800 of the sale price. Royalties were the headline promise of NFTs — perpetual income to creators on every resale — but the reality has been rocky: many marketplaces made royalties optional or stopped enforcing them to compete on lower fees, so the royalty you set is not always the royalty you collect. The on-chain royalty is a request the marketplace can choose to honor or ignore.
Key Insight
NFT royalties exposed a hard truth about on-chain enforcement: a royalty encoded in metadata is only as real as the marketplaces' willingness to honor it. During fee-driven competition, several major platforms made creator royalties optional, and trading moved to whichever venue charged sellers least — collapsing royalty income for many creators. The lesson generalizes beyond NFTs: 'programmable, perpetual royalties' depend on the surrounding ecosystem actually enforcing them, not just on the code. If you're a creator, check which marketplaces enforce royalties and how (some use on-chain allowlists or transfer hooks); if you're a buyer, know that the royalty is part of your real cost only where it's enforced. This calculator shows the nominal royalty — what you actually pay or receive depends on the marketplace.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is an NFT royalty calculated?
Multiply the resale price by the royalty percentage. A 10% royalty on a $2,000 resale is $200 to the creator, leaving $1,800 of the sale price for the seller before marketplace fees.
Are NFT royalties actually paid?
Not always. Royalties are a request encoded in the NFT, but marketplaces choose whether to enforce them. During fee competition, several major platforms made royalties optional or stopped honoring them, so the royalty set on a collection may not be the amount creators actually collect.
What's a typical NFT royalty rate?
Commonly 5% to 10% of the resale price, though some collections set higher. The rate is chosen by the creator when the collection is minted. Remember it's the headline rate — actual collection depends on whether the marketplace where it trades enforces royalties.
Do marketplace fees come out of this?
Separately. This calculator shows the creator royalty and the remaining sale price. Marketplace fees (the platform's cut) and gas/transaction costs are additional deductions from the seller's proceeds, so the seller nets less than the remainder shown here.
Can royalties be enforced on-chain?
Partially. Some projects use on-chain mechanisms like transfer hooks or marketplace allowlists to enforce royalties, blocking trades on venues that don't honor them. These approaches trade off composability and flexibility for enforcement, and adoption varies — so enforcement is improving but not universal.
Related Calculators
Methodology & Review
The royalty is the royalty percentage applied to the resale price; the remainder is what's left of the sale price after the royalty. It models the headline royalty only and does not account for marketplace fees, gas costs, or whether the marketplace actually enforces the royalty.
Written by Ugo Candido · Last updated May 22, 2026.