How Much Does It Cost To Play Axie Infinity?

A very general answer for how much it costs to play Axie Infinity right now is roughly $300 USD. However, there are a lot of nuances to understand before plunking down your hard-earned cash. Read on for critical info that will help you make an informed decision.

How Much Does an Axie Cost Right Now?

The overall average price of an Axie in the past 24 hours is $0.00

However, that average is obviously very skewed by purchases of very rare Axies like Mystic Axies. Here is a version that you can filter to see other trends in Axie pricing:

There are really two distinct types of buyers and sellers within the marketplace. One type is collectors and the other is competitors. 

Collectors
The collectors care primarily about the rarity and value of the Axies. They may use their Axies in competitive gameplay, but they mainly care about their value as NFTs. This is similar to the larger NFT world where investors buy an NFT hoping that the value will rise over time and they can sell to make a profit. These rare assets tend to cost a lot, which is one factor that skews the overall average price of an Axie.

Competitors
The other type of Axie buyer and seller is the competitors. By volume, this type of participant comprises most of the market. Most players are in the game to compete and earn SLP (Smooth Love Potion) and they want to buy Axies that can give them an edge. 

This activity is often about the current “metas” in the game. Some Axies and team formations are much more desirable because they give players special abilities in battle through combinations. 

High-end competitive Axies can be quite expensive, though not usually in the range of collectible Axies. The high prices of these Axies can also skew the overall average. 

At the other end of the spectrum, there are the very cheapest Axies, known as “floor Axies” which can be had for $30 or even less sometimes. They are cheap because they generally have some flaw that makes them nearly useless for battle. If you form a team out of floor Axies you likely won’t make much SLP and the abundance of these is what led Sky Mavis to start allowing users to burn their Axies in exchange for cosmetic upgrades. 

How Much Does a Productive Team of Axies Cost?

A productive team of Axies that can actually compete and earn SLP in PvP battle will cost around $300 USD, as noted at the top of the article. You may get lucky and find some decent ones for ~$75 each but you should plan to spend roughly $100 per usable Axie. Don’t forget to leave a little aside for transaction fees, like any other of the crypto exchanges, Axie Infinity makes their money through these fees. 

In the next section, we’ll take a look at what makes some Axies cost more than others and how you can be strategic in your shopping. 

What Are the Factors that Influence the Price of Axies?

Here are the main factors that drive Axie pricing:

Body Parts or Cards

The body parts of an Axie dictate the cards they have for use in battles. For competitive Axies, this is the main driver of their cost. The cards you have to use and the synergy of those cards both within an Axie and across a team of Axies is probably the largest determinant of your earnings (that and your skill as a player in using them). Axies with rare and useful combinations of cards will be much more expensive than other types of Axies. 

Breed Count

The breed count, or the number of times the Axie has been used to produce offspring, is a factor in its value. If you are a player and your only concern is competing and earning SLP, then this may not matter much to you. The breed count doesn’t affect your Axie in battle. 

Breed count is of concern to owners who plan to breed the Axie at some point. Each Axie can only breed 7 times, and each time the price rises, so lower breed counts are very attractive. 

Price of ETH

Axies are priced in WETH, or a Ronin-wrapped Ethereum token. WETH mirrors the price of ETH, so to some extent, the best time to buy Axies is when ETH is sharply dropping and the worst time is when it’s sharply rising. However, sellers tend to react pretty quickly to cryptocurrency prices so those deals are fleeting. 

Axie Stats

The stats of an Axie don’t vary enough within a given class to be a huge factor in the price. That said, if an Axie has a particularly low value on a stat that is critical to its success–like the speed of an Aqua or the morale of a Beast–that can make it far less valuable than it would be otherwise. There’s usually a ceiling effect that keep the inverse from being true as well, or as true anyway. 

Class of the Axie

Another factor with a minor effect on the price is the class of the Axie. This most has to do with the current metas; if Reptiles are all the rage because of their cards then they will sell for more. But, this is really about the cards more than the class itself. Players largely don’t care what the class of an Axie is so long as it has the right cards, but certain classes tend to have certain cards. 

Should I Invest in More Expensive Axies?

The short answer to this is “not until you really know what you’re doing.” When purchasing your very first team of Axies, you should never do this. You just don’t have any idea of the value to you personally yet. 

As you play, you’ll develop your own preferences and style. These factors, as much as the cards, will determine which Axies are actually the most valuable to you personally. And if it ends up being different than what everyone else wants, great! You’ll save some money as a result. 

How Can I Get a Team of Axies? 

There is an Axie marketplace that anyone can access without even signing up for the game. If you do want to buy though, you’ll need a Meta Mask wallet, a Ronin wallet and enough funds to buy the Axies and pay the associated transaction fees. 

FAQs

Is there a way to play Axie Infinity for free?

It’s possible that Sky Mavis may introduce a way to do this in the future, but currently, you need a team of Axies to play. The only way to do it for free is through Axie Infinity scholarships. There are guilds with investors that fund the Axie teams and managers that oversee the production of SLP. If you apply and are selected as a scholar, you can borrow a team for free if you agree to split the SLP earnings with the guild. Most players are likely scholars because the cost of a team of Axies is relatively high, especially in the Philippines where many players reside. 

Can I make money with Axie Infinity?

Yes, that’s why most people play it. SLP is easily converted to AXS (the Axie Infinity governance token), WETH, and the Ronin token inside Sky Mavis’ Katana DEX (decentralized exchange). You can also send it to an app like Crypto.com and sell it for your local fiat currency. 

Is it worth investing in Axie Infinity? 

This is a topic for a whole article, but the short answer is “it depends on the price of SLP.” All the earnings are in SLP and at the time of this writing, it’s a little under $0.02 which is roughly 95% off its peak value. A very low SLP price means it takes a long time to recover the initial price of the Axies. A little back-of-the-napkin math tells you that if a player earns 200 SLP/day and you have a 50/50 cut with the player, you’ll make 100 SLP or about $2/day at current SLP prices. 

That means it would take 150 days to recoup a $300 investment and at the end, you still own the Axies themselves. A 100% return on your money in about 5 months is not a bad deal at all, but there are many ways that equation can be altered, usually not in your favor. 

A big one is just changes that the developers make to balance the game. Sometimes they “nerf” certain classes of Axies, effectively destroying their value. Another is that you may need to pay a manager or spend your own time finding and managing players. At $2/day in earnings, that might not be as easy as it used to be. Axie Infinity is a huge game though and an early winner in the play-to-earn space. It still enjoys a lot of popularity and has the potential to stage a comeback in the value of SLP.