When comparing lease and royalty offers you should be careful to not underestimate what can seem on the surface as a "small" difference.

Example: For one property my sibling and I own mineral rights to we were offered an option of one bonus and 21% royalty or a lower bonus and 25% royalty. Usually we agree on the same offer - we haven't received that many variable offers and when we do we usually agree on which one we both like better. Plus there is some advantage in having the same terms - it allows us to cross check each others payments and the numbers we report for taxes, etc. In this case, however I did not have a pressing need for the difference in bonus cash and thought this property had a fair likelihood of being drilled and producing. I asked if we could take different options and the prospective mineral lessee said yes, so I took the 25% option and my sibling took the 21% option. One well has been drilled so far in that lease but I have already recouped far more than the bonus difference and ultimately I am pretty sure future wells will only compound the advantage of the choice I made.

My sibling recently remarked, "It's only a 4% difference". I don't think that is the best way to look at the real difference between such percentages. My royalty rate is indeed 4% more of the overall royalties to be paid. But the real "bonus" of my royalty rate is almost 20% more in royalty payments than my sibling's. 25%-21% = 4%.  4%/21% = 19.04...%   So all I am suggesting is to look at the rate percentage difference as a percentage of the lower rate offered to get a more accurate impression of the real difference in what your payout will be. And likewise do the the same math to compare any royalty rate options you are presented. (e.g. look at the difference between 20% and 22% as 10% instead of 2%, or the difference in 15% and 20% as 33% rather than 5%)

It's true that if the lease had expired without production my sibling would have made the better choice. Also if we were in an era of reasonable investment return for low risk then there would be an additional advantage from investing the higher bonus money to consider. But that has not been the case for some time.

Bottom line: Don't underestimate seemingly small differences in royalty rates in negotiations.