Money making guide

cleanup

This article or section requires a cleanup in order to meet the Old School RuneScape Wiki's quality standards. You can edit this page to improve it.

Starting off

Players can also visit the Stronghold of Security for a quick cash pile. Players only need to complete the first three levels to get 10,000 coins. This can be done even at level-3 Combat. Just pick some cabbages on the way there from the field north of Lumbridge and eat between rooms. Also, some trout or salmon can be picked up if in a populated world, such as World 1, with players who fish and cook at Barbarian Village.

Alternatively, killing the level-3 skillers on PVP worlds (up until level 14) can yield massive gold rewards from the PK's. It is also a very low impact entry into PVP worlds, which would tremendously help raise your confidence levels if you're a new player that is interested in PVP. It's highly recommended to train Strength up until level 14 to maximise the damage done to the vulnerable skillers.

Combat

Killing Chaos Druids

Killing chaos druids is very profitable since they drop herbs, which usually sell for 700 coins each. Depending on your Combat level, a full inventory of herbs and some Law runes and Mithril bolts take about 15 minutes. They are located in Edgeville Dungeon towards the north, and the Taverley Dungeon at the north-east. To make extra money, get Fire talismans from chaos druids, attain level 20 in Herblore, and drop all the low-level herbs you can identify or take the herbs to Nardah in the desert south of Al-Kharid to be identified and sell them clean.

Killing Tree Spirits

To kill tree spirits, you need to have unlocked the Fairy rings and enter the code BKQ. Bring any axe and cut any tree, and a tree spirit will spawn. One of the flaws with this method is that they don't give experience (except from the XP you get for casting a spell). The tree spirits drop axes (steel, mithril, adamant and rune), a lot of Nature runes, herbs, seeds, etc.

Killing Fire Giants

Fire giants in the Waterfall Dungeon unlocked during the Waterfall Quest drop valuable items, such as Rune scimitars. They are usually very crowded, but if you can find an empty world to kill them, you can make a lot of money.

Killing Dark Wizards

Dark wizards, located south of Varrock, are level 7 and 20 wizards that can easily be killed by low levels. They drop talismans, and a decent amount of runes, ranging up to Blood runes quite commonly. Talismans can be sold to runecrafters for a decent sum of money. Fire Talismans are commonly dropped, and can be sold to runecrafters for up to 20,000 gold each.

Killing Flesh Crawlers

To kill flesh crawlers, you need to go to the second level of the Stronghold of Security, south into the large room containing them. They drop herbs commonly as well as fire runes, noted iron ore, nature runes and dust runes. If you can identify ranarr weeds and have a decent Defence and armour, then you may stay for 24 ranarrs, and around 10,000 fire runes as well as iron ore and nature runes each trip, worth over 400,000 coins. If you cannot identify the herbs and/or you have low survivability, then just bank all of your herbs, and an Amulet of glory could be useful for the Edgeville bank. Dust runes are optional to take; they sell for a fair amount. However, they are difficult to sell.

Killing Green Dragons

Green dragons are level 79 and are located at several points in the Wilderness. They always drop Dragon bones and Green dragonhide, which are very easy to sell in the player market as they are one of the best methods for Prayer and Crafting XP. Be careful though as many players PK in that area, and there is a high risk of dying, so always bring your teleport!

Killing Snakes

Snakes are level 35 and poisonous (3 damage), so bringing along Anti-poison potions is recommended. They only drop snakeskin, which can be sold to other players, or tanned for 15gp and turned into Snakeskin armour, and then sold to other players, mainly the Snakeskin chaps made at 51 Crafting because they are used for Clue Scrolls. A player needs to have completed Cabin Fever in order to access Mos'Le Harmless where the snakes are located. After the quest, an easy way to access these snakes is to use the Minigame teleport to Trouble Brewing, and then bank with the deposit box located at Trouble Brewing Lobby.

Killing Ankous

Ankous are monsters found on the fourth floor of the Stronghold of Security. They are weak against Melee and the Salve amulet, which can bring in a good amount of XP. They regularly drop death runes, blood runes, noted pure essence, noted mithril ore and the occasional hard clue scroll, so they are a great money maker. You could also kill them in PvP worlds if it is too crowded in regular worlds. Since they are aggressive, it might be difficult for a PKer to kill you. Bones to Peaches is a great method too since they drop bones.

