Buying NFTs

Buying an existing NFT transfers it from its owner. Minting creates a new token; for free mints available to your wallet, see Charms.

Before You Buy

Connect the wallet you want to receive the NFT and check the collection's network, contract address, and item identity. Names and artwork alone do not identify a collection; different contracts can use similar branding.

Review the individual NFT page for its artwork, token ID, owner, description, traits, and history. A historical sale price is separate from the current listing price.

For a direct same-chain purchase, have the listing's payment currency and the network's gas currency available. You can also use Cross-Chain Payments through Relay to pay with supported funds on another network without manually bridging first. If the listing or offer uses a wrapped token, read ETH, WETH & Marketplace Currencies.

Buy a Listed NFT

  1. Open the collection's Market tab and find an NFT listed for sale. Use the listing, trait, and price filters to narrow the results.
  2. Select the NFT. A selected card is highlighted in green with a check mark, and its thumbnail appears in the Buy panel. The panel shows your selected item count and total, with minus/plus controls and an X to clear the selection.
  3. Click Buy in that panel to open Checkout → Buy. Opening checkout lets you review the purchase before confirming it.
  4. Review the checkout details described below, then continue with Buy when you are ready. Review the transaction details in your wallet, including network gas. The buyer pays gas to purchase a listing.
  5. Confirm the purchase and wait for the blockchain result. A submitted transaction is not yet a confirmed purchase.

Read Marketplace Fees for the fee rules. If you prefer to name your own price, see Offers & Bids.

Buy ERC-1155 Copies

You can buy multiple copies of the same ERC-1155 token ID. In the Buy panel, select its listed card and use the quantity control on the card to choose how many copies to buy. For example, 1 / 2 selects one of two available copies; 2 / 2 selects both. The Buy panel's Total [2] then counts two copies, even though you selected one token ID.

Select Buy to open checkout. Check the token ID, Seller, and Qty: two copies of token ID #1 can appear as one row with x2. That row's Price covers the selected copies together; review the checkout Total [2] as the purchase amount rather than multiplying it by two again. Check the currency and network under Pay With, such as ETH on Base.

Select Buy and review the wallet transaction. A two-copy purchase can use 1 Transaction, with a Buy 2 Items step in the progress panel. Once it shows Completed, select Done and check the copies received in your profile's NFTs. Two copies still share the same token ID; they are not two different unique NFTs.

Choose from the copies available for sale and check the sweep limit below. The collection contract's supply and minting limits govern creating copies; they are not marketplace purchase-quantity limits.

Review Checkout

The checkout lists each selected NFT with its seller, quantity, price, and Market icon. Use the Remove control beside an item to remove it from the purchase. Check the item identities and current prices before continuing; the checkout also shows the selected item count and total in the payment currency, with an approximate dollar value.

Buyers pay the listed price. Marketplace fees are already accounted for in that price and are not itemized in buy checkout. Sellers see the fee breakdown when listing; Instant Sell shows their net You Receive amount without itemizing fees. Network gas is separate and appears in your wallet's transaction details.

Check the connected wallet and its displayed balance. The Pay With selector shows the funding currency and network. You can pay with the listing's currency on a supported network where you hold it, or with a supported network's native currency. Checkout does not offer arbitrary ERC-20 tokens from your wallet.

For example, an ETH-priced NFT on Base can offer ETH on Base or ETH on Ethereum (Relay). (Relay) identifies a cross-chain payment route. For a stablecoin-priced listing, a native-currency route can convert your payment to the required stablecoin without a manual swap or bridge first. Choose an available currency and network pair holding your funds, then review the payment quote and wallet prompts before confirming. See Cross-Chain Payments.

The Buy panel and checkout also display a Fortune indicator.

Buying with an ERC-20 Token

When paying with an ERC-20 token, such as the stablecoin USDC, the purchase uses a token-spending approval followed by a separate purchase transaction:

  1. Approve spending: Review the payment token, spender, and amount in your wallet. Approve spending up to the purchase price and wait for the approval transaction to confirm. If a sufficient allowance is already active, a new approval is not needed.
  2. Confirm the purchase: Confirm the separate transaction that pays for the NFT, then wait for it to complete.

The approval gives permission to spend the token; it does not buy the NFT. Keep the network's native currency available for transaction gas, including the approval when needed. See Token Approvals.

Insufficient Balance

If the selected wallet does not have enough of the payment currency, checkout shows a warning such as Insufficient ETH and disables Buy. Check the wallet, currency, and network, then add the required funds or reduce your selection. If your funds are on another network, check for an available Relay route under Pay With. For direct payments, keep enough of the network's native gas token available as well; for a Relay route, review the quoted costs and wallet prompts.

For common balance issues, see Why is my balance insufficient?.

Bulk Purchases and Partial Success

Scatter limits a collection sweep by its 100 KB calldata budget, rather than a fixed number of NFTs. Calldata is the transaction data needed to execute the purchase. Different listings require different amounts of data, so the number of tokens you can sweep varies with the selected listings. This also applies when selecting ERC-1155 copies.

The purchase settles in one transaction. A larger or mixed-listing checkout is not split into several purchase transactions. Required approvals can add transactions before the purchase; completing an approval does not complete the purchase.

A bulk purchase can fail or finish with fewer NFTs than you selected. Check the purchase transaction's status and the items actually received.

The Scatter Marketplace supports buying multiple listings in one transaction. The outcome depends on which listings can still be purchased:

  • Unavailable listings can be skipped: Orders that are not active, have expired, have been cancelled, or have already been fully filled can be omitted while the remaining available orders are purchased.
  • Some errors can fail the whole batch: A failed token transfer or invalid order data can revert the transaction, undoing all purchases within that transaction.

Check the transaction result and the NFTs actually received before retrying the remaining items. A reverted transaction does not complete its NFT purchases, although gas can still be spent. If approvals were required, distinguish those transactions from the purchase when checking the result.

For reverted, replaced, out-of-gas, or pending transactions, use our transaction troubleshooting.

Listings from Other Marketplaces

Scatter aggregates compatible listings from other marketplaces, letting you browse and buy them through Scatter. Review the actual order and transaction details when purchasing; a visible listing may become unavailable if it sells or changes before your transaction completes. The seller must still own the listed NFT and have the required transfer approval when the purchase settles.

The original listing's fees remain payable alongside Scatter's 5% marketplace fee. These fees are accounted for in the displayed listing price; buyers are not shown separate fee lines in checkout. Buying through Scatter does not remove fees specified in the source marketplace's signed listing. See Fees on Listings from Other Marketplaces for why signed listing fees must be preserved.

Find Your Purchased NFT

After confirmation, check NFTs in your User Profile. Use the wallet that made the purchase and check the network, collection, and listing filters.

If the NFT does not appear, check the transaction on that network's blockchain explorer before retrying. See Marketplace FAQ for troubleshooting.