Money making in Runescape is considered a chore by many players. Indeed, many of the more common methods used are repetitive and mind numbing. However, there are also many other methods which are more lucrative and enjoyable.
Grand Exchange Merchanting:
The key to success in terms of money making is based on the willingness to try new ideas out, and, to take risks. Of course, the risks that should be taken are calculated risks, meaning you should have researched ahead of time. For example, every day on the Grand Exchange, a large number of items can be bought for a very low price and then sold for a much higher price. However, there are thousands of items listed in the Grand Exchange. The challenge then, is to find these profitable items.
The basic economic principles of the real world can be applied to the virtual world of Runescape. When the supply is low and the demand is high, the item rises in price; when the demand is low and the supply is high, the item falls in price. Because of this, the most profit is usually made by merchanting items that are in high demand. Such items include: Abyssal whips, consumables such as food, potions, etc, other types of armor, seeds, and rare items. There are many more items that can be used, so don’t feel as though you should be bound to the list of items shown above; however, for this tutorial, imagine as though you are limited to those items.
First, choose one of the items. In this case, the item will be the Abyssal Whip. The next step is to put in an offer for the whip; increase the buying price by ten to twenty percent. The item should sell instantly and, if it doesn’t the item should not be merchanted. At this point collect the whip and any leftover cash. Now, examine the Grand Exchange history and note the price at which the whip sold. As soon as you have done this, sell the whip for ten to twenty percent LESS than its normal Grand Exchange price. Again, the item should sell instantly and, once again, note down the price at which it sold.
The two prices you have obtained so far represent the price at which you should buy the item for and the price at which you should sell it; the price you bought the item for becomes your selling price, and the price you sold the item for becomes your selling price. For example, if I were to buy the whip and it sold for 700k, I would label that as my selling price. If I were to sell the whip for 675k, I would label that price as my buying price. However, increase the buying price by a few gp to insure that you receive the item and decrease the selling price by a few gp to make sure you have a higher priority towards people buying your item. In this case, I would have make 25k profit for every whip; 10 whips can be bought at a time before they must be sold. When the whips sell, then, you can buy 10 more and repeat the whole process over. It takes around 15 minutes for the buying and selling to cycle through and, at around 250k every 15 minutes; this method makes just about 1m an hour. Of course, this is using only one item, if you were to use several items using this method, it would be quite easy to reach 2-4m per hour.
Green Dragons:
In this case, the method of choice is Green dragon killing. Green dragon killing has always been a classic in terms of money making. Nowadays though, the dragons are overrun with bots, making it hard to earn a decent amount of money. There are a few solutions to this problem. First, you can use a dwarf cannon to kill the dragons, you can overpower the bots if you have a high enough combat level, or you can use the bots to your advantage and make even more money (my favorite method by far). Besides the many bots, there is the constant danger of the Wilderness and the player killers lurking around the entrance to the dragons, waiting for unwary players. Because of this, you should make it a priority to risk as little as possible. The best outfit, then, consists of an abyssal whip, rune platebody, rune platelegs, anti-dragonfire shield, and an Amulet of Strength. The anti-dragonfire shield protects you from the dragon's firebreath, however, you are still damaged a bit by the dragon's melees attacks, and the dragons excess fire that might escape past your shield. Because of this, you should bring some food along when you go to kill the dragons; tuna is best for this as it is quite cheap and heals a decent amount of life points. At this point you can choose between different weapons and fighting styles. Combat usually works best for higher leveled accounts, but ranged safe-spotting the dragons is much better for lower leveled accounts and pure accounts.
There are three locations in which green dragons can be found. First and most popular among these spots are the Chaos Tunnels. The Chaos Tunnels can be entered by climbing down a rift which is located in around level five wilderness north of the Grand Exchange. Then, simply head south in the small underground room and enter the south-most portal. There should be several Green dragons and several more level 83 baby black dragons. Start killing the dragons at your leisure, move from dragon to dragon quickly; pick up the dragon hides and dragon bones as they are what the real money is made from. The second location is also quite popular. To get there use a games necklace to teleport to the Clan Wars arena. Then head east until you reach an area full of green dragons. While there are more green dragons here compared to the Chaos Tunnels, there is a much greater risk of dying due to this area being an area frequently patrolled by player killers. The third location is a bit harder to find compared to the other two. First, go to Edgeville and head to the wilderness rift. At this point cross the rift and head west until you come to a hill which you can’t climb. Now head north into the wilderness and follow a slightly north-east path until you come to a small area with four green dragons. This area is the least dense in terms of people killing dragons, making it one of the best locations to kill the dragons at.