Fishing

Initially, Fishing is quite a non-profitable skill to train. You cannot really start making money until you can catch trout using a fly fishing rod. From there, you can begin to train on the highest fish you can catch. The higher the level you have, the faster you will catch fish. For example, tuna at level 35 Fishing will go slightly slow at 35; however, at 99 Fishing, one may catch tuna at a very fast rate, along with catching some swordfish.

Levels 1-20

At this point, begin fishing shrimp. You can catch them south of Lumbridge. Shrimp really will not sell for anything, so you can drop them to speed train up to a higher level to sell. 

Levels 20-35/40

From here, begin to fly-fish trout. The best place to bait-fish and fly-fish is at Shilo Village or south of Edgeville. There are a few spots just east of Barbarian Village. This a popular spot to train for lower levels to train and catch fish to sell. You can catch the next highest fish if you want also. At level 25, you can catch pike. At level 30, you'll start to catch salmon with your trout].

At level 35, you can start to catch tuna with harpoon fishing. This is very hard to do for non-members due to the fact that they only have one place to catch them on Musa Point. For members, however, Catherby is going to be the greatest spot to train for a while and it is very popular. There are plenty of spots to train east of the bank. If you stick with this method, around level 50, you will catch swordfish. At level 40, begin to catch lobsters. 

Levels 40-55/62/76/99

Fishing lobsters at a fairly high level between level 40 and 62 will bring you a good chunk of money. However, it's not recommended to fish lobsters if you can fish monkfish because lobsters only bring you about 50k-100k gp per hour. After the Swan Song quest, you can fish monkfish. This is noticeably quicker than catching lobsters or swordfish, but usually only higher level players are here, due to the requirements of Swan Song.

At level 76, you can start catching sharks. The best place to catch sharks is on the Jatizso docks or going to be in the Fishing Guild. There is a nearby bank to store your load of sharks after you catch them. Catching sharks will earn you decent profit; however, it is still recommended to fish monkfish if you have all of the requirements completed, earning you just about the same profit, but the XP you earn is far greater.

Fletching

Rather than heading to the general store to sell the logs that you obtained from Woodcutting, carry both a hatchet and a knife while you woodcut, and sell fletched items to the general store, which will yield more profit than simply selling logs to the general store.

Levels 1-5

Arrow shafts sell for 0 gp to the general store, but selling them to other players is great money for beginners. Training 1-20 Fletching by chopping all the logs by yourself and fletching them into arrow shafts would make around 100K coins when sold to other players. This, however, will take a few hours as arrow shafts only award 5 xp per logs.

Levels 5-10

You can fletch unstrung shortbows out of the regular logs you woodcut, and sell the unstrung shortbows (AF = 9 gp; min = 2 gp when there are 10+ shortbows in stock) to the general store for profit.

Levels 10-20

Now, you can fletch unstrung longbows out of the regular logs you woodcut, as unstrung longbows sell for greater profit (AF=24 gp; min=6 gp when there are 11+ in stock) at the general store than do unstrung shortbows.

Levels 20-25

You can now go for faster Fletching XP with unstrung oak shortbows, but the profit is lower for unstrung oak shortbows (AF=20 gp; min 5 gp when there are 10+ in stock) at the general store than for unstrung regular longbows.

Levels 25-35

You can now make unstrung oak longbows and sell them for profit to the general store (AF=32 gp; min=8 gp when there are 12+ in stock).

Levels 35-40

You can fletch unstrung willow shortbows and sell them to the general store (AF=40 gp; min=10 gp when there are 10+ in stock) for profit.

Levels 40-50

Fletching unstrung willow longbows and selling them to the general store (AF=64gp; min=16 gp when there are 11+ in stock) will generate profit.

Levels 50-55

Making unstrung maple shortbows and selling them to the general store (AF=80 gp; min=20 gp when there are 11+ in stock) can now provide a source of profit for your Fletching level.

Levels 55-65

At your Fletching level, making and selling unstrung maple longbows to the general store (AF=128 gp; min=32 gp when there are 10+ in stock) begins to yield good profit.

