I want to create a token that users can trade normally. Roughly how much will that cost?
Costs vary by chain and features. Using PandaTool as an example:
• Token creation fee: roughly 2 USDT to 40 USDT, depending on blockchain and token features. Polygon is typically the cheapest (~2 USDT).
• Pool creation fee: to enable trading you usually need a liquidity pool — chain-dependent, typically 0–20 USDT in platform fees.
• Seeding the pool (initial liquidity): this is the biggest variable. You must deposit funds into the pool for users to trade. This could be anywhere from a few USDT up to ~10,000 USDT (or more) depending on the liquidity depth you want. For example, some concentrated liquidity pools (or certain Solana CLMM / V3 stable pools) may not require initial funds in exactly the same way, but for an ordinary AMM pool you must deposit both sides (e.g., USDT + your token). If you only put 10 USDT in, users can only buy/sell around that amount; if you put 10,000 USDT, the pool can support much larger trades.
Overall range:
Because chains and setups differ, a practical end-to-end budget could be as low as ~10 USDT for minimal testing or a few hundred to several thousand USDT for a production-ready, tradable market.
Additional notes:
• Don’t forget gas/tx fees and any optional services (audits, tokenomics consulting, multisig deployment), which increase cost.
• If you want market credibility, seed the pool with enough liquidity to avoid huge slippage for early buyers (many projects start with 10k+ USDT-equivalent).