Alexdo

Building an NFT marketplace doesn’t have to begin with a massive budget or a feature set comparable to OpenSea. When working with early-stage founders, I find out that their real objective at this stage is far more practical. All they need is to validate the idea, understand real user demand, and confirm that transactions can actually happen on the platform. And we call it an MVP.

With a limited budget, it’s still possible to launch a functional NFT marketplace MVP if you’re clear about what truly matters. I believe that the key lies in knowing which features are essential, which ones can wait, and how development costs are typically distributed at the early stage.

What Does an MVP Mean for an NFT Marketplace?

An MVP is a smaller version of the final product. At this stage, you are trying to see whether people are actually willing to mint NFTs, put them up for sale, and complete real transactions on your platform. So the only focus should be the basic user flow.

Can a user come in, connect a wallet, mint an NFT, list it for sale, and buy or transfer it without getting stuck? If that flow works smoothly, you already have a usable MVP.

For most early-stage projects, the core features are straightforward:

Wallet connection

NFT minting

Listing NFTs at a fixed price

Buying and transferring NFTs

When these pieces are in place, the marketplace is technically alive.

Now, there’s only one thing you should figure out: “Will people actually use this marketplace to create and trade NFTs?” If the answer is yes, you can move forward with confidence. If the answer is no, you’ve learned that lesson early without burning a large budget. That’s exactly what an NFT marketplace MVP is supposed to do.

Core Features You Can Build With a Limited Budget

As early-stage founders often have tight budget, every features you decide to build should help users complete their core flow. Below are the core components that most NFT marketplace MVPs can realistically support with pushing cost and complexity too far.

Wallet Integration

Wallet connection is the entry point to everything else. Without it, there is no identity, no ownership, and no transaction.

Most MVPs start by supporting one or two widely used wallets, such as MetaMask or WalletConnect. This is usually enough to allow users to sign transactions, mint NFTs, and make purchases without creating unnecessary friction. Adding more wallets at this stage rarely improves validation results, but it does increase development and testing effort.

Basic NFT Minting

Minting is one of the first actions users try on an NFT marketplace, so it needs to be reliable and easy to understand.

At the MVP stage, minting is typically kept very simple. Users mint one NFT at a time, metadata follows a fixed structure, and royalty logic is either basic or omitted altogether. This keeps the smart contract logic straightforward and reduces the risk of errors.

The goal here isn’t flexibility. It’s making sure creators can mint NFTs without confusion or failed transactions.

NFT Listing and Fixed-Price Sales

Many founders are tempted to build auctions, bidding systems, or dynamic pricing models early on. In practice, these features rarely help validate demand.

Most limited-budget MVPs stick to fixed-price listings and a simple “Buy Now” flow. Once a purchase is completed, ownership is transferred on-chain, and the transaction is recorded.

This setup is enough to test whether users are willing to pay for NFTs on your platform. More complex trading mechanisms can always be added later, once real usage justifies the investment.

Standard Smart Contracts

Smart contracts are one of the biggest cost drivers in NFT marketplace development. To keep things manageable, MVPs usually rely on established standards like ERC-721 or ERC-1155 with minimal customization.

Using reusable, audited contract templates helps reduce development time and lowers security risks. It also allows teams to focus on user experience and core flows instead of reinventing well-known contract logic.

At this stage, stability matters more than originality.

Basic User Profiles

User profiles in an MVP serve a very practical purpose. They help users see what they own and what they have listed.

Most MVP profiles include little more than a wallet address, owned NFTs, and listed NFTs. There are no social interactions, no ranking systems, and no advanced dashboards. Anything beyond that usually adds cost without contributing much to early validation.

Transaction History

A clear transaction history builds confidence, especially for first-time users.

Even a simple transaction log allows users to track purchases, verify ownership changes, and understand what has happened on the platform. In many cases, this can be implemented by indexing existing blockchain data rather than building custom infrastructure.

It’s a small feature, but it plays an important role in trust and transparency.

These features will form a complete and usable NFT marketplace MVP.

