NFTsBeginner

How NFT Marketplaces Work

How buying, selling, and listing NFTs actually works on a typical marketplace.

5 min readPublished 2026-09-25

Key takeaways

What to remember

Marketplaces coordinate NFT listings and trades via smart contracts.
Most are non-custodial — sellers keep the NFT until a sale actually completes.
Sales typically involve both a marketplace fee and a creator royalty.
Ownership transfers are recorded and verifiable on-chain.

What a marketplace actually does

An NFT marketplace is an application that lets users list, browse, and trade NFTs, generally by interacting with smart contracts on the relevant blockchain rather than holding the NFTs itself. Most marketplaces are non-custodial — the NFT stays in the seller's own wallet until a sale actually completes.

The typical listing and sale process

A seller grants the marketplace's smart contract permission to transfer a specific NFT if a sale occurs, then sets a listing (a fixed price or an auction).
A buyer submits an offer or accepts the listed price, triggering a transaction that pays the seller and transfers the NFT in the same on-chain action.
The transaction settles on-chain, and ownership updates are publicly verifiable on the underlying blockchain.

In practice

Marketplace fees and royalties both apply

A sale typically involves a marketplace fee (paid to the platform) and, on many marketplaces, a creator royalty (paid to the original creator) — both are usually shown before you confirm a purchase or sale.