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

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.

*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.

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.

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.

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.

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.