This article describes the steps to take to receive creator earnings for your collection when your NFTs sell using OpenSea.

Setting your earnings

On OpenSea, creator earnings (sometimes called “royalties” or “creator royalties” on other sites) are either optional or enforced. If they’re optional, this means creators can specify their preferred creator earnings in their collection settings, but the NFT owner will ultimately choose whether to pay the suggested earnings when selling the item. If they’re enforced, this means earnings will be paid out when items from that collection sell.

To set your preferred earnings, navigate to OpenSea Studio and click Edit details. In the Creator Earnings tab, add your desired earnings percentage and recipient address. Only collection owners can set creator earnings.

Next, if your smart contract is ERC721-C or ERC1155-C compatible, you can also choose to enforce your earnings according to the steps below. This will invalidate any existing listings or offers on OpenSea.

Contract Type	Are my earnings optional or enforceable?
OpenSea Studio, after April 2nd, 2024 at 10:00am PT	Enforceable
ERC721-C or ERC1155-C compatible custom smart contract*	Enforceable
OpenSea Studio, before April 2nd, 2024 at 10:00am PT	Optional
Non-upgradeable custom smart contract that is not ERC721-C or ERC1155-C compatible	Optional

*Upgradeable ERC721 and 1155 contracts can be upgraded to the ERC721-C or ERC1155-C standard. Please visit our Developer Docs.

If you’re curious to learn more about how this works, we’ll share more technical information later in this article.

I’m using OpenSea Studio to create my collection

If you’re launching a new collection using OpenSea Studio (after 10:00am PT on April 2nd, 2024), it’s simple to enforce your creator earnings in your collection settings.

After you’ve deployed your contract in Studio, click Set creator earnings.

Set your earnings percentage and recipient address by clicking Add earnings payout address and percentage. Then, you can enforce them on OpenSea sales by clicking Turn on enforced earnings. You’ll be prompted to complete a signature request in your wallet.

If you deployed your OpenSea Studio smart contract before 10:00am PT on April 2nd, 2024, you can set optional earnings in your settings, but won’t have the option to enforce your earnings.

I’m deploying an ERC721-C or ERC1155-C compatible custom smart contract

After you’ve deployed an ERC721-C or ERC1155-C compatible contract, or upgraded your existing contract, you can configure and enforce your earnings on OpenSea in your collection settings.

Navigate to OpenSea Studio and select Edit details for the collection you’d like to update your earnings.

In the Creator Earnings tab, set your earnings percentage and recipient address by clicking Add earnings payout address and percentage. Then, you can enforce them on OpenSea sales by clicking Turn on enforced earnings. You’ll be prompted to complete a signature request in your wallet.

If you don’t see the option to enforce your earnings, this means your smart contract isn’t compatible with ERC721-C or 1155-C, but you’ll still be able to set optional creator earnings.

If your smart contract is upgradeable, visit our Developer Docs for technical information about how to make your contract compatible. After you’ve upgraded your contract, you’ll be able to enforce your earnings in your collection settings on OpenSea.

How do enforced creator earnings work on OpenSea?

OpenSea’s marketplace supports smart contract-level enforcement of creator earnings through compatibility with ERC721-C, a standard for enforceable on-chain creator earnings.

This compatibility is made possible by Seaport v1.6, a smart contract protocol. In simple terms, when you enforce creator earnings on OpenSea, this enforcement method can check if certain conditions defined by the creator – such as creator earnings being paid out – have been met before transferring the item. For a more technical description, check out our Developer Docs.

If your smart contract is not ERC721-C or ERC1155-C compatible, or you choose not to implement this method, any creator earnings you’ve set in your collection settings will be optional.

Finding NFT collections that support creator earnings

If you’re looking to support creators, OpenSea makes it simple to find collections and listings that enforce earnings.

By default, collections with enforced creator earnings will have those earnings reflected at checkout.

Optional creator earnings are also surfaced at multiple points in-product, so sellers can easily select the creator's preferred earnings when creating a listing or accepting an offer, and buyers can easily search for listings that pay the creator’s suggested earnings or that have enforced earnings.

FAQ

If I enforce my earnings on OpenSea, does this limit which marketplaces my NFTs can be bought and sold on?

This enforcement method makes your NFT collection on OpenSea compatible with ERC721-C.

As such, if you enforce your creator earnings according to the steps above, sales will only be supported on OpenSea and other marketplaces powered by LimitBreak’s Payment Processor, which currently includes Magic Eden. Keep in mind that to enforce your creator earnings on other marketplaces, you'll need to do so according to the steps they've specified.

What if I previously deployed my smart contract and now want to enforce creator earnings?

In order to enforce creator earnings on OpenSea, an NFT smart contract must adhere to the ERC721-C or ERC1155-C standard or be upgradeable to it. The owner of that smart contract must then enforce earnings via OpenSea Studio following the steps above.

If your smart contract is upgradeable, visit our Developer Docs for technical information about how to make your contract compatible. Please note that OpenSea is unable to provide custom developer support for modifications to your custom smart contract.

If your smart contract is not upgradable, or if you created your collection using OpenSea Studio before 10:00am PT on April 2nd, 2024, due to the way your smart contract is configured, you won’t be able to retroactively enforce creator earnings. However, you can still set your preferred optional creator earnings in your collection’s settings.

How can I set optional creator earnings?

You can set a preferred optional creator earnings percentage in your settings. However, whether these are paid out will depend on individual sellers.

Simply click Add earnings payout address and percentage in the Creator Earnings tab of your collection settings, and set your preferred earnings percentage and recipient address.

How is OpenSea able to enforce creator earnings with this method?

Seaport Hooks, released with Seaport 1.6, allow creators to set conditions that need to be fulfilled before NFTs in their collections can be transferred (such as creator earnings). This enables developers to do things like “adapt” Seaport to be compatible with the creator fee enforcement mechanism of the ERC721-C standard.

What is OpenSea’s “earnings matching” policy and how does it work?

OpenSea aims to ensure that collectors are not unfairly disadvantaged on our site if creator earnings are set at different levels across other NFT marketplaces.

If a creator has configured their NFT contract in a way where collectors would have to pay higher creator earnings percentages on OpenSea than on other marketplaces, the earnings percentage on OpenSea may match what’s reflected elsewhere.

For example, if a creator’s earnings are set at 3% on Marketplace X, and 5% on OpenSea, the creator’s earnings on OpenSea may change to 3%.

This policy won’t impact you if your earnings are configured at the same percentage on OpenSea as other marketplaces.

Is there a maximum creator earnings percentage that I can set?

The maximum creator earnings percentage you can set on OpenSea is 10%.