What You Should Not Build in an MVP to Save Cost

One of the easiest ways to burn through an early budget is by building features before there is any clear reason to have them. At the MVP stage, many features feel exciting on paper but add very little value in practice.

Auction systems and bidding logic are a common example. They increase development time and introduce more edge cases, yet they rarely change the answer to the core question you are trying to validate. Multi-chain support falls into the same category. Supporting multiple blockchains early on sounds strategic, but it usually complicates development and testing without bringing in more meaningful feedback from users.

Advanced analytics dashboards, social interactions like likes or comments, governance mechanisms, and custom recommendation engines also tend to be postponed in well-scoped MVPs. These features require ongoing maintenance and technical depth, while early users are often far more concerned with whether minting and buying NFTs simply works.

At this stage, simplicity protects both your budget and your focus.

Estimated NFT Marketplace MVP Cost

In practice, most NFT marketplace MVPs fall into a range of $20,000 to $60,000, depending on how early technical choices are made. Projects on simpler chains with standard smart contracts and a focused feature set tend to sit at the lower end. More customized contracts, higher UI expectations, or teams based in higher-cost regions can quickly push the budget upward.

Blockchain selection has a direct impact on both development and testing effort. Smart contract customization also plays a significant role, especially when security considerations are taken seriously. Team structure and location influence cost just as much, while interface polish often becomes an invisible multiplier that founders underestimate early on.

At the MVP stage, most founders invest just enough to launch a usable product, support real transactions, and observe how users behave. The intention is to learn quickly, validate assumptions, and avoid overcommitting resources before there is evidence of demand.

Before moving beyond this phase, it becomes important to review a detailed NFT marketplace development cost breakdown that explains how feature expansion, scalability requirements, and security upgrades affect long-term investment. Having that clarity early helps teams plan the next stage without running into avoidable technical or financial surprises.

How to Reduce NFT Marketplace MVP Cost

Cost control at the MVP stage is less about cutting corners and more about making intentional choices.

When you focus on a single blockchain, you will keep the technical surface area manageable. Using proven smart contract templates reduces both development time and security risks. A clean, simple interface often performs better for early users than a heavily customized design.

Another effective approach is to build around one primary user role first, either the creator or the buyer. Expanding to support multiple roles can come later, once usage patterns are clearer. Advanced security layers can also be phased in gradually as traction grows.

These decisions help teams stay lean while still delivering a reliable product.

How Long Does It Take to Build an NFT Marketplace MVP

In most real projects, the early planning and technical design phase usually takes around 1 to 2 weeks. This is where architecture decisions, blockchain selection, and core flows are defined. Smart contract development often follows in the next 2 to 3 weeks, especially when using standard ERC-721 or ERC-1155 templates with limited customization.

Frontend development and wallet integration typically require another 2 to 3 weeks, depending on how simple the interface is and how many user flows are supported. Testing, bug fixing, and deployment usually take an additional 1 to 2 weeks, particularly when basic security checks and transaction flows need to be verified.

When everything is combined, most focused teams are able to launch an NFT marketplace MVP within 6 to 10 weeks. Teams with strong experience in blockchain development and a tightly controlled scope can sometimes move faster, while more complex setups naturally extend the timeline.

For early-stage founders, this timeframe is often enough to move from idea to real user interaction without overcommitting resources or delaying market feedback.

Final Thoughts

Building an NFT marketplace MVP with a limited budget is entirely achievable when the scope is handled with care. The strongest MVPs are guided by clarity rather than ambition.

Founders who succeed at this stage tend to ask a simple, practical question. What is the minimum needed to prove that this idea works in the real world.

When startups start researching crypto wallets, there can be confusion around wallet types. Hot wallets, cold wallets, custodial, non-custodial, single-chain, multi-chain, everything seems to be thrown into the same bucket. Most articles present them as if these were different wallet “types” competing with each other, which leads founders to ask the wrong questions from the very beginning.

The truth is simpler. These terms are not on the same level, and they are not meant to replace one another. They describe different dimensions of how a wallet works. When you understand this, wallet decisions won’t be confusing anymore.