Probably the fastest, most efficient, and profitable method for making money off the dragons is to use a cannon at either location two or three; you can’t use a cannon in the Chaos Tunnels. Another option is really only available to higher leveled accounts that have completed the Regicide quest. First, go to the Chaos Tunnels but make sure to bring along anti-fire potions and a dragon halberd. When you’re at the green dragons, wield your halberd and use the special attack on a dragon that has just respawned. As soon as you use your special attack the numerous other accounts using bots should kill the dragon instantly afterwards, however, because the dragon halberd special attack is so powerful, you should usually get the loot from the dragon. Drinking super potions adds to the amount of money you can make off the Chaos Tunnels. Also, as soon as you are out of halberd special attack energy, simply switch to a whip and begin killing the dragons, hit each dragon only once or twice; then run to a different dragon in a different corner of the cavern. By doing this you are getting enough damage on the dragon to get the loot and you are ready to kill the next dragon that pops up. Every so often make sure to go back to pick up the dragon bones and hides. The Chaos Tunnel strategy really only works for accounts with high attack and strength levels, so other accounts should focus on cannoning the dragons.
Staking in the Duel Arena:
Usually, staking money in duel arena is thought to be a huge money gamble in which much more money is lost rather than gained. However, by using some simple rules of probability, it quickly becomes apparent that it becomes incredibly hard to actually lose money and very easy to make millions per hour. This method works under the following presumptions: both you and your opponent are of nearly equal Melee, Magic, or Range levels, or, you have higher levels. Of course, these levels really only depend on the type of fight agreed upon by both players. For example, suppose you and your opponent agree to box stake 500k. For those of you that don’t know, during a box stake all worn armor and items are removed, food, Prayer, Magic, and Ranged attacks are all disabled. The players then punch/kick each other until one player dies afterwards which the winning player is awarded the money staked by both players before the duel. In a box stake, the only levels that matter are your Strength, Attack, Defence, and Constitution levels.
The first example was a very simple example. Before each duel you must think about the amount of money you are willing to risk, the amount of money available, and whether you should fight certain opponents who ask to duel. Suppose once again that you agree to box stake with another player. The first step is to look up the players’ levels on the high scores and to decide whether to stake any money at all. Generally, the opposing players’ melee levels should only be around 3 levels higher compared to your levels. If they are less that makes the chances of you winning the duel much higher, as a result you should always stake against someone with lower combat levels. The next step is deciding how much money to stake. There are a few guidelines here, the more you stake, the more you are inclined to win, but you are also inclined to lose this money. Because both players are around the same combat levels, there is a 50/50 chance of winning or losing. Thus, you should stake 1/100th of the amount of money you are willing to risk. While this makes it seem as though there is no profit to be made at all it makes more sense when the scale of numbers is made clearer. 1/100th of 10 million coins is 100 thousand coins, therefore you can gain 100 thousand or lose 100 thousand. Now, assume that you lose this duel and have just lost 100 thousand coins. The next step is to log this loss in some type of word processing document such as Microsoft Word or Notepad; you should make sure to always log wins and losses. Most people decide to stake 100 thousand again to try and make up for the loss. This is a mistake as if you do make the money back you are back to where you started at with no profit. Therefore, the next step is to double the original stake amount which in this cash was 100k. Find another player with the same or nearly the same levels again, and stake 200k this time. Presume that during this fight though, luck is not on your side again and you lose 200k. At this point you have now lost 300k, make sure to log this. While it may seem foolhardy to you as you read this right now, you need to stake 400k again with another player boxing. Again, suppose that during the fight, luck decides to give you a hard time and you lose 400k! Of course, the odds of losing three fights in a row with a 50/50 chance of winning each fight comes to 1/6 or around 17%. Seventeen percent is a decently high number but if you continue to double each progressive stake after each loss, the percentage goes down exponentially. Let’s go back to the previous model in order for this to make sense. We are now at the fourth fight and our player has unfortunately lost all three of the previous fights and has consequently lost 400k. Now this player must stake 800k with another player who has around the same combat levels. Again, the player loses 800k, and then the player loses the 1.6 million he or she stakes in the next fight, then 3.2 million, and finally 6.4 million more coins are lost, leaving the poor player desperate and wondering how his karma had gotten so bad.
