NFT Royalty Splits: How to Share Earnings With Collaborators
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Many NFT projects are made by more than one person. An illustrator and a musician might release a piece together, or a small studio might share a collection between three members. That raises a practical question: when the art sells and royalties come in, how does everyone get paid the right share? This guide explains how royalty splits work, what the common options are, and which mistakes to avoid.
Why Splitting Royalties Is Not Automatic
Most NFT royalty settings follow a standard called ERC-2981. It lets a contract answer a simple question from a marketplace: for a given token and sale price, who should be paid and how much? The important detail is that the answer contains one receiver address and one amount. There is no built in list of collaborators.
So if two artists create a piece together, the contract cannot natively say “60 percent to Alice and 40 percent to Ben.” You have to solve the split somewhere else. If you want a refresher on how royalties themselves work, see our guide on NFT royalties for creators.
Two Kinds of Income to Split
Before choosing a method, separate the money into two streams:
- Primary sales: the money paid when someone first mints or buys from you. It usually goes to the contract owner or a withdrawal address you set.
- Secondary royalties: the percentage paid when the NFT is resold, sent to the royalty receiver address.
You can use the same method for both, or handle them differently. Many teams point both streams at the same shared address so there is only one place to manage.
Option 1: Agree on a Split and Divide by Hand
The simplest approach is to send all earnings to one wallet, then have that person forward each collaborator’s share. It needs no extra contract, but it depends entirely on trust and good record keeping. It also puts the tax and bookkeeping burden on one person. This can work for a small one time project between people who know each other well, as long as the split is written down.
Option 2: A Splitter Contract
A splitter is a small smart contract that receives funds and divides them by fixed shares. You set the royalty receiver to the splitter’s address. When royalties arrive, each collaborator can withdraw their portion, or anyone can trigger a distribution, depending on the design.
Two well known examples:
- OpenZeppelin’s PaymentSplitter: a widely used pattern in older versions of the OpenZeppelin contracts library. Newer major versions of the library no longer include it, so check which version a project uses.
- 0xSplits: a protocol built specifically for sharing onchain revenue among several recipients. Check its current documentation for supported networks before you rely on it.
The benefit is transparency. Anyone can read the splitter’s shares on a block explorer, and no single person holds the money. If you are new to reading contracts online, our guide to block explorers shows how to inspect an address.
A multisig wallet requires several owners to approve each transaction. If you set it as the receiver, earnings sit in a wallet controlled by the whole team, and payouts are approved together. This is flexible, because shares can change without redeploying anything, but every payout needs manual approvals. Our article on multisig wallets for NFT teams covers how they work.
What to Check Before You Set It Up
- Are the shares fixed or editable? A fixed splitter is predictable but cannot adapt if a collaborator leaves. An editable one is flexible but needs someone with authority to change it.
- Which tokens can it handle? Some marketplaces pay royalties in the network’s native coin, others in wrapped tokens or stablecoins. Confirm that your splitter can receive and distribute the currency you expect.
- Who pays the gas? Distributing funds costs a transaction fee. On a busy network, tiny payouts may not be worth the cost, which is one reason many creators prefer layer 2 networks for small amounts.
- Is the address correct on this network? The same address can be a different thing on another chain, or nothing at all. Verify the splitter exists on the exact network where you mint.
- Does the marketplace honor the setting? Royalty settings are read by marketplaces, and enforcement varies. Read our royalty enforcement guide so your expectations match reality.
Put the Agreement in Writing
A splitter moves money, but it does not settle who owns what. Before you mint, agree on who holds the copyright, whether the work can be licensed to others, and what happens if someone wants to leave the project. Our article on NFT ownership versus copyright explains why the token alone does not answer those questions. A short written agreement signed by everyone is inexpensive protection. Each collaborator should also learn how income is reported where they live, and our overview of NFT taxes is a good starting point. This is general information, not tax or legal advice.
Test Before You Mint for Real
Because payment addresses are hard to change after the fact and blockchain transfers are irreversible, run a trial first. Deploy your setup on a test network, send a small test payment to the splitter, and confirm each person can receive their share. Our guide to testnets walks through the process at no cost.
Key Takeaways
Standard royalty settings support a single receiver, so sharing earnings needs an extra layer. You can divide by hand, use a splitter contract, or use a multisig wallet, and each has trade offs in trust, transparency and effort. Whichever you choose, test it on a testnet, double check the address on the right network, and record the agreement in writing.
If you are ready to create your own collection, Simple NFT Creator lets you make and mint NFTs from your phone. It is available on the App Store and Google Play. Whatever setup you pick for a shared project, confirm every address before you send anything.
