OSRS money making guide - get rich quick scheme

how to make money in old school Runescape guide 

Although OldSchool Runescape, and RS3 before it, are F2P, money still is important. It doesn't matter if you are paying for a bond, grinding for it, or living without it at all. You will need OSRS Gold for items, gear, consumables like Prayer Potions, and everyday expenses. This guide is meant to help new and veteran players get into fast and easy gold farming, utilizing the best available tactics and methods. We are going to walk you through different activities that score you nice sums of gold per hour. We are well aware that in OSRS, nothing is simple and fast from skills training, quests, to earning cash, which is why we highly recommend reading the guide first. Time is money, and there are never too many coins. 

If you are somewhat new to the game, fear not as part of this guide is dedicated to you, listing some of the best ways to earn a lot of gold relatively to your level. 

OSRS is a great and popular online game with tons of deep, engaging content, dedicated to both PvP and PvE players. The same goes for gold making. OSRS offers its players standard methods of farming, traditionally associated with most MMOs - crafting items, alchemy, or killing mobs. It also provides some unique ways, namely cleaning farm zones right after they were cleared by higher level players or just old-fashioned burglary. Or you can smash a tree with an ax eighteen hours a day. 

We've simply divided this guide into several sections, each carefully examining particular Old School Runescape money making methods, starting with farming your first bond, crafting things, hunting, selling, and ending with securing yourselves decent passive income sources (as well as NPC's pockets).

As for gold per hour rates stated here, they can vary with your experience as prices on Great Exchange are in constant flux, so be mindful and double-check everything since some methods may be less profitable than others, depending on the market state. It is true especially for flipping, so if guides tell you that flipping is excellent earning method, they don't tell you the whole truth.

Table of Contents

F2P Money Making

Artisan Money Making Zone

Passive Money Making

Slashing Money Making

Odd Money Making

OSRS money making F2P

Most of osrs money making methods require access to members-only skills (like Slayer) which can be bought with bonds. To do so without spending real money we will have to take few extra steps - with current price of Bond being around 4kk, non-membership players will have to make around 290k gold per day to buy one, and we are going to show you how to do this. We list gold farming methods suited for both high level characters and beginners who play on F2P accounts.

Tanning cowhides

Absolute entry-level money-making technique as there are barely any requirements since cows have very low combat level. Teleport to Lumbridge Castle, then go north to Lumbridge Cow Fields and just kill cows and collect their hides. The next step is to meet with Ellis - tanner located in Al Kharid - pay him for tanning looted skins, sell them on Great Exchange, rinse and repeat. In order to make this efficient, you should loot approximately 374 hides per hour, which will bank you around 60k gold per hour. At this rate, you'd have to farm five hours a day for a bond, so it may not be the most cost-effective way, but hey, it's a newb-friendly gold making method.

Mining

Due to the constant demand for various ores, this is a very reliable and stable way of profiting. Effective gold per hour depends on your mining skill and your rock of choice, but once you start getting better at it, your earnings will rise dramatically. New to the business will have to start with most basic materials like clay but fairly soon - at the 15 skill level - you will be able to mine iron ore which is one of the most traded items on the Grand Exchange and from that point you shouldn't have any problems with gold. Worth noting is that while mining rocks, you have a chance to loot gems that will up your profit or can be used for jewel crafting.

Nevertheless you should be expecting earnings around 60-70k gold per hour. Non-members area that contains a fair amount of iron rocks is Al Kharid Mine. Also, you might consider sweeping mine's carpets as this is a profitable endeavor too - power miners tend to leave iron rocks, creating the opportunity for easy gold for low-level players, who would prefer hopping realms to simple Mining.  

Woodcutting

Manly job for hardy people - similar to Mining, this can be picked up early in the game and yields a steady stream of gold, which gets better (eventually turning into a river of gold) as you progress. Serious profits start at 15 skill level with chopping down Oak Trees - found in various areas of the game, i.e., Lumbridge - for their multiple log drops, then you will steadily progress towards the yew tree. Words of caution though, woodcutting even with membership is not that profitable compared to other low effort methods - oak logs score you around 21k gold per hour, while best in slot non-members wood - yew logs - are just twice as much. Although members have access to magic wood, this is worth meager 130k gold per hour, which is almost barely profitable when compared to another money making method restricted for members. We've listed it here, among other tips, to paint a full picture of OSRS money-making and warn you that although some activities can bring gold, it's not always worth your time (unless you are RPing as a woodcutter, which is fine).