The 3 independent dimensions of a crypto wallet

Every crypto wallet can be described using three independent dimensions. Each dimension answers a different question, and none of them cancels out the others.

A real-world wallet is always a combination of all three questions: Is the wallet online? Who holds the private key? And How many blockchain are supported?

The key point here is to think in dimensions instead of “type”. This will give your crypto wallet a clear direction.

Here is how these dimensions break down:

Hot vs. cold wallets: Is the wallet online?

The first dimension is about connectivity. A hot wallet is connected to the internet and designed for frequent interaction. This is what most people think of when they imagine a crypto wallet inside an app, a browser extension, or a web platform. It supports fast transactions and real-time usage, which makes it suitable for DeFi, payments, NFT minting, and most product experiences.

A cold wallet, by contrast, stays offline. Its purpose is not convenience but security. Cold wallets are built for storing assets long term and minimizing attack surfaces. Hardware wallets are the most common example. This choice has nothing to do with who owns the assets. It only answers one question: does the wallet need to be online to function?

Custodial vs. non-custodial wallets: Who holds the private keys?

This is the dimension that matters most for startups. In a custodial wallet, the platform holds the private keys on behalf of users. From the user’s perspective, this often feels familiar and simple. Password resets are possible, onboarding is smoother, and the product can guide users more tightly.

In a non-custodial wallet, users control their own private keys. Ownership and responsibility sit entirely with them. This model aligns strongly with Web3 principles, but it also shifts risk to the user and makes UX harder to design well.

This single decision affects legal exposure, security responsibility, trust assumptions, and the overall product architecture more than any other wallet choice.

Single-chain vs. multi-chain wallets: How many blockchains are supported?

The third dimension defines scope. A single-chain wallet supports only one blockchain ecosystem. It is easier to build, easier to secure, and easier to reason about, which is why many early-stage products start this way.

A multi-chain wallet supports multiple blockchains and gives users more flexibility. At the same time, it introduces complexity in infrastructure, maintenance, and user experience. For most startups, this is not a starting point but an expansion step once the core product has proven itself.

How these dimensions work together in practice

The easiest way to see how these dimensions combine is to look at real wallets.

Take MetaMask as an example. It is a hot wallet, because it stays online and is designed for frequent interaction. It is also non-custodial, meaning users hold their own private keys. On top of that, it supports multiple EVM-compatible networks, which makes it a multi-chain wallet.

Now look at exchange wallets, such as those provided by Binance. These wallets are also hot wallets, since they are always online and optimized for fast transactions. The difference is custody. In this case, the exchange holds the private keys, so the wallet is custodial. Like most major exchanges, it supports many blockchains, which places it firmly in the multi-chain category.

And Ledger, one of the most popular cold wallets. It is a cold wallet because private keys are kept offline. They are non-custodial, as users fully control their keys and assets. At the same time, modern hardware wallets support multiple blockchains, which makes Ledger a multi-chain wallet as well.

These examples make one thing clear. Hot, cold, custodial, non-custodial, single-chain, and multi-chain are dimensions that combine with each other. We can see that a wallet is truly defined by how these dimensions are put together.

How startups should choose the right wallet setup

Startups should begin by clarifying their business model and user needs, then map those answers back to the three dimensions.

Step 1: define the core business questions

Before touching technical architecture, founders should answer a few basic questions honestly. Clear answers here will eliminate most wrong wallet decisions later.

Who are your users, and how familiar are they with crypto?

2. Do you need fast onboarding and minimal friction to grow?

3. Are you prepared to take on security and regulatory responsibility?

4. Does your product need to operate across multiple blockchain ecosystems?

Step 2: map business needs to each dimension

Most startup products require frequent interaction, which naturally leads to hot wallets. Cold wallets are usually reserved for treasury storage, not user-facing experiences.

Custody depends on your audience and product philosophy. Custodial wallets fit fintech-style apps and consumer products that prioritize ease of use. Non-custodial wallets are expected in DeFi, NFT platforms, and Web3-native products where ownership itself is part of the value.

For chain support, focus usually wins early. Many teams start single-chain to move fast and expand to multi-chain only after product–market fit.

Common wallet combinations used by startups

Web3, DeFi, and NFT startups often converge on hot, non-custodial, multi-chain wallets. These setups support true ownership but require careful UX design and strong user education.

Fintech and consumer crypto apps tend to favor hot, custodial wallets, sometimes starting with a limited number of chains to keep operations manageable.

Many teams choose a hybrid path, offering custodial wallets by default and allowing advanced users to move to non-custodial options later. This approach balances usability and flexibility without forcing hard trade-offs too early.

Final thought

Crypto wallets are designed by combining connectivity, custody, and blockchain support. The right setup depends on your users, your business model, and your tolerance for risk, not on what is trending at the moment.

If you want a clear, structured walkthrough of how to turn these decisions into a working product, check out the wallet creation guide, where Step 1 focuses on choosing the right type of crypto wallet based on exactly these criteria.

I get this question a lot.

“Alex, if I want to build an NFT game, should I hire an agency, freelancers, or build an in-house team? And… how much money are we actually talking about?”

So let’s stop the vague answers. I’ll break it down the way I usually explain it to founders and product leads.

First, a quick reality check before we talk numbers.

There is no “cheap” way to build a proper NFT game. You can either pay less at the beginning and deal with problems later, or pay more upfront to reduce risk. But one way or another, the cost always shows up. Once you accept that, the decision becomes much easier.

Working with freelancers

Freelancers are usually the first option founders look at. And honestly, I understand why.

For a basic NFT game prototype, the total cost often lands somewhere between $20,000 and $60,000, depending on scope and how experienced the people are.

Hourly rates vary a lot. Blockchain developers usually charge around $30 to $80 per hour, while game developers (Unity or Unreal) are often in the $25 to $70 per hour range.

On top of that, you’ll almost always need an external smart contract audit, which typically costs $5,000 to $15,000 depending on complexity.

These numbers are pretty consistent with what you’ll see on platforms like Upwork or Fiverr.

On paper, freelancers look like the cheapest option. And sometimes they are.

The problem is coordination. NFT games are not just “game + blockchain”. You’re dealing with gameplay logic, tokenomics, smart contracts, backend systems, and sometimes a marketplace as well. Most freelancers are very good at one part of this, but rarely the whole picture.

What usually happens is that the founder becomes the project manager without realizing it. You end up spending time syncing people, resolving misunderstandings, and fixing things that don’t connect properly. That hidden cost doesn’t show up in the invoice, but you feel it.

Freelancers work best when you already have a strong technical lead and the scope is small. For early validation or a demo, they can make sense. For a full launch, it’s risky.

Working with an agency

Agencies usually sit in a higher price range. A full-cycle NFT game built by an agency often costs $60,000 to $150,000 or more, depending on complexity, quality expectations, and timeline.

You’ll see similar ranges in industry benchmarks from platforms like Clutch and GoodFirms.

A lot of people think agencies are expensive because of branding or overhead. From what I’ve seen, that’s not the real reason.

What you’re actually paying for is structure. Project management, system architecture, internal communication, and experience from previous projects, especially failed ones. In NFT games, small mistakes are very expensive. Bad tokenomics can kill the economy. Poor smart contract design can become a security nightmare. Weak game balance means players leave and never come back.

A good agency has already made these mistakes for other clients, so you don’t have to make them again.

Of course, agencies are not perfect. The upfront cost is higher, and once the scope is locked, flexibility is lower. You also need to be careful, because some agencies are basically just reselling freelancers.

But if your goal is to launch a serious product, hit the market on time, and avoid obvious technical traps, agencies are often the safest option.

Building an in-house team

Now let’s talk about the option everyone dreams about: building your own team.

On paper, it sounds great. Full control, long-term vision, no external dependency. In reality, it’s the most expensive path, especially early on.

Even a small in-house NFT game team usually needs at least one blockchain engineer, one game developer, one backend engineer, and one designer or game artist. Based on current market data, that team alone can cost roughly $310,000 to $480,000 per year, and that’s before you count recruitment costs, onboarding time, and failed hires.