This scenario of course is extremely rare, occurring only .78% of the time when you use this method, and was instead used to illustrate the main idea of this method, how it works, and the impossible bad luck it takes to actually lose money. Rather, what happens most of the time, 99.22% of the time in this case, is that you may lose one fight, then win the other, this being due to the 50/50 chance of winning and losing. Since your original starting cash was 100k which you lost, and then you win 200k in the second fight, you’ve now made 100k profit. This 100k margin is always made through each successive win whether it be after 2, or 5 successive losses (100k loss + 200k + 400k + 800k + 1.6m = 3.1m). The player would then stake 3.2m and due to the laws of probability, the probability of losing six fights in a row is less than 1%, thus the player should win and then gain all the money lost plus 100k.
In summary for those who got lost: after every loss, you must double the previously stake cash value. The probability of losing all your cash takes six successive losses, which is equivalent to less than one percent. After every win, restart the cycle, putting up the original cash amount stakes, which in the above example would be a 100k stake. For those players with a more than ample sum of money at their disposal (around 100 million coins), this becomes an excellent money maker as the original stake is one million gp and due to the high chances of winning, it is easy to make up to 10 million gp an hour.
Runescape Gambling:
Gambling is considered to eventually result in a loss. And, in many real life situations, gambling does result in huge losses sooner or later. However, as the example above has shown, gambling is based on luck, which can be manipulated through knowledge of the laws of probability. A clear example of this is seen in the popular new mini-game which common Runescape players invented. Generally, this game is called the dice game, and, as its name implies, this game is based around dice. These dice can be obtained from Faruq, a merchant npc in Al-Kharid. With these virtual dice in hand, the concept of the dice game can be understood. There are several options to choose from when right clicking the dice. These options define the maximum and minimum numbers which can be rolled. For example, when the two six sided dice are chosen from the dice bag and then rolled, the result ranges from two to twelve. Now, there are two forms of the dice game. In the more commonly played version, referred to by players as the 55 x 2 dice game, there are two players involved. These players are labeled as the host and the player gambling. First, the player gambling joins the host players clan chat, then trades the host a certain amount of money. For our purposes, that amount will be 100k. Next, the host rolls a dice that gives a value ranging from 1-100. If the roll value is greater than 55, the host trades the gambler the original bet times two. In this case, if the roll was higher than 55, the player who bet would be rewarded 200k as his or her original bet was 100k. However, if the roll is less than 55, the player gambling loses his money to the host. This type of dicing is most common in world 18 around Edgeville bank, or in world 2, south of the Grand Exchange.
How can money be made off this though? Remember, as in the previous duel arena staking example, there is nearly a 1/2 chance of winning. Because of this, if you are the player betting, and if you start with an amount of around 200k, which is doubled with each successive loss, the odds of not making a 200k profit are very slim indeed. For example, if a player were to start betting at 200k, then lose this 200k, he or she should proceed to double the next bet to 400k. If the player loses this bet, then he or she should proceed to double the bet again to 800k, then 1.6m, 3.2m, etc. The odds of losing the original bet are 1/2, losing two successive bets places the probability at 1/4, then 1/8 chance of losing the third bet and so on. Therefore, if you have around a 13m in cash and place a starting bet of 200k, the odds of losing all your money is 1/2 to the power of 7, or 1/128. This is exactly like the duel arena method except without the wait time involved. The only problem with this method is in finding a trustworthy host who won't run away when you bet large amounts of cash. This is solved through the second method of dicing.