Fishing

Old as the world food gathering and money-making hobby is maybe not the most cost-effective way of earning gold pieces in OSRS, but it's the chillest, by far. Sadly non-membership players are limited to catching lobsters at Musa Point near Port Sarim, which turns out to score you around 20k gold per hour. It's not the best deal, BUT if you've already obtained membership and are looking for places to up your angling game, catching infernal eels gives about 280k gold per hour while being almost AFK. You don't even need the feathers lures. If you are not afraid of PKers and would like something a tad more intensive, dark crabs are waiting out there for you, scoring 380k gold per hour. 

Gold necklaces

Those more keen on staying in the comforts of cities this method should suit the most. It doesn't require membership account, has low entry requirements (just level your crafting skill to 6 and you are good to go), helps you skill Crafting, and yields around 100k gold pieces per hour by just fetching some gold bars and necklace molds and stuffing them into the furnace. Considering that's non-membership method and taking into account that requirements are virtually non-existent, this should be your go-to if you want to make some gold fast.   

Mining runite ore

Mining runite requirements are simple, although high - you will have to level your Mining to 85 and acquire runic or dragon pickaxe and a looting bag. Once you are set, head to Lava Maze in the Wilderness where Wilderness Mines are located. Be cautious since it's Wilderness, and PKers are rampant, so don't bring valuable items that you wouldn't want to lose with you, j melee weapon, and food with you. With that, you are fully prepared to mine runite rocks. They spawn two per world, so you will have to world hop a bit. All in all, depending on the Mining skill level, you should mine 30 to 60 ores per hour, which will earn you between 340k and 690k gold per hour. It means that one hour of mining runite ore daily will provide you with enough gold to buy the bond once every fourteen days. 

Collecting Wine of Zamorak

Collecting wine requires total level above 500, set of Zamorak robes, 33 Magic level, 20 or above Hitpoints level, cakes, restore potions, amulet of glory, a Staff of Air, and as usual - looting bag. Head north from the west bank of Falador to the Chaos Temple guarded by Monks of Zamorak, neutral mobs that won't attack you yet. Locate two altars with Wine of Zamorak - one on the ground floor and the other on first floor. You are going to do as follows - go upstairs, telegrab wine (mobs will remain calm), climb down the ladder to the ground floor. Telegrab second bottle (that will enrage the monks, don't try to fight), quickly climb up (monks can load a punch, eat if you must), by this time Wine should have respawned (it has 25 second respawn time), grab it again and well, repeat the process until you are full. Once in a while, drink restore potion to reset your Magic level stat. Use an amulet of glory for fast transportation. By our estimates, this gold making method outputs 340k gold per hour, provided you are able to collect 208 flasks of wine per hour.    

Making money with artisan skills

Once you will gain membership and thus access to member-only skills, you will have a vast pool of gold making methods to choose from. We have divided this section into three subsections - crafting, combat, and passive income. Not all of those methods require membership; however, some demand starting capital big enough to be not eligible for the previous section. Income estimates are contained in brackets next to method type. 

Crafting

Opal rings (~340k gold per hour)

Requires 1lvl in Crafting, one opal, one silver bar, ring mold, and furnace to stick the stuff into. It's straightforward, make as much as you can, post it on Grand Exchange, repeat. 

Opal necklace (~300k gold per hour)

Similarly, as above, you are going to need opal, silver bar, necklace mould but this time required Crafting level is 16. 

Jade necklace (~390k gold per hour)

Skill your Crafting level up to 25, obtain one jade, one silver bar, you already should have required necklace mould, stick it all into the furnace, and turn a profit. 

You might feel tempted to enchant those items. We advise you not to as they will sell at a slightly lower price.

Runecrafting

It's strongly advised to equip best in slot rune pouch (available at Runecrafting levels 25, 50, and 75). We start with runes requiring advanced Runecrafting skill level, but it's merely for the purpose of highlighting the most profitable runes, you won't have a problem with making profit skilling Runecrafting. 

Astral Rune (~400k-1000k gold per hour)

Crafting Astral Runes requires Runecrafting level 40, pure essence, and access to Lunar Altar obtained after completing the Lunar Diplomacy quest (required skill levels: 61 Crafting, 40 Defence, 49 Firemaking, 65 Magic, 60 Mining, 55 Woodcutting). Head to Lunar Isle, use pure essence at the altar until you are good, sell runes on the Great Exchange, repeat. Once you reach 82 Runecrafting, you will be able to craft two runes per one essence, thus increasing your profit twofold. Astral Rune is required in Dream Mentor quest.