You can check salary benchmarks here:

Blockchain developer salaries

Game developer salaries

The biggest issue with in-house teams is time. Hiring takes longer than people expect. Knowledge gaps in Web3 gaming are real. And many startups burn a lot of cash before seeing anything close to a stable product.

I’ve seen founders spend over $400,000, then still go back to an agency to fix or rebuild core systems.

In-house only makes sense if NFT gaming is your long-term core business and you’re prepared for a slow, expensive start.

So which option should you choose?

There’s no single “best” option. It depends on where you are.

Freelancers make sense if you’re testing an idea, moving fast, and you already have strong technical leadership. Agencies are a better fit if you want a production-ready game, predictable timelines, and fewer surprises. If you’re comparing agencies, this list of top NFT game development companies is a good place to start.

Building in-house works when you have capital, patience, and a long-term roadmap that justifies the cost.

Final thought from experience

Most successful NFT game teams I’ve worked with didn’t pick just one model.

They launch with an agency to get the first version out cleanly and fast, then watch how real players behave. Once there’s traction, they start forming an in-house team to handle updates and long-term development. Freelancers usually stay on the edge, helping with experiments or isolated features, not core systems.

By Alex Do – Senior Technology & Digital Transformation Consultant

Over the past several years, I’ve worked closely with software teams and Web3 product owners across APAC to help them figure out their blockchain strategies and improve their digital experiences. One reality is that NFT users and creators are no longer willing to tolerate high gas fees.

As market competition rises, the demand for zero-fee or gasless NFT marketplaces remains one of the strongest shifts in the Web3 ecosystem. In 2026, gasless trading is becoming a default expectation, especially for creators and early Web3 startups looking to scale adoption.

Here’s what I observed about how zero-fee NFT marketplaces actually work, why the model is gaining global traction, and what businesses should prepare for next.

1. What exactly makes an NFT marketplace “zero-fee”?

When people hear zero-fee, they usually think it means: no platform fees, no gas costs, and no hidden charges. But that's not quite how it works.

Most NFT platforms today cannot eliminate every type of fee. What they do instead is remove or sponsor the gas fees for minting, listing, and trading. So from the user's perspective, it feels free, even though the marketplace still pays for its infrastructure behind the scenes.

In practice, many marketplaces follow this structure:

$0 gas for minting and listing (sponsored by the platform)

Small trading fee (e.g., 1–2%) kept by the marketplace

Creator royalties are still charged where supported

So the term zero-fee mainly refers to gasless user experience, not eliminating all fees across the entire lifecycle.

And this approach eliminates the biggest onboarding barrier in the NFT space. People can jump in and start participating without needing to purchase crypto first, which makes the whole experience far more accessible.

2. How gasless NFT trading actually works

Across the projects I’ve been involved in, there are three dominant models that make gasless trading possible:Xem thông tin xác thực nội dung

Model 1: Meta-transactions (relayer model)

The user signs a transaction off-chain, then a relayer service (run by the marketplace) submits it and covers the gas fee.

This model works because users don’t need crypto to start. It's perfect for onboarding people who aren't familiar with wallets, and it works great for mobile apps. Also, a lot of enterprise projects use this approach.

Model 2: Lazy minting

The NFT doesn’t actually mint when a creator uploads it. It is only minted when the first buyer purchases it, and the gas is included in the purchase transaction.

In this model, creators don't pay anything upfront. NFTs only exist if there's actual demand, which keeps the blockchain cleaner. This became pretty standard across both big and small marketplaces.

Model 3: Layer-2 scaling & sponsored fees

Layer-2 networks like Polygon, Immutable, Base, and ZK-rollups already have much lower fees. Marketplaces can then cover whatever's left.

Fees become almost nothing, transactions are faster, and it's great for high-volume use cases like NFT games. With more chains adopting account abstraction in 2025–2026, this model keeps getting better.

3. Why zero-fee NFT marketplaces still matter right now

These gasless NFT platforms continue to grow because they solve the biggest adoption challenges that have held Web3 back for years.

