# What are the costs to create a canister **URL:** \ **Category:** Developers\ **Created:** [May 13, 2021, 1:51pm UTC](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/what-are-the-costs-to-create-a-canister/3582 "2021-05-13T13:51:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hazel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Hazel](https://forum.dfinity.org/u/Hazel)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2021, 1:51pm UTC](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/what-are-the-costs-to-create-a-canister/3582/1 "2021-05-13T13:51:29Z")
Many of my ideas take advantage of the having swarms of canisters. In some instances each user might have a canister. For spam reasons I imagine this has to cost something - can anyone share the cycle costs involved with creating a canister on the mainnet? ---
**Author:** ![warren-dfn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@warren-dfn](https://forum.dfinity.org/u/warren-dfn)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2021, 4:59pm UTC](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/what-are-the-costs-to-create-a-canister/3582/2 "2021-05-13T16:59:15Z")
“The conversion of ICP tokens to cycles occurs at a variable rate, which is constantly configured by the NNS in response to external markets.” [https://medium.com/dfinity/the-internet-computers-token-economics-an-overview-29e238bd1d83](https://medium.com/dfinity/the-internet-computers-token-economics-an-overview-29e238bd1d83) ---
**Author:** ![Hazel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Hazel](https://forum.dfinity.org/u/Hazel)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2021, 5:10pm UTC](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/what-are-the-costs-to-create-a-canister/3582/3 "2021-05-13T17:10:30Z")
Thanks for the share. Updated my post to be a bit more clear - I want to know how many cycles we can expect to need to create a canister. ---
**Author:** ![flyq](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex023/user_avatar/forum.dfinity.org/flyq/32/3637_2.png) [@flyq](https://forum.dfinity.org/u/flyq)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 2:03am UTC](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/what-are-the-costs-to-create-a-canister/3582/4 "2021-05-14T02:03:58Z")
When operating in nns app, It prompts that in order to create a canister, at least 2T cycles are required ---
**Author:** ![Hazel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Hazel](https://forum.dfinity.org/u/Hazel)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 2:19am UTC](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/what-are-the-costs-to-create-a-canister/3582/5 "2021-05-14T02:19:00Z")
Good spot! That is quite painful 😢 ---
**Author:** ![livelyx](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex023/user_avatar/forum.dfinity.org/livelyx/32/1047_2.png) [@livelyx](https://forum.dfinity.org/u/livelyx)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 5:27pm UTC](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/what-are-the-costs-to-create-a-canister/3582/6 "2021-05-14T17:27:33Z")
It’s around $2.5 USD for 2T cycles. I think I read somewhere that 1T cycles should be pinned at around one Swiss Franc, but that may be old tokenomics. ---
**Author:** ![Hazel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Hazel](https://forum.dfinity.org/u/Hazel)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 5:54pm UTC](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/what-are-the-costs-to-create-a-canister/3582/7 "2021-05-14T17:54:55Z")
Yeah, I’m hoping that will come way down either by the time people are onboarded to the network, or shortly thereafter. ---
**Author:** ![sefzig](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex023/user_avatar/forum.dfinity.org/sefzig/32/1604_2.png) [@sefzig](https://forum.dfinity.org/u/sefzig)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 6:49pm UTC](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/what-are-the-costs-to-create-a-canister/3582/8 "2021-05-14T18:49:13Z")
1T = 1XDR (an IMF basket).