Thread: 1001 Gold Tips - Add Yours!

Hey folks,

This thread is an aggregate of WoW gold tips. It will be mirrored on MMO-Champ, WoWhead forums, and whatever popular forum I can find (battle.net forums I guess). Its purpose is to branch out to other communities and raise interest in gold-making, and hopefully draw some traffic with associated links. Want to add your own tip? Post here, and I'll edit it in!

Bloggers: This is a great opportunity to send traffic to your site. Simply submit a tip and a relevant blog post. I've already linked to external blogs in this manner!

A big thank you to those who have contributed to far. You can +rep contributors by clicking on their name: Sinshroud | Kathroman | Meyer | Belzebutinov | Zerohour | Drrwho | Calianna

The Best Gold Tip in The World (of Warcraft): Find a gold-making community and follow gold blogs!

Seriously, I can't stress this enough. There's a mountain of stuff to be learned about goblineering, and you take the first step by subscribing to gold blogs and participating (or lurking) in gold-making communities. And of course, I humbly and unbiasedly present you The Consortium, the single largest and most active gold-making community there is. Come check us out. We don't bite. Unless you're a troll.

There has been an explosion of WoW gold blogs in the past couple years. Here are my personnal favorites, in no particular order (I tend to favor creative writing and original content):

• Power Word: Gold
• Nerf Faids
• Warcraft Gold Queen
• ALTO's Gold'ish Advice
• Anaalius' Hunt For Gold
• Break the Bank
  
• Greedy Goblin

Of course, I probably forgot a couple and will add them later. Fluxada threw together a pretty awesome gold blog directory, check it out: Power Word Gold and check out the Gold Blog Directory.

Anyway, that was tip #1. Onto to rest!

Addons:

• Addons such as Tradeskill Master and Auctioneer can greatly improve your income. MMO-Champion: Multi-Millionaire's Auction House Gold Guide | The Consortium: Addon Series: Tradeskill Master
• Remember to reset your Auctioneer or TradeSkillMaster item price databases once in a while to keep up with current prices. It is recommended that you make a second copy of wow and for 1 week scan the Auction House every day with a blank Auctioneer Database on the copy of WoW. Once you have a week's worth of information you can then switch over to the new copy of WoW, otherwise your price database isn't accurate enough for basic price comparisons. You can now also switch between the new and old copy of WoW to compare past and current prices/item seen counts.
• Auctioneer:
  
  • Running a simple vendor scan in Auctioneer is a great way to generate startup gold for new players.
  • You can make buying/posting Auctions quicker and less tiresome by using the /framestack option, hovering over a button, reading the button name and then adding it to a macro such as "/click BrowseBuyButton" to "press" the Buyout button at the Auction House. Typing '/run print(GetMouseFocus():GetName())' while hovering over a button will also display the button's name in your char window.
  • You can type /auc getall or click on the two blue arrows at the top of the Auctioneer's Auction House Browse Window to do a VERY fast scan of the Auction House. Great for saving time. If your Auction House is too big / zone is too busy / internet connection is too poor / you live far away from wow servers this might cause you to disconnect from WoW or the scan will be aborted halfway through.
  • You can protect the Auction House window with the Auctioneer addon from closing when you press Escape by opening the Auction House and clicking on the Configure button at the top > AHWindowControl > Setting the 'Protect the Auction House window' status to 'Always'. This also allows you to open the social tab, professions window, spellbook, talents window, honor window, dungeon finder window, quest log and even map (if using certain map modification addons) while the Auction House is open. Usually they force the AH window to close instead.
  
  

Auction House:

• Try posting items in different stack sizes. Check Wowhead's "Reagent for" tab of an item to get an idea of the most demanded sizes (in this example it's 1, 3, 4 and 5 per craft).
• You don't always need to list your item as the cheapest on the Auction House. Some items like gems and enchants have such high demand (especially right before and after peak raid times) that they burn through your competitors auctions and go straight to yours before more can be put up, allowing you to squeeze an extra 5, 50, 100 or even 500 gold or more out of your auctions.
• Always remember to take into account the Auction House (5%) and Neutral Auction House (15%) AH cut on a sale of every item when calculating profits for crafting items. An easy way to work out the listing price is take the sale price X 0.05 (Horde/Alliance Auction Houses) or sale price X 0.15 (Neutral Auction Houses).
• Most Auction House searches actually sort the price by the bid amounts, not the buyout amounts. So instead of placing your big price at the same as your buyout, try lowering it a bit to get your Auction listed lower than your competitors. Careful not to make it too low that you lose a profit.
• Sometimes people are willing to pay a bit extra for items in larger quantities (3 clicks to buy 60 ore in stacks of 20 each) rather than saving a couple of gold but needing to buy the item 60 times (60 clicks to buy 60 ore in stacks of 1 each). This works well for items ore, herbs, enchanting materials, cloth, etc.
• Be careful of Auction House deposit costs. Some items have a heavy cost to list on the Auction House - the price rises the longer you list it up for and the deposit cost is only returned to you if the Auction Sells. If you cancel or it doesