# How to create and mint an NFT

> Minting your own NFT costs a few cents on a modern network and takes about an hour the first time. This covers preparing the work, choosing a chain and a minting route, getting the metadata and storage right so the piece survives, and what actually happens after it exists.

Source: https://thenftacademy.com/learn/how-to-create-an-nft
Last updated: 2026-09-11
Site: The NFT Academy (https://thenftacademy.com)

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Minting an NFT means writing a new record onto a blockchain that says this item exists and
you control it. On a modern network that costs a fraction of a cent and takes a few minutes.

The technical part is easy now. The parts that matter — where the file lives,
what the metadata says, what royalty you set, and whether anyone wants the thing — are less
discussed and more consequential.

### Step 1 — Prepare the work

Export at a sensible resolution. Something in the region of 2000–4000 pixels on the long edge
is plenty for most still work; there’s no benefit to minting a 200MB file and most platforms
will reject it.

**Keep your master file.** This matters more than it sounds. What you mint is a *reference*
to a file, not the file itself. If your only copy is the one you uploaded to a platform and
that platform closes, you’ve lost the work. The blockchain record will still exist, pointing
at nothing.

Consider what the piece looks like at thumbnail size. Most people will encounter it at 200
pixels wide in a grid, not full-screen.

### Step 2 — Choose a chain

This is the decision that determines your costs and, to a degree, your audience.

| Chain | Cost to mint | Worth knowing |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Base** | Fractions of a cent | Fast-growing, good marketplace support, strong default choice in 2026 |
| **Polygon** | Fractions of a cent | Long-established, very widely supported |
| **Solana** | Fractions of a cent | Large separate ecosystem, own wallets and marketplaces, significant art community |
| **Ethereum mainnet** | $5–50+ | The established collectors are here. So are the costs. |
| **Tezos** | Fractions of a cent | Smaller but seriously art-focused, with a distinct community |

**For a first mint, choose anything except Ethereum mainnet.** You learn exactly the same
things for a rounding error instead of a meaningful sum. Mainnet is a decision to make once
you’ve a reason for it — typically an established collector base that expects it.

### Step 3 — Set up and fund a wallet

Same as for buying: install MetaMask or Rainbow, write the recovery phrase on paper, store it
properly, never type it into a website. [The wallet security guide](/learn/how-to-store-nfts-safely)
covers this in more depth, and it’s worth reading before you hold anything of value.

Fund it with a small amount of the network’s native token. On a layer 2, a couple of dollars
covers many transactions.

### Step 4 — Choose your minting route

Three broadly different approaches, in increasing order of control.

#### Should you use a marketplace minting tool?
The marketplace provides a form: upload, title, description, mint. Simplest possible route,
and perfectly adequate for a single piece.

The trade-off is that you’re often minting into the *marketplace’s* shared contract rather
than your own. Your work sits alongside everyone else’s under one contract address, which
limits how it can be presented and ties it somewhat to that platform.

**Good for:** trying this once, single pieces, learning the mechanics.

#### When is a creator platform the better choice?
Tools like Manifold deploy a contract that’s yours outright, without you writing Solidity.
You get your own contract address, real control over metadata and royalties, and work that’s
not tied to one marketplace.

**Good for:** artists who intend to keep minting, and anyone who wants their work under their
own contract.

#### Should you deploy your own contract?
Write an ERC-721 or ERC-1155 contract, usually extending the OpenZeppelin implementations,
and deploy it yourself. Complete control over mechanics, supply, reveal logic and royalties.

**Good for:** developers, and collections with mechanics that off-the-shelf tools can’t
express. If this appeals, [smart contracts explained](/learn/smart-contracts-explained) is the
starting point, and there are [development courses](/courses/nft-development-solidity) worth
considering.

### Step 5 — Metadata and storage, which is the part people get wrong

The metadata is a small JSON file describing your token: name, description, a link to the
image, and any traits. Both the metadata and the image have to live somewhere, and **where
they live determines whether your piece still exists in five years.**

- **IPFS** — content-addressed storage, where the address is derived from the content itself. Durable as long as at least one node keeps the data pinned. Use a pinning service, or pin it yourself. This is the current sensible default.
- **Arweave** — pay once for storage intended to be permanent. More expensive up front, fewer ongoing worries.
- **A web server** — works today, and stops working the moment the domain lapses or the bill goes unpaid. **Avoid this.** A great many 2021-era projects now point at dead URLs.

If your minting tool offers a choice, choose IPFS or Arweave. If it doesn’t tell you what it
uses, find out before you mint. This is the single most common structural flaw in NFTs created
by people who were told minting was easy, because the easy route often defaults to the
fragile option.

For traits, keep them consistent. `Background: Blue` and `background: blue` are different
traits to a marketplace’s filter, and inconsistency across a collection looks careless in a
way that’s visible to buyers.

### Step 6 — Set a royalty, with realistic expectations

You’ll be asked for a royalty percentage on secondary sales. The convention is 5–10%.

Here is the part that’s often left out: **royalties aren’t enforced by the blockchain.**
They’re a payment marketplaces *choose* to route to you, and several major venues made them
optional. A substantial share of secondary volume now pays creators nothing.

So set a royalty, 5% is the sensible default, and don’t build any plans on the income.
[The royalties guide](/learn/nft-royalties-explained) covers why this happened and what, if
anything, can be done about it. If you’re splitting royalties with collaborators, the
[royalty split calculator](/tools/royalty-split-calculator) will save you an argument.

### Step 7 — Mint, then verify properly

Confirm the transaction and wait for it to settle. Then check three things, not one:

1. **The block explorer.** Does the token exist, with the owner you expect?
2. **The metadata link.** Click through to it. Does it resolve? Is it IPFS or a web URL?
3. **A second marketplace.** Does the token render somewhere other than where you minted it? This catches metadata formatting problems that the minting platform’s own preview hides.

That third check is the one people skip, and it’s the one that catches the errors.

### What actually happens after you mint?
Very little, usually. This is the part that beginner guides tend to end before reaching.

**Most minted NFTs never sell.** Not most in the sense of a slight majority — the
overwhelming majority. Minting publishes the object; it doesn’t create demand for it. In a
market where total trading volume fell around 37% in 2025, the competition for a much smaller
pool of buyers is intense.

The artists who sell are, with few exceptions, artists who had an audience *before* they
minted anything. The NFT was a way to sell to people who already wanted the work — not a way
to find those people.

If you’re minting to learn how this works, it has already succeeded the moment the
transaction confirms. If you’re minting to sell, the honest advice is that the audience is
the project and the mint is a detail. That’s slower and less exciting than the 2021 framing,
and it’s what actually held up.

### What should you do once the NFT exists?
- Keep your master files, backed up somewhere that isn’t a platform.
- Pin your IPFS content, or pay someone to.
- Record the transaction details for tax purposes — minting is generally not a taxable event, but selling is, and you’ll want the cost basis.
- Read [scams and red flags](/learn/nft-scams-and-red-flags). Creators are targeted too, usually through fake "your collection has been selected" messages.

## Frequently asked questions

### How much does it cost to mint an NFT?

On Base, Polygon or Solana, a fraction of a cent. On Ethereum mainnet, anywhere from a few dollars to well over fifty depending on congestion. The 'it costs hundreds of dollars to mint an NFT' claim was true in 2021 on mainnet and hasn’t been true generally for years.

### Do I need to know how to code?

No. Marketplace minting tools and platforms like Manifold let you mint without writing anything. Writing your own contract gives you more control and is worth learning if you plan a collection, but it isn’t required to mint a single piece.

### What file formats can I mint?

Effectively anything a marketplace can display: PNG, JPG, GIF, SVG, MP4, WEBM, MP3, GLB and more. Most platforms cap file size somewhere around 100MB. What you mint is a reference to the file — always keep your original master.

### Will my NFT sell?

Probably not, and it’s worth saying so plainly. The large majority of minted NFTs never sell. Minting is publishing, not selling — it creates the object but doesn’t create demand for it. Artists who sell are almost always artists who had an audience first.

### Can I delete an NFT after minting it?

Generally no. Some contracts implement a burn function that destroys the token, but the transaction history remains on-chain permanently. Treat minting as publishing something you can’t fully retract.

## Sources

- [EIP-721: Non-Fungible Token Standard](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-721)