In this other, less commonly used method, there is a host and two other players who are both gambling. First though, you must join a trustworthy clan, such as dragon dyce, whose members can be found by the spirit tree to the north east of the Grand Exchange. Look for an advertising host, make sure he or she is a legitimate rank in the clan and trade him an amount of cash. For our purposes, this amount will be 100k. The host then advertises that he or she has a bet of 100k waiting. Eventually, if not almost instantly, someone else will match your bet. At this point the host will anounce the names of the two players competing. Now, choose a pair of the two six sided dice and roll them, this will result in a value ranging from 2-12. The opposing player will also roll their dice. Whoever has the higher roll wins and collects both his or her own money, as well as the opposing players money. If, for example, player one were to win, he would win 200k as his original bet was 100k and the opposing player also bet 100k. However, there is one catch to this. The host takes 5-10% of the winnings, in this case the host would receive 20k and the player who won would receive 180k of the winnings. There is a plus side to this though, as the host will 99% of the time give the winner his or her money as if the host scams, he or she will be kicked from the clan and stripped of their rank. In this case, its the host who makes the most money as some people bet huge amounts of money ranging in the millions to billions. Each time such a bet occurs, the host is guaranteed a chunk of the profits which easily add up to hundreds of millions in a few hours. Because of this, it should be your goal to somehow convince the clan leader to give you a rank and make you a host.
If, like the general population, you are unable to gain a rank you must once again work the laws of probability to your favor. There is a 50/50 chance of winning and the odds of you losing go down as you double each successive loss etc. etc. This pattern should be familiar to you be now.
Of course, for those of us who don’t like to wager large amounts of cash, however small the risk, there are other methods which provide a large, constant flow of money.
The Stronghold of Security:
The Stronghold of Security is another location in which huge profits can be made. The stronghold is a dungeon located in the middle of the Barbarian village. Upon completion of the maze you are rewarded with 10,000 gp and a set of fighting boots. However, the Stronghold also contains monsters that drop items worth bucket loads of gold. Ankous and Flesh Crawlers are the two monsters in particular which should be the main focus of your attention. Ankous are located in the bottom level of the stronghold; these ghost like creatures have a variety of drops including: level three clue scrolls, blood and death runes, Ranarr weeds, battlestaffs and other valuable drops. Flesh Crawlers on the other hand are located on the second floor of the stronghold. Flesh Crawlers drop large amounts of herbs at decently fast rates, which is why you should kill them. These are great for lower leveled accounts and are even better for higher leveled main accounts who can kill the Flesh Crawlers in one or two hits.
Clue Scroll Hunting:
Clue scroll hunting and the completion of them is referred to as treasure trails. Certain monsters drop a “clue” which then leads them on a search for other clues, eventually; after a certain number of these clues have been completed, a reward is given out. This reward may be a measly hundred gp, or you might get quite lucky and land yourself an item worth millions. Of course, the items you receive at the end of the treasure trail are very random; the item also depends on what level clue you had. There are four categories of clue scrolls, easy, medium, hard, and elite. Easy clue scrolls are dropped by weak monsters including, goblins, men, cockroach workers, and many other creatures.
Easy clue scrolls are probably the most under looked method of money making in Runescape. They can be easily obtained within a range of 1-10 minutes from pick pocketing H.A.M followers, whose base is north-west of Lumbridge, and can then be completed in another 1-10 minutes. Because of such fast completion and retrieval times, the odds of receiving a god page or some other item worth millions is quite high, amounting to large amounts of cash made daily.
Medium-leveled clue scrolls are a bit harder to obtain and are also a bit harder to complete. These are dropped by monsters such as Cockartices, guards, Cockroach soldiers, etc. Hard leveled clue scrolls are much rarer than the previous versions and are dropped by higher leveled monsters including dragons, greater demons, hellhounds, jellies, avianses, etc. Finally, elite leveled clue scrolls are dropped by the best of the best in terms of monsters’ strength including boss monsters such as the Kalphite queen, God Wars bosses, metal dragons, the King Black Dragon, and a few more. Elite leveled clue scrolls have a variety of rewards with most rewards being over around 500 thousand gp.
Skilling:
Combat is not the only way to make money, in fact there are many more methods that are not so well known and are just as good if not better money makers. One of the most common methods used by lower leveled or starting accounts is the spinning of flax into bowstrings. First buy as much flax as you can with the money you have. One or two thousand flax should start you off quite nicely. When you have the flax, go to Lumbridge. Go the bank and get a full inventory of Flax, run down to the second floor, then go to the room right next to the Dukes. Click on the spinning wheel and a window will appear with options on what you want to spin. Right click the "spin flax" option and then go down to where it says "spin x amount". Choose that and type in 28. Your character will automatically begin spinning. Then just run back to the bank, get another load of flax and repeat this process. Bowstrings are about double the price of flax. So if you bought 1k flax for 100k then 1k bowstrings would sell for about 200k. In the end your money is basically doubled.
