ERC Token Standards Compared: ERC-20 vs ERC-721 vs ERC-1155 vs ERC-4626 vs ERC-6909

By The Saqarmax Team · August 2026 · 9 min read

Direct answer: Use ERC-20 for a plain fungible token (currency, governance, utility token), ERC-721 for one-of-a-kind NFTs, ERC-1155 if you need a mix of fungible and non-fungible items in one contract and want maximum wallet/marketplace support, ERC-4626 specifically for tokenized yield-bearing vaults, and ERC-6909 if you’re building a new multi-token system in 2026 and want lower gas costs than ERC-1155 without needing the broadest possible legacy compatibility. These standards aren’t competing for the same job — picking the right one is about matching the standard to what your token actually represents.

Last updated: August 2026

Why the standard you pick matters this much

An ERC standard isn’t just an interface — it determines which wallets, marketplaces, and DeFi protocols can interact with your token out of the box, how much gas your users pay per transaction, and how much custom integration work you’ll need down the line. Deploying the wrong standard means either paying for functionality you don’t need or bolting on custom logic that breaks compatibility with the tooling everyone else already uses.

1. ERC-20 — the fungible token standard

ERC-20 defines a simple, uniform interface (transfer, approve, balanceOf, totalSupply) that every wallet, exchange, and DeFi protocol on Ethereum already knows how to handle. It’s the right standard for anything where each unit is interchangeable with every other unit: currencies, governance tokens, reward points, utility tokens. Its simplicity is also its limit — ERC-20 has no native concept of uniqueness or metadata per-token, and known quirks like the lack of a standardized way to handle failed transfers (some implementations return false instead of reverting) still trip up integrations if you’re not careful with your transfer-checking logic.

2. ERC-721 — the standard for unique, non-fungible assets

ERC-721 gives every token a unique ID and optional metadata (typically a URI pointing to JSON with image, traits, and attributes), making it the standard for anything where each item is meant to be distinct: art NFTs, collectibles, in-game unique items, real-world asset certificates. It has the broadest NFT marketplace and wallet support of any non-fungible standard, which matters enormously for liquidity and discoverability. The tradeoff is gas cost: minting or transferring in bulk under ERC-721 is expensive because each token is a fully separate state entry, which is why large collections increasingly look at ERC-1155 or ERC-6909 instead when batch operations matter.

3. ERC-1155 — the multi-token standard

ERC-1155 lets a single contract manage arbitrary combinations of fungible and non-fungible token types, with native batch transfer and batch balance-check functions that cut gas costs significantly versus deploying separate ERC-20 and ERC-721 contracts. It’s the standard behind most modern game-item systems and mixed NFT collections (think: a game with both unique weapons and stackable currency in one contract). Its main practical downside is a marginally more complex integration for developers unfamiliar with the batch-operation patterns, and while marketplace support is now broad, it’s still not quite as universal as ERC-721 for pure single-item collectible use cases.

4. ERC-4626 — the tokenized vault standard

ERC-4626 standardizes how yield-bearing vaults work: deposit an underlying ERC-20 asset, receive a share token representing your proportional claim, and let the vault’s strategy generate yield behind a uniform deposit/withdraw/mint/redeem interface. Before ERC-4626, every lending protocol and yield aggregator built its own bespoke vault interface, which meant every integration (aggregators, front ends, other protocols composing vaults) required custom adapter code. Now that composability is standardized, which is why staking contracts, lending markets, and yield aggregators built in 2026 default to it almost automatically. We cover this standard in full depth in our dedicated post on ERC-4626 for staking and vault contracts.

5. ERC-6909 — the gas-efficient successor to ERC-1155

ERC-6909 is a newer minimal multi-token standard designed to solve ERC-1155’s main inefficiency: ERC-1155’s mandatory onERC1155Received callback and heavier batch-operation overhead add gas cost that a lot of use cases don’t actually need. ERC-6909 strips the interface down, drops the callback requirement, and uses a simpler operator/allowance model closer to ERC-20’s, which measurably reduces gas for high-frequency multi-token systems like on-chain order books or protocol-internal accounting. Its tradeoff is ecosystem maturity: as a newer standard, wallet and marketplace support is still catching up to ERC-1155’s near-universal coverage, so it’s currently a better fit for protocol-internal token accounting than for consumer-facing NFT collections that need broad marketplace visibility.

Comparison table

Standards you’ll run into but won’t build on directly

A few related standards are worth knowing even though they’re not primary picks on their own. ERC-2612 (permit) adds gasless approvals to ERC-20 tokens via signed messages instead of a separate on-chain approve transaction, and it’s become close to a default add-on for new ERC-20 deployments because it improves UX meaningfully at almost no extra cost. ERC-165 is the interface-detection standard that lets contracts check what standard another contract implements before interacting with it, and it’s a dependency baked into ERC-721 and ERC-1155 rather than something you choose separately. If you’re building a real-world-asset or securities-adjacent token, ERC-3643 (permissioned tokens with built-in compliance and identity checks) is worth knowing about too, since plain ERC-20 has no native way to enforce transfer restrictions or whitelists.

Gas cost reality check

The gap between these standards isn’t theoretical. A single ERC-721 mint typically costs noticeably more gas than an ERC-20 transfer because of the additional storage writes for token ID ownership and metadata pointers, and minting a large collection one-by-one under ERC-721 can get expensive fast on mainnet, which is exactly why so many PFP-style projects historically had gas wars during mint. ERC-1155’s batch functions cut that cost meaningfully when minting or transferring multiple token types at once, and ERC-6909’s leaner storage layout and removal of the mandatory receiver callback trims it further still. On an L2 like Base or Arbitrum these differences matter less in absolute dollar terms since fees are already low, but on Ethereum mainnet the standard you pick can be the difference between a mint that costs cents and one that costs real money per transaction.

How to choose

If you’re launching a single token that represents value or voting power, use ERC-20 — don’t overcomplicate it. If you’re minting unique digital art or 1-of-1 collectibles, ERC-721 still gives you the widest marketplace reach; see our guide on building an NFT minting website with contract and frontend for the full build process. If your project needs both stackable items and unique items in one system — most games and mixed drops — go with ERC-1155 for now given its marketplace maturity, or ERC-6909 if your priority is minimizing gas for high-frequency internal operations and you don’t need broad third-party marketplace listing. If you’re building a yield product, staking pool, or lending vault, ERC-4626 is close to mandatory at this point since so much DeFi tooling now assumes it.

Choosing the right token standard is one piece of a larger build; our post on what a full-stack blockchain developer actually does covers how standard choice fits into contract architecture, frontend, and deployment as a whole project.

About Saqarmax — Saqarmax is a blockchain and automation studio building smart contracts, full-stack dApps, and custom bots for founders who need working software, not theory.

Need a token contract built on the right standard the first time? Get in touch or order on Fiverr.