Law Rune (~1200k gold per hour)

Crafting Law Rune is unlocked upon reaching Runecrafting level 52. You will have to complete the Troll Stronghold quest (required skill levels: 15 Agility, 30 Thieving, 43 Prayer) in order to obtain Law Talisman granting access to Law Altar. Once you've done that, you are good to go. Law Altar can be accessed either directly via a journey to the northeastern parts of Entrana or by Abyss. Some do it also by the balloon transportation system. All three ways are viable. The choice is up to you. Law Rune scales with Runecrafting similarly to Astral Rune, at 95 level crafting output, gets doubled.

Nature Rune (~490k-1400k gold per hour)

There is only one requirement for crafting Nature Runes - Runecrafting level 44, upon reaching level 91 players will always craft two of them. As with the others, it's crafted at the appropriate - Nature - altar, located northeast of Shilo Village while wearing Nature talisman (or accessed via Abyss). 

Death Rune (~690k-1600k gold per hour)

Created at Death Altar entombed in Temple of Light, it requires Runecrafting level 65 and one pure essence to craft. In order to gain access to Death Altar, complete Mourning's End Part II (required skill levels: 70 Agility or above, 43 Prayer or above). Death Altar is really far from any banking access point, so it's recommended to use Abyss way. Upon reaching level 99 in Runecrafting. Two runes are created from one essence.

Wrath Rune (~2000k gold per hour)

It's the hottest, and the highest-selling rune right now. It is neither easy to craft or unlock access to its appropriate altar. However, high turnout per hour is worth the risk. Skill Runecrafting to 99 level, complete Dragon Slayer II quest (required skill levels: 75 Magic, 70 Smithing, 68 Mining, 62 Crafting, 60 Agility, 60 Thieving, 50 Construction, 50 Hitpoints). Although it is a challenge in itself, now comes the real bummer - Wrath Altar is accessed via Myth's Guild by climbing down Mythic Statue and then running through caves filled with chromatic dragons. It's worth it. On a side note - altar can't be accessed via Abyss and nor the output can be doubled. 

Fletching

Stringing yew long bow (~460k gold per hour)

You will need Fletching skill level 70, yew logs (Woodcutting skill level 60) to cut the yew longbow (u) out of them, and then bowstring (Crafting skill level 10) to string the bow. Both cutting the bow and stringing it yield Fletching experience. 

Herblore

Making unfinished Ranarr potions (~470k gold per hour)

Skill Herblore to 25 in order clean Grimy Ranarr Weed - it drops from Combat skill level 13 Chaos druids (which is an excellent cross gold making opportunity since Chaos druids can be farmed for many valuable items) and keep doing so till reaching level 30 in Herblore skill when you will unlock ability to craft unfinished Ranarr potions. Then, as usual - put it on Grand Exchange and hope for huge profits.

Smithing

Although smelting bars is tightly interlocked with Mining, you don't have to mine ore yourself - requirements for efficient smelting bar enough people from doing it, so it's profitable to buy a lot of raw material from the Grand Exchange, smelt it, and post again as a refined goods. 

Required items and skills are as follows - access to furnace, coal for higher-level ores (and a hard to obtain coal bag), and respectively 15, 30, 50, 70, and 85 Smithing skill level for bars listed down below. Steel, Mithril, Adamantite, and Runite ores will require adding 2, 4, 6, and 8 coal nuggets per one nugget of ore in order to smelt it properly. Iron bar smelting has a chance to fail to prevent yourself from loss equip Ring of Forging. 

Below are listed bars viable for money-making and their respective gold per hour estimates. 

• Iron Bar (~720k gold per hour)

• Steel Bars (~700k gold per hour)

• Mithril Bar (~740k gold per hour)

• Admantite Bar (~860k gold per hour)

• Runite Bar (~1120k gold per hour).

If you have access to the Blasting Furnace minigame, you may use half the coal you'd use normally.

Construction

Crafting Bones to Peaches Magic tablet (~350k gold per hour) 

Creating the tablet requires owning mahogany demon lectern in one's Study, unlocked Bones to Peaches spell, Mud Battlestaff, two Nature Runes, and one noted soft clay. Mud Battlestaff can be replaced with Earth and Water Runes (four of each). If you can afford it, hire Butler or Demon butler to reduce time needed for fetching materials. Other requirements are 60 Magic skill level and 67 Construction skill level. Once you've gathered all required materials, change the location of your Home to Rimmington and then either go to Phials yourself to un-note the tablets (by using them on him and choosing third dialogue option) or send your Butler. 

