Live secondary-sale split - marketplace fee, creator royalty, and seller proceeds - with a collection dial so listed % is never confused with collected cash.
Planning model only. Not a live marketplace fee schedule, tax advice, or volume forecast.
By Ahmet C. Toplutaş·Site owner & editor · Blockchain & NFT tools
Last updated May 21, 2026 · Reviewed May 21, 2026 · Planning estimates only - not tax, medical, or investment advice
01
Creators set a listed royalty - often 5–10% of the secondary sale price - so future trades can route a cut back to the original maker or treasury. That number lives in metadata, marketplace listings, and sometimes on-chain royalty interfaces. It is the rate you advertise, not the cash that reliably lands in a wallet after optional-royalty policies and venue-specific enforcement.
Since roughly 2022–2023, several major marketplaces made creator fees optional or soft-enforced on certain order types. A buyer can fill a trade where the royalty line is zeroed while the contract still “says” 7.5%. The creator sees a gap between listed and collected - and sellers see the same gap as extra proceeds when royalties are skipped.
This page’s job is honesty before you pitch a collection, price a flip, or multiply one trade by volume. The panel shows listed vs collected side by side, then walks the same sale as a sequential waterfall so marketplace fee, creator take, and seller net do not share one fuzzy “fee” number.
Decision framing: “What might I actually receive on this book?” - not “my contract says 7.5%, so secondary income is booked.” Pair royalty math with gas when the edge of a small flip is thin.
02
The collection dial is the unique control on this panel. It does not predict tomorrow’s marketplace policy; it keeps planning math explicit while you compare venues or stress-test a pitch deck.
Enforced assumes the full listed percentage is collected and paid to the royalty receiver - useful when you trade on a venue that still hard-routes fees, or when you want a best-case creator income line. Soft / optional plans at roughly half collected (a 50% collection factor in the panel) - a middle scenario for mixed books where some trades pay and some do not. Skipped models zero creator take so you can read seller proceeds and the “leak” versus the printed contract rate.
Flip the dial on the same price without touching royalty % and watch two things move: creator collected (and volume totals if you raise “sales modeled”) and seller net. That paired motion is the teaching moment - optional books are not “5%” books in cash terms.
Venue chips (OpenSea-like, Blur-like, curated art, thin fee) only adjust marketplace fee % - illustrative sketches, not live fee schedules. Always paste the fee line from the venue you actually use before you trust a waterfall bar.
03
The trade waterfall sequences buyer payment → marketplace fee → creator royalty (if collected) → seller proceeds. Unlike a budget composition stack, a battery runtime clock, or a macro plate remix, it answers “who gets which slice of this secondary trade?” in order.
Marketplace fees usually apply to the full sale price first in planning sketches. Creator royalty is then taken from what remains conceptually - or from the full price depending on venue rules. This panel uses the common planning order: fee and collected royalty both subtract from price for seller net. When royalties are skipped, the listed creator cut typically stays with the seller on optional books - the muted segment on the bar shows that leak visually.
The waterfall is per trade. Multiplying by “sales modeled” is sensitivity analysis - useful for “if 50 trades at this price actually paid enforced royalties” - not a forecast of wash volume or dead-book activity.
04
A collected royalty is creator income and seller cost. Sellers who list an ask against floor without subtracting marketplace fee and expected royalty overstate take-home. On a 1.2 ETH sale with 2.5% venue fee and 5% enforced royalty, seller net is about 1.11 ETH - not 1.14 ETH (fee only) and not 1.20 ETH (gross).
When the dial moves to skipped, seller net rises by the full listed royalty amount - that is why optional-royalty marketplaces became popular with flippers even as creators complained about leakage. Creators and sellers are looking at the same trade from opposite sides of the waterfall.
For profit-and-loss after acquisition cost, pair seller net with your entry price and crypto P/L logic - royalty is one line in a larger trade, not the whole story.
05
EIP-2981 standardizes how a contract exposes a royalty receiver and amount via royaltyInfo(tokenId, salePrice). Wallets and indexers can read the signal; marketplaces decide whether to honor it at settlement. The standard does not, by itself, force every order book to deduct and transfer that amount.