They remove the biggest onboarding friction

For many newcomers, their first question is still: “Why do I need crypto just to mint something?” Gasless onboarding eliminates that psychological and financial friction. Users can sign up, create, and interact instantly without touching tokens or funding a wallet. This single design choice dramatically expands the top of the funnel, especially for users coming from creator platforms like Instagram or TikTok.

Creators no longer need upfront capital

Traditional NFT minting requires creators to pre-pay gas, which discourages experimentation and limits participation to those already comfortable with crypto. In a gasless environment:

artists can test multiple ideas

game studios can mint assets on demand

brands can launch digital campaigns without worrying about per-mint costs

This unlocks a much broader creative economy because innovation is no longer gated by transaction fees.

The experience is just simpler

A gasless flow feels like: sign in, upload a file, list it. No confusing wallet pop-ups, no “insufficient gas” warnings, and no surprise spikes in fees depending on network congestion. This level of simplicity is what finally allows Web3 platforms to feel intuitive for everyday users, not just crypto-native ones.

Retention improves because users stop “dropping off at the paywall”

Platforms that absorb fees keep users around longer and see more activity. In projects I've worked on, fixing UX friction like this often boosts retention by 20–40%, especially for creator-focused platforms.

Why? Because users stay longer when they don’t hit a paywall every time they take an action.

Gas sponsorship effectively removes micro-friction across the entire lifecycle:

listing

updating metadata

minting multiple variations

interacting with game items

This leads to more activity per user and higher long-term engagement.

It matches what people already expect

Users publish for free on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and every major content platform. Gasless marketplaces bring Web3 closer to that familiar expectation: create first, pay nothing, start participating immediately.

This is critical for mainstream adoption. Everyday users expect creation to feel effortless, not like a financial transaction.

4. Who benefits the most from gasless trading?

Creators and artists can be beneficial the most. They can publish work without worrying about costs eating into their earnings. It means they can experiment more and test different ideas. Gaming and metaverse projects also see huge benefits. When they need to mint thousands of items. Gasless models make that actually affordable instead of prohibitively expensive.

For Web3 startups, onboarding new users won’t be a challenge anymore. It become easier as people don't have to buy crypto just to try your platform. And for enterprises running proof-of-concept projects, gasless trading lets them explore digital assets without burning budget on transaction fees.

5. What’s coming in 2026

Based on market signals and product conversations I’ve had with digital, 2026 will bring:

Account Abstraction Becomes the Default

More chains such as Base, zkSync, Starknet, Polygon, and new L2s are moving toward AA as the standard. This means users will log in with email, social accounts, or passkeys, and platforms can sponsor gas much more efficiently.

More chains will support gasless flows natively

ZK-rollups and modular blockchains continue to push fees down to almost zero. When transactions cost fractions of a cent, it becomes realistic for marketplaces, brands, and games to cover all fees without burning their budget.

New Business Models for NFT Marketplaces

Marketplaces are testing new models beyond traditional trading fees:

Subscriptions for creators

Pay-as-you-go minting

Bulk minting discounts for game studios

Usage-based pricing for enterprise campaigns

This shift matters because it makes gasless models sustainable, not something platforms lose money on.

Enterprise use cases rising

Brands are moving past hype and into real utility. Most of them want gasless flows for Digital collectibles (customer engagement), Loyalty NFTs (points, badges, tiers), and DID/SBT (identity and credentials).

These aren’t speculative assets. Users should never be asked to buy crypto just to join a loyalty program or receive a collectible. This is why enterprises are becoming one of the biggest drivers of gasless adoption.

6. Final thoughts: gasless marketplaces are becoming the new standard

The more I talk with teams building NFT products, the clearer it becomes. Gasless is simply where things are heading. Not because it’s trendy, but because most users don’t have the patience for the old onboarding flow anymore. If an app still asks people to set up a wallet, buy tokens, and figure out gas before they even understand the product… they’ll close the tab. And honestly, you can’t blame them.

What’s interesting is how fast teams are adapting. Creators want lower upfront costs, startups want better conversion, and enterprises just want a user flow that doesn’t confuse their customers. Gasless ends up being the common ground that solves all three.