SLASHING YOUR WAY TO THE RICHES

WINTERTODT (~440K GOLD PER HOUR)

Wintertodt encounter is great opportunity for making gold since it actually is minigame with amount of dropped items related to amount of accumulated points gained during boss fight. You will need particular set of equipment and appropriate skill in order to gain as much as possible from it. First of all skill Firemaking to level 50 (the more the better), any other skills are not need but experience gained from various activities performed during minigame (those activities are related with Herblore, Woodcutting, Fletching and Construction skills) scales positively with level of said skill, so it’s nice opportunity to advance in particular field of expertise. Once your Firemaking is high enough gather at least four pieces of  warm clothing (ie. bunny outfit, Santa hat, rainbow scarf, Fremennik gloves, fire cape, fire staves, tome of fire), food, rejuvenation potion, knife, hammer, axe and tinderbox. When ready head to Wintertodt Camp (located in northern reaches of Arceuus) in Great Kourend and help pyromancers contain Wintertodt by keeping the braziers lit and making sure that none of those feeble wizards pass outs due to getting owned by boss.  

CHAOS DRUIDS (~150K-250K GOLD PER HOUR)

Look for them in Edgeville Dungeon and Taverley Dungeon. Particularly susceptible to Ranged weapons Combat level 13 chaos druids make for an easy prey, be vigilant though as chaos druids spot tend to be haunted by player killers, so equip only necessary combat items and take one-click teleporter with you just in case. There are no special requirements apart from membership.

GREEN DRAGON HUNTING (~350K-500K GOLD PER HOUR) 

Although there are two ways of approaching the hunt, only the safer one will be described here as it’s more profitable one. The other involves roaming the Wilderness and thus forces player to risk his/hers spoils to player killers’ ambushes.

Again completing Dragon Slayer II quest is required, aside from that 80 Combat skill level or more or 60 Ranged skill level and 25 Prayer skill level are a must. As for the gear, get runic-grade or higher melee or ranged armor, ant-dragon or dragonfire shield, amulets of glory and Mythical cape. When all set and ready, head to Myth’s Guild basement and just slay the dragons. They spawn in pair, overall you should be able to kill around 170 per hour. By killing the Green Dragons, you will obtain Green Dragonhide - another valuable item. You can also consider farming Blue Dragons.

SLAYER TASKS (~700K-5500K GOLD PER HOUR)

There is no straightforward method of earning gold here as tasks vary greatly, describing each encounter is beyond the scope of this guide, this entry here is only for informative purposes, aimed to give player a general idea of what can be done to better his/hers financial condition.

Next two gold making methods are pretty demanding in terms of encounter difficulty and required skills and equipment thus are reserved for experienced players.

KILLING ZULRAH (~2500K-3500K GOLD PER HOUR)

Zulrah is famous for consistently good drops and high gold per hour rates and convenience of being solo-only encounter. It demands from player a lot of preparations but don’t let this discourage you from trying, it’s worth the effort. It’s immune to melee attacks so instead of high Melee skill you will need 80 or better Ranged skill level, at least 70 Defence skill level, 80 in Magic and Hitpoints skills and 45 or more Prayer skill level. Get yourself Magic and Ranged armour and weapon sets (ie Armadyl armour, Mystic robes, Toxic blowpipe and Trident of the swamp), casting runes, food (we recommend shark and monkfish), combo food for gaming tick rate purposes, anti-venom, ranging, prayer and magic potions (for the last one alternatively imbued heart), ring of recoils, some form of teleportation like Home Tablet and last but definitely not least runes for Vengeance spell. In order to unlock the fight you’ll have to reach Port Tyras in Regicide questline. Once that’s been done you’ll have to offer yourself as a sacrifice to High Priestess Zul Harcinqa, after that you are good to go and try your luck with serpent god.  

KILLING VORKATH (~3000K-4200K GOLD PER HOUR)

Last boss of Dragon Slayer II quest chain with proper equipment, stats and bit of skill can be taken down thirty times per hour yielding insane amounts of gold per hour. Obviously collecting right equipment set isn’t easy but with enough effort it is totally achievable, here is what you need to successfully tackle it - at least 90th level of Hitpoints and Ranged skills, 80 in Defence, 74 in Prayer, Dragon hunter crossbow (it’s the best possible weapon for this fight, allowing you to up kill count to even 34 kills per hour as your skills grow!), Dragonfire ward, Ruby dragon bolts, void knight equipment (elite one), Ava’s accumulator for its neat Ranged attack bonus, Salve amulet since Vorkath is undead, Pegasian boots, archers ring and of course some food and potions. As usual bring some kind of teleportation item (for easy banking) and Rune pouch. Good luck!

ODD AND PASSIVE WAYS OF EARNING GOLD IN 07 RUNESCAPE

Age old tradition states very clearly: every good RPG system, whether pen and paper or not, has to provide players with many alternative ways of achieving goals, preferably in creative and unorthodox ways. If game fails to do so, it’s rather some kind of sandbox experience with RPG elements implemented for the sake of spoiling the genre. 