Some collections use on-chain filters, allowlists, or custom protocols that harden collection. Others rely entirely on off-chain marketplace policy - which can change quarter to quarter. Read the venue you ship on, then set the collection dial to match how you want to plan (enforced best case, soft middle, or skipped stress test).
Primary mint revenue, airdrops, and token unlocks follow different economics entirely. Secondary royalty math does not replace vesting or mint-price planning.
06
Example A - PFP flip (enforced). Tap the preset: 1.2 ETH · 5% royalty · 2.5% marketplace fee · enforced mode.
Listed royalty = 1.2 × 5% = 0.06 ETH · Platform fee = 1.2 × 2.5% = 0.03 ETH · Seller net ≈ 1.2 − 0.03 − 0.06 = 1.11 ETH. At $2,500/ETH that is roughly $2,775 to the seller versus $150 to the creator and $75 to the venue on this one trade.
Switch the dial to skipped without changing price: seller net rises to 1.17 ETH (+0.06), creator collected hits zero, and the bar shows the leak versus the 5% listed rate.
Example B - Optional book (soft). Preset: 0.8 ETH · 7.5% listed · 0.5% fee · soft mode (~50% collected).
Listed = 0.8 × 7.5% = 0.06 ETH · Collected ≈ 0.06 × 50% = 0.03 ETH · Seller net ≈ 0.8 − 0.004 − 0.03 = 0.766 ETH. The listed/collected pair makes the pitch-deck gap explicit - do not quote 7.5% as full booked cash on a soft book.
Example C - 1/1 secondary at scale. Preset: 4 ETH · 10% · 5% fee · enforced. Set “sales modeled” to 20 for sensitivity.
One trade: creator collected = 4 × 10% = 0.4 ETH · 20 × 0.4 = 8 ETH creator total if every sale enforced - minus 8 ETH listed leak if every sale skipped instead. That bracket is planning, not volume forecasting; wash trading and illiquid books break naive N × one trade multiplication.
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Not always. EIP-2981 and marketplace listings advertise a creator percentage, but many venues made royalties optional or buyer-chosen after 2022–2023. The panel’s collection dial (enforced / soft / skipped) exists so you model cash you might actually receive - not only the on-paper rate.
It walks one secondary sale from buyer payment → marketplace fee → creator royalty (if collected) → seller proceeds. Fees and royalties both come out of the same sale price in this planning model; real venues can order or display splits differently, but the stack still shows who ends up with how much of the trade.
Usually no. Creator royalties are a secondary-sale concept. Primary mint proceeds are price minus mint/platform costs - a different spreadsheet. Use this page for resales on marketplaces that may honor creator fees.
EIP-2981 standardizes how contracts report a royalty receiver and amount. Enforcement is still a marketplace / protocol policy choice. On-chain royalty filters and custom marketplaces can harden collection; open optional books can soft-skip it. Always check the venue you care about.
Seller net ≈ sale price − platform fee − royalty collected. A high listed royalty helps creators when it is collected, and it reduces what the seller takes home. Pair this with the NFT floor calculator when you are pricing an ask against the book.
No. Multiplying one sale by N is a sensitivity sketch for a collection with repeated flips - not a promise of volume. Liquidity, trait demand, and wash trading can make real royalty income diverge sharply from N × one trade.
LIVE TRADE SPLIT
Listed ≠ collected ↓Sale presets
Collection dial
Venue fee chips
Updates live. Listed royalty % ≠ collected cash. Planning model, not a marketplace quote.
Creator collected
0.06 ETH
Full listed take · 0.06 ETH / sale × 1
LISTED
0.06 ETH
5% × 1 sale
COLLECTED
0.06 ETH
Enforced · 100% of listed
TRADE WATERFALL (one sale)
Buyer pays
1.2 ETH
Secondary sale price
Marketplace fee
0.03 ETH
2.5% of sale
Creator royalty
0.06 ETH
5% collected
Seller proceeds
1.11 ETH
After fee + collected royalty
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