Money making guide

This money making guide is a list of ideas that players can use to make money. When using this guide, players should keep in mind that the RuneScape economy is continually changing, so not all of the information given here will be completely accurate. Although these methods have worked for the majority of players, they are not guaranteed to work for every player. Making money is about working hard, using resources and, usually, having good luck. The ideas expressed here will hopefully help players to make their own money.

Rating scale
Different star ratings are relevant to how quickly and effectively money can be made, not difficulty. The more stars there are, the better the money maker.

Somewhat slow and inconvenient. Only recommended for players with little money making experience and/or not possessing the skills for better money making.

Good for players who need a little bit of cash in a small period of time. There are more effective methods for a long-term investment.

Solid for nearly all players.

Very effective when earning the funds for items worth hundreds of thousands of coins, although high skill levels are usually required.

The ultimate money makers. Most of these require investment, experience, and/or high skill levels.

Stronghold of Player Safety and Stronghold of Security
Players can attempt the Stronghold of Player Safety between Barbarian Village and Edgeville in the Misthalin Training Centre of Excellence. Once a player has completed it, he/she will be awarded with 2 skill lamps, 10,000 coins and a nice pair of gloves. While tricky to navigate through the Stronghold of Player Safety and with high level creatures, they are not aggressive and will not attack players unless the player attacks first.

If players are brave enough, they can attempt the Stronghold of Security in Barbarian Village. Food is recommended for players at all levels. Once a player has their account's recovery questions set and gone through the four levels in the Stronghold, they will be awarded 10,000 coins and a pair of boots. The monsters in this dungeon are aggressive and get stronger and stronger each floor the player descends. There are some "safe" spots on all levels where a player can wait to recover their run energy and hit points with food before he/she proceeds any further.

Silk Merchanting
This method is slow: 4-5 silk acquired per minute - 3 if the player bargains - plus about 45 seconds each way running between Lumbridge and Al Kharid. The player will spend about 8 minutes to earn 126 coins (after the tolls and initial investment), far below the average income for other methods. (Even member players taking advantage of the East Ardougne Silk Merchant will find it earns less than 300 coins per minute of work.) It is therefore only suitable for beginning players with no other options.

With 101 coins (74 if bargaining), follow the road east from Lumbridge across the bridge and through the toll gate (expect a toll of 10 coins). Follow the road as it turns south into Al Kharid. A Silk Trader is just east of the first building. Buy silk from him at 3 coins per sheet (or 2 if a player bargains). The silk can then be sold at the Lumbridge (or any other) general store or the Silk Merchant in East Ardougne (Members). If the store currently has no silk, a pack of 27 sold all at once will fetch 227 coins. Al Kharid has a bank, so players can bank their purchases and return for more. However, keep in mind that it takes the general store about a half-hour to clear a pack's worth of sales, so plan to run a fishing or mining (or whatever) trip between trips to the store. Three or four such trips will net a beginner enough for his first full suit of Iron armour.

Food collecting
Collecting food materials can be quite profitable for beginning players. Of particular note are potatoes, which can be found in several places on both member and free to play worlds. The current price of potatoes are coins each and are in strong demand due to several member food items that can be prepared with them, as well as stews in F2P cooking. The fastest location in F2P worlds is to collect them on the potato farm just to the east of Draynor Village, and to bring them to the bank in Draynor Village.

With a little bit of cash, the player can also travel to Port Sarim and buy Cheese for 8 coins each at Wydin's Food Store and in turn sell them on the Grand Exchange for coins each, making a modest profit from just a few coins. The player can buy large quantities quickly from the grocer, so the main drawback is having to run back and forth from Port Sarim to the bank in Draynor Village. The player can make about 5-8 trips per hour, assuming that the player leave all of the player’s equipment in the bank and only bring coins to purchase the cheese. If the player brings precisely 224 coins on each trip, the player can purchase a full 28 slices of cheese, maximizing the player profit.

Members can earn money even faster by bringing empty sacks to the potato fields and harvesting the potatoes and filling them while in the field, then selling the sacks of potatoes. Sacks of potatoes are fixed at 10x the price of individual potatoes (by Jagex), but are used as a payment option in farming and a few other areas in member areas. It is possible to collect some potato seeds in this fashion if players want to start farming for the first time (for free), as about 1 in ten potatoes that a player will harvest on member servers will also give a seed. The seeds are "stackable", therefore it is unnecessary to keep running to the bank as often if a player collects several potato seeds. Bringing 24 empty sacks (purchased on the Grand Exchange or from Farm stores) while harvesting will allow a player to fill and sell the sacks for coins with about an hour's worth of work and requires no skills of any kind, including farming. Certainly this is faster than begging, which can only earn any player a maximum of 12000 coins per hour if the player is lucky.

Harvesting onions and redberries can give some modest profit as well, but by far and away more profitable is to make dyes from these items. For only 5 coins (even on F2P worlds) the player can trade 2 onions for yellow dyes or 3 redberries for red dyes. These can in turn be sold on the Grand Exchange for coins each for yellow dye or  coins for red dye. These would sell for more, but Jagex has imposed a price ceiling on dyes of all colors, where demand has far outstripped supply. The player can usually sell dyes immediately on the Grand Exchange at the maximum price.

Making Money via Skills
Note: Some methods of money making may only be available to members, even with Free-to-play skills.

Combat

 * See this page for a list of ways to make money while fighting.

Mining

 * See this page for a list of ways to make money with Mining.

Smithing

 * See this page for a list of ways to make money with Smithing.

Fishing

 * See this page for a list of ways to make money with Fishing.

Woodcutting

 * See this page for a list of ways to make money with Woodcutting.

Runecrafting

 * See this page for a list of ways to make money with Runecrafting.

Magic

 * See this page for a list of ways to make money with Magic.

Crafting

 * See this page for a list of ways to make money with Crafting.

Firemaking (members)

 * See this page for a list of ways to make money with Firemaking.

Fletching (members)

 * See this page for a list of ways to make money with Fletching.

Slayer (members)

 * See this page for a list of ways to make money with Slayer.

Thieving (members)

 * See this page for a list of ways to make money with Thieving.

Construction (members)

 * See this page for a list of ways to make money with Construction.

Agility (members)

 * See this page for a list of ways to make money with Agility.

Farming (members)

 * See this page for a list of ways to make money with Farming.

Summoning (members)

 * See this page for a list of ways to make money with Summoning.

Merchanting

 * See this page for a list of ways to merchant for money.

Miscellaneous

 * See this page for a list of ways to make money that don't fit in any of the above sections.

Tips and hints

 * Use the RuneScape official forums or the forums of a clan site to help money makers buy and sell items.


 * The Grand Exchange in the specified trade worlds, (world 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.) is the busiest trading centre for both free players and members.