Levels 65-70

At this point, fletching and stringing yew shortbows yield even more profit.

Levels 70-80

Fletch and string yew longbows.

Levels 80-85

Fletch and string magic shortbows.

Levels 85-99

Fletching and stringing magic longbows can yield more XP and good profit.

Magic

High Level Alchemy can be a great way of making money if you know how to find items to alch for cheap prices. The most commonly alched items are yew and magic longbows, but maple ones are also used too. They don't have to be bought, however, you can fletch and string them yourself from scratch and earn over 100gp more per bow by alching them. If you craft your own nature runes, then you get pure profit from doing this method.

Lava Dragons

You can travel through the Wilderness and safe-spot Lava dragons, and Telegrab their loot. It's not recommended to go anywhere near them since they can easily kill you with their dragonfire breath. The amount you get per kill is around 13,000 coins in profit. You will have to bring items you're willing to risk though, so don't go out there with your entire bank.

They are weak to Fire spells, so it's recommended to use them.

Wine of Zamorak

At 33 Magic, a spell called Telekinetic Grab is unlocked. This spell allows items to be retrieved from far away using 1 air rune and 1 law rune. Using this spell, you can grab Wine of Zamorak without any consequences. On a high populated world, profits per hour can reach up to 250k/h.

Mining

Ores can be mined and sold to gain money, or you can smelt the ores into bars and sell them to players. Generally, coal and iron ore are in high demand by players training Smithing. For low level mining, its best to start in the swamp mine (facing the castle in Lumbridge, take a left through the cemetery, follow the dirt road) smelt it into bars, bank it, sell them on the G.E. afterwards (bronze bars sell on the G.E. for around 365 coins each) and repeat. Once you get to 15 Mining, head to Varrock and mine some iron (ore: 62 coins bar: 222 coins).

At level 30 Mining, coal (150 gp ea) can be mined. One popular location to mine coal is at the Kandarin Coal Trucks, west of Seers' Village and north of the Fishing Guild. Mined coal can be placed into the nearby mine carts and then collected just north of Seers' Village. Only 120 coal can be stored in the carts at one time.

Another popular place to mine is in the Motherlode Mine located in the Falador Dwarven Mines. You can obtain coal (150 gp), gold (229 gp), mithril (382 gp), adamantite (1,127 gp), and runite (11,060 gp) considered you have the respective Mining levels. By mining pay-dirt and cleaning it in the machine located in the center of the mine, you collect random ores from the sack. This is a very popular update to the Mining skill as it is easy to do AFK and can yield good profit and experience per hour. On random, you can also receive golden nuggets. These can be traded in for a mining outfit which grants an XP boost to Mining, or for a profit, you can buy soft clay packs which can then be sold to other players.

Rune running

One easy method to make large amounts of money is rune running. There are rich players willing to pay people to "run" rune essence for them, either to the bank or to a nearby general store for unnoting.

There are many players and clans involved in rune running services; many of them post advertisements on the RuneScape forums. Generally, the "Runes and Ammo" section is where most players post for this method. Titles such as "25:25, 18:25, 23:25" and so on are what you should be looking for. These numbers are ratios of runes to rune essence (or pure essence).

Law rune running

World 341 and 366 are commonly used for running Law runes. Depending on the crafter, they may require you to hold up to 26 Pure essence in your inventory. Head to Draynor Village for a nearby bank, and be sure you have no weapons, armour, or god clothing (this includes God books) on. If you want to be safe, just don't wear anything.

Once you've boarded the ship, head east until you see a cooking range. Travel north, following the path, passing the church and the bridge. Runecrafters will be outside of the altar, usually typing such things like "23:25 or 25:25" (ratio of Law rune to Pure essence). Trade the player, and offer them your essence. You should receive a significant amount of Law runes in return. Head back to Draynor Village to deposit your runes, and withdraw another inventory of essence, repeating the above steps.

Nature rune running

Nature Rune running guide.

The other most profitable runes to run are Nature runes. This method can be quite dangerous, so stay alert and consider bringing a one-click teleport item, or teleport jewellery. There are poisonous monsters on Karamja, but you can buy an Antipoison potion from the general store for about 500 coins.

