Zora: nft and analytics tools rating breakdown
Creation · protocol mint fee
A genuinely different economic model, and an honest one: Zora charges a small flat fee per mint — around $1.44 plus gas — paid by the person minting rather than deducted from the creator, so sale proceeds go to the creator intact. For a high-frequency creator who publishes often, that structure fits far better than a percentage of revenue.
A genuinely different economic model, and an honest one: Zora charges a small flat fee per mint — around $1.44 plus gas — paid by the person minting rather than deducted from the creator, so sale proceeds go to the creator intact. For a high-frequency creator who publishes often, that structure fits far better than a percentage of revenue.
How the score is built
Each criterion is scored 0–10 and weighted. The median column is the middle score across every entry in this ranking, so a row reads as a position rather than a number.
| Criterion | What we measured | Weight | Score | Category median | Rank | Weighted gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What you keep when you leave | 0% share of creator sale proceeds taken · published · 2026-08-27 · source | 30% | 8 | 8 | 3 of 6 | 0.00 |
| What it costs, and what the free version does | ~$1.44 per mint plus gas, paid by the minter mint fee · published · 2026-08-27 · source | 28% | 8 | 7.5 | 3 of 6 | +0.14 |
| What it genuinely does that you could not do yourself | — | 22% | 8 | 8.5 | 4 of 6 | -0.11 |
| Are the terms published? | — | 12% | 8 | 8.5 | 4 of 6 | -0.06 |
| Chains and data breadth | — | 8% | 7 | 9 | 5 of 6 | -0.16 |
Measured 27 August 2026 · weights and method · decided by chains and data breadth, worth -0.16 points against the median
What you keep when you leave: 8/10
For creation tools: who owns the deployed contract, whether the collection is portable to another platform, and whether the tool can change terms on work already minted. For analytics tools: whether queries, dashboards and exports remain usable outside the product. A tool you cannot leave is a subscription with hostages.
Scored 8 of 10 against a category median of 8, which places it 3rd of 6 among nft and analytics tools on this criterion. At a 30% weight that is exactly level with the median of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 5.
What it costs, and what the free version does: 8/10
Published prices quoted from the vendor’s own documentation — per-mint fees, revenue shares, subscription tiers — together with an honest description of what the free tier actually does. The spread in this category is extreme: the same act of publishing a collection is free at one tool and a 10% revenue share at another.
Scored 8 of 10 against a category median of 7.5, which places it 3rd of 6 among nft and analytics tools on this criterion. At a 28% weight that is 0.14 points above the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 2.
What it genuinely does that you could not do yourself: 8/10
The specific function that justifies the price: contract deployment without code, indexed multi-chain data, labelled address clusters, query infrastructure. Where the same result is available free from a block explorer or a public API, that is stated rather than glossed over.
Scored 8 of 10 against a category median of 8.5, which places it 4th of 6 among nft and analytics tools on this criterion. At a 22% weight that is 0.11 points below the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 6.
Are the terms published?: 8/10
Whether fees, revenue shares and plan limits are stated plainly in public documentation, or only discovered at the point of use. A creation tool that reveals its revenue share after you have minted is scored on that.
Scored 8 of 10 against a category median of 8.5, which places it 4th of 6 among nft and analytics tools on this criterion. At a 12% weight that is 0.06 points below the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 6.
Chains and data breadth: 7/10
Chains supported and, for analytics, the breadth of indexed data — from the vendor’s own documentation.
Scored 7 of 10 against a category median of 9, which places it 5th of 6 among nft and analytics tools on this criterion. At a 8% weight that is 0.16 points below the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 7.
Its nearest neighbours in this ranking
| # | Entry | Chains and data breadth | How it differs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Block explorers | 9 | Ahead by 2 on chains and data breadth. |
| 3 | Dune | 10 | Ahead by 3 on chains and data breadth. |
| 5 | Nansen | 9 | Ahead by 2 on chains and data breadth. |
| 6 | OpenSea Studio | 9 | Ahead by 2 on chains and data breadth. |
Questions about this score
Who pays Zora's mint fee?
+
The collector, as a flat charge of roughly $1.44 per mint plus gas. The creator's sale proceeds are not reduced by it, which makes the structure genuinely different from a percentage-of-revenue model — and means you should account for it when pricing cheap or free editions, where it can be a large share of what a collector pays.
Is Zora better than Manifold for creators?
+
They suit different rhythms. Manifold costs nothing and gives you a contract you own, which suits a considered launch by someone comfortable managing it. Zora's flat per-mint model and frictionless publishing suit high-frequency creators who post often and want every post to be collectible. Neither takes a share of your sale proceeds, which puts both far ahead of platform drops.