Mining is also another good money maker for starting accounts, and at high levels of mining rocks such as Rune can be mined, leading to exponential money gains. You will first want to raise your mining to at least 60. Go to the mining guild in Falador and start mining the coal and mithril ore. When done with the load just run back to the bank and store your ore.
Members will want to use the coal trucks to mine coal. First go to the coal trucks; use your world map if you need to. Bring along a rune pickaxe and start mining the coal, when you are done just deposit the ores in the carts. The carts can hold up to 120 pieces of coal, when done just pick up the coal from the deposit-place in the Seer's village.
At level 85 mining access to Runite rocks is granted. Runite ore is worth a cool 15k apiece, making a whole inventory of the ore around 460k. However, Runite ore is slow to mine, respawns very slowly, and there are obviously competition for the best ore. To mine the ore head to the Heroes’ Guild, the resource dungeon made available to you at level 45 mining, the Fremminik Islands, or go to the Wilderness (not recommended unless you are a non-member). Simply mine the ore and switch worlds, then mine the ore in the new world you are in. Continue doing this for extremely fast money.
Smithing is another stable money making skill. The profit doesn’t lie in
Ahh, woodcutting, where would Runescape be if there was no woodcutting involved? The two main trees chopped for profit when woodcutting are Magic trees and Yew trees. To chop Magic tree logs you need at least level 75 woodcutting. However because of the length of time it takes to get a Magic log at this level it would be better for you to start chopping these at level 80-99 woodcutting. Anyways, go to the duel arena, then go to the Mage arena, there should be two Magic trees on the sides of the building. Chop these until you get a full inventory, then bank at the duel arena bank. Each Magic tree log sells for around 1k apiece, making this quite a good money maker for the lazy among us.
Yew logs become available at 60 woodcutting, however just like Magic logs the speed to chop these at is very slow. To efficiently chop these trees you should get at least level 75 woodcutting. Some of the best places to chop these logs include: Edgeville, Draynor/ Lumbridge swamp, Gnome Stronghold, Varrock palace, Catherby, and the Yew trees in the Seers Village church courtyard. These are 400 gp each, so for non-member accounts these trees are a very nice way to make money.
Like woodcutting, fishing is another classic in terms of money making. Catherby is a common location for members to fish at as the fishing spots are very near to the bank. If you are fishing lobsters, it would be best to have above level 60+ fishing, 70+ for swordfish, and 80+ fishing for sharks. Bring a harpoon for swordfish and sharks, and a lobster pot for lobsters. Alternatively if you have at least 68 fishing you can enter the fishing guild which is north of Ardounge. Fish here as it is much closer to the bank and is much less crowded compared to Catherby. Jatizso is a relatively unknown place where you can fish at. However it requires partial completion of the quest, "The Fremminik Isles", you can fish lobsters and swordfish here with barely any competition.
Finally we come to Runecrafting, probably the most boring and tedious skill in the game. However, Runecrafting is the epitome of money, huge amounts can easily be made in a few hours of doing nothing but crafting runes. This method requires that you have at least 44 Runecrafting, however for maximum profit it would be best if you had 91 Runecrafting. First you must have completed the abyss minigame. Second you should buy around 20-30 fully charged glory amulets. Start at Edgeville, bring along a rune pickaxe, and some dragon hide armor. Then walk north to the wilderness and north some more until you see the Zamorak wizard. Right click on him and click "teleport". You should now be in the abyss. In this region of the abyss you must pass a certain obstacle to get to the center where you can craft your runes. The only challenge is that there are monsters which can hit high if you let them attack you too much. Your prayer will also be drained, and you will be marked with a skull, only making it harder for you to survive. Now run around until you see an obstacle you can pass. When you pass the obstacle you should enter an inner rim with the entrance to the altars there. Go inside the nature rune altar, craft your runes, teleport back to Edgeville using your glory and repeat.
While all of these methods are great, they are merely starters. There are many more methods out there, most of which are kept secret so that they won’t be abused by massive amounts of players. Discovering these methods should therefore be a goal as with knowledge, comes power, and with power, undeniably comes wealth.