It is highly recommended that you join a clan chat as there are usually crafters online.

The Nature Altar is located north of Shilo Village. Make your way to Southern Karamja, or enter the Nature Altar through the Abyss for quick travel.

Once you've traded your essence for runes, run to the nearby general store, sell some of your noted essence and buy it back, then repeat the process!

Watch out for other players buying your essence as soon as you sell it. The only way to avoid them is to find a nature running group on a different world.

Smithing

Iron knives

Buy (or mine) iron ore in bulk. Players who power-level Mining typically are willing to sell for 60-70gp each. Then, buy (or craft) a ring of forging, and smelt the ore at the Al Kharid furnace (note that the ring of forging will only work for 140 iron ore!). Smith these iron bars at the Varrock anvil and make iron knives. Players typically pay around 60-65gp per knife in a high-volume trading area, such as Varrock West Bank on World 1. This is a decent source of Smithing XP and decent profit. (Assuming you buy 140 iron ore at 70gp per ore, and 1 ring of forging for 2,000gp, your total cost is just under 12k gp, and you will have 42k gp if you sell all 700 iron knives for 60 gp each, making for a profit of 30k gp, or about 43 gp profit per knife).

Cannonballs

Smithing cannonballs from steel bars after completion of the Dwarf Cannon quest can yield profits of roughly 225k gp per hour at Port Phasmatys, along with about 16.5k xp per hour.

Thieving

Please note that as your Thieving level progresses, so does your chance of success whilst Thieving.

Levels 1-5

Start with pickpocketing. Even though pickpocketing your average man or woman will get you very little gp, Edgeville is a very good location for pickpocketing (the building north of the Edgeville bank has numerous targets to pickpocket). The area around Lumbridge Castle is a reasonable alternate location with people to pickpocket. This stage is only to get the required XP for level 5 Thieving (for the cake stall in Ardougne).

Levels 5-15

Stealing cakes from the bakery stall in Ardougne provides faster Thieving XP than pickpocketing. You will also have food to bank (should you wish to bank food), and more than enough food to heal yourself in the odd occasion that an Ardougne guard catches you thieving.

Levels 15-35

H.A.M. members will give a selection of items and tools worth a substantial amount, including straight cash, selling the items at their respective shops will bring you about 1k a trip, and there is also a general store nearby, at level 20 you can make a trip about every 4–6 minutes.

At level 20, one can steal silk from the stalls at Ardougne, and sell them back to the silk trader for 60 gp each. To do this, you must not have stolen from a silk stall in the last 30 minutes, and you can only bring him unnoted silk. Talk to him, and offer to sell him silk for 120 gp. He will refuse and offer to buy for 50 gp; say you will sell for 60 gp instead.

As some sort of the same method, you can thief grey wolf furs in the stall at the marketplace in Ardougne, and sell them in Varrock for 120 each to the fur trader there.

At level 28, one can steal from the chest located upstairs in the locked building south-east of the silk stall. You will get 1 nature rune and 3 coins, equating anywhere between 300-615 gp/min. The chest refreshes every 12 seconds. If done correctly, one can earn up to 45k/hr.

Level 28

Stealing at the chest in East Ardougne will give you 1 Nature rune and 1 coin every time you steal. You will also receive 25 XP for each action. You can then sell the nature runes you thieve for between 210-250 gp at the moment. The chest has an 8 second respawn time, which means you can gain up to 11.25K exp per hour, along with up to 450 nature runes per hour (90k gp per hour if sold at 200gp each), thus making it very good monetary gains for its level. Note that this also works decently for characters in Ironman Mode and even Ultimate Ironman Mode who do not have the magic level required for High alchemy , as the runes can then be sold to the General store for some quick gp.

Level 38

Master Farmers can be pickpocketed at this level for various seeds: Ranarr, Snapdragon, and Dwarf weed seeds being the most expensive.

Levels 40-55

Pickpocketing guards will bring a substantial amount, not much greater than H.A.M. Members but in solid cash so you don't have to use time you would have spent selling items. The flow is about 230gp a minute (timing 8 different runs and averaging them).