Ah well, OSRS follows this guideline religiously and stocks us up with some really funky solutions to the problem of gold making in MMORPGs. At least it can protect the players from boredom. 

PICKPOCKETING MASTER FARMERS (~150K-1100K GOLD PER HOUR, SKILL DEPENDENT)

Ok I have to admit - this is by far my favorite one because usually pickpocketing is severely limited in MMOs, but it seems that Jagex wanted put an end to MMOs’ nasty habit of sweeping rogues’ non-combat abilities under the rug. Nevertheless - you can start pickpocketing master farmers (located in Draynor, Farming Guild, Varrock, Zeah and Ardougne) as soon as you reach 38 Thieving skill level although it wouldn’t be cost effective, at very least pick their pockets at 50th level of Thieving as at this point you should get access to rogue outfit which doubles your pickpocketing loot which consists mostly of seeds (amongst them are those sought-after Ranarr ones). In order to streamline the whole process trap them in fences and spam pickpocketing. Take some food with you as failed pickpocketing attempts deal 3 points of damage. We recommend completing Ardougne Diaries (Hard) at some point for 10% thieving boost and keeping seedbox in your inventory to uh store seeds. 

COMPLETING CLUES (UP TO 1100K GOLD PER HOUR)

As time intensive as they are clues can earn you a whole lot of gold. Contrary to what some say don’t start with easy clue scrolls, rather obtain medium ones as soon as you reach 30-40 combat skills level. Although those clue crates can drop almost anything, there are less absorbing money making methods for beginners, hence our advice against easy scrolls.

SWEEPING CARPETS (PLACE AND DAY DEPENDENT)

This is something more like a tip than straight up step by step guide as it demands creativity and some kind of entrepreneurship from the player. So as we all know huge groups of people are mowing through popular mines and killing zones each day, year round. This usually is perceived as obstacle but cunning minds here at mmoauctions prefer to view it as one of a kind opportunity, especially for low level players - powerminers and group farming players tend to leave behind them a lot of debris (like iron nuggets) because it’s not effective to clutter your backpack with random trash when you strive for maximum gold per hour coefficient from some kind of rare drops. For us - scavengers - it’s great way to effortlessly earn gold - just go to place famous for its monsters of rich soil and collect whatever is left there. No skills, equipment or membership needed. 

PASSIVE MONEY MAKING SUBSECTION

Passive income might have got bad rap in real life due to various pyramid schemes and personal development experts but fear not, money making methods described down below are one hundred percent legit, we swear!

Bird house (~1000k-3000k effective gold per hour; 40-70k per trip)

It is fun and low effort Hunter crafting activity - complete Bone Voyage in order to be able to lay bird house traps on Fossil Island, might be good idea to skill up your Crafting skill as earnings scale with Crafting level. It also rewards players with huge amounts of Hunter experience.You can repeat runs in 50 minutes intervals, every run taking 2 minutes. 

Battle staves (effective 9000k gold per hour, 150k per trip)

Once every day Zaff located in Varrock will sell players underpriced battlestaves, their number scaling with Varrock Diary quest progress, which makes for an unusual, gargantuic effective gold per hour coefficient. It’s almost like printing money, please DO IT. 

Cats (~27k-50k gold per hour, quest dependent)

After completing Gertrude’s Cat quest, she - Gertrude - will give you adorable kittens, no questions asked, no fees attached. Every kitten takes three hours to mature, then it’s ready to be exchanged with Gertrude for 100 Death Runes or 200 after completing Ardougne Diary (easy), which seems crazy but it’s true. You can stock mature cats in bank and turn them in all at once for your convenience.  

Brewing (~250k per brew)

Skill up Cooking skill level to 29. Once you skill the Cooking up, obtain two packages of “the stuff” (reward of Trouble Brewing minigame), four buckets of water, four bushels of barley malt, two ale yeast pots, eight pinches of harrarlander and sixteen empty beer glasses and head to the upstairs of Laughing Miner Pub where brewery is located. Fill the vats with (be mindful of order, it’s essential) water, barley, “the stuff”, harrarlander and yeast then leave for eight hours to two full days for it to ferment. Presto you’ve got yourself two batches of beer, ready to be sold on Grand Exchange!

Summary

This concludes our OSRS money making guide. As you can see, there’s plenty options to choose from to become rich in this mobile version of classic game, and what’s more - all methods are profitable enough to sustain your OSRS membership without paying a single dime of real money. We could create a video, but it would be more boring than the text. Neither of these will give you the legendary Blue Party Hat, but still - you will earn some nice coins.

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