Levels 55-70

Knights of Ardougne will give a flow almost exactly double that of guards, bringing in about 460gp a min (timed from 16 different runs).

Level 59

Thieving Blood runes and gp in the Chaos Druid Tower (north of Ardougne) can be extremely profitable if world-hopping. You receive 500 gp and 2 blood runes every time you thieve it, along with 250 xp. If hopping worlds on a good computer and a good internet connection, you can thieve the chest every 8 seconds or so, with a total gain of 225,000 gp and 900 blood runes every hour, along with 112,500 experience. If you choose not to hop and instead wait 135 seconds each time (2 minutes and 15 seconds), you can still make about 26 thieves per hour, which is 13,000 gp and 52 blood runes every hour, along with 6,500 xp each hour. While the latter may not sound very appealing, it is extremely easy to do while semi-afk, as you really only need to click twice every 2 minutes or so. Likewise, this is an excellent technique for characters in Ironman Mode to acquire some blood runes and some quick gp.

Levels 80+

At this point, anything you steal will give you about the same rate; however, the best option is Pyramid Plunder and selling the relics for solid cash.

Thieving from Rogue's Castle chests can award profits upwards of 800k+ an hour; however, this is a highly risky area with many player killers present. Caution is recommended in using this method.

Woodcutting

This is currently the fastest method, tied with Thieving and Smithing, as the items are from the 3, are either easy to sell, or straight cash on hand, being more useful then something you cannot sell.

Levels 1-30

Logs are a cheap, ineffective way to make pocket change until you can cut oaks. Plain logs sell for 1 or 0gp in the general store (although regular logs should be sold to other players or used to train Fletching), oak logs fetch 10gp at first then 2 once about 20 are sold to the general store (oak logs should also be sold to other players or used to train Fletching).

Levels 30-45

Willow logs are worth much more than in the other RuneScape, sell for 24gp AF and 4 min, about 3,200gp an hour.

Levels 45-60

Maple logs can be sold cheaply to a general store, but are best used to sell to flechers being up to 100gp a log.

You can make about 50k an hour doing so; they also sell 32gp AF and min 7gp ranging about 6,300gp an hour.

Levels 60-99

Yew logs can be sold for 420gp, and the higher level you are the faster you can get them. They are always going to be in high demand for Fletching and Firemaking XP, and others would merch them. It would be much more ideal to level Woodcutting to level 70, therefore giving a faster rate of logs.

Herblore

Using the Herblore Skill, players can make Unfinished Potions and sell them for quick cash.

An example of a good and profitable way to do this would be looking at the prices and testing to see if you make profit or not upon making an Unfinished Potion. For example: The price for Avantoe is 2,060 coins, and an Avantoe potion (unf) sells for 2,411 coins. The materials needed to make an Unfinished Avantoe Potion are a Clean Avantoe and Vial of water. The Vial of water is 4 coins each. Therefore, you make a profit of 347 coins each time you make an Unfinished Avantoe Potion and sell it. Every inventory, 14 Unfinished Potions can be made using a vial of water and the clean herb. So for every inventory, you make a 4,858 coin profit.

Tips and hints

• With the same effort, you could easily kill cows for their cowhide or raw beef, mine rune/pure essence, or collect Mort myre fungi or Blue dragon scales, which would make money a lot more easily.
• Make sure to pick up as much money left on the ground as you can when training or traveling. Although it seems pointless to do so, even small amounts of money can add up to thousands, so picking up that extra small drop from a guard or rock crab counts toward your earnings.
• The RuneScape Official Forums (or http://forums.zybez.net/runescape-2007-prices) can be used to help money makers buy and sell items more efficiently and easily.
• Many people leave random event rewards, such as coins and gems, on the ground when spinning flax in Lumbridge Castle. Use this to your advantage by going in to a busy world and picking up free items while spinning flax. It might be a good idea to take only 27 flax with you to the spinning wheel so you can pick up any valuables as soon as they appear on the ground.
• While selling to a general store may be less time consuming, selling to an actual player is well worth the time in most cases (i.e. regular logs sell for 1gp at a general store and over 100 to an actual player).

What else you should read

• Skill training guides
• Skills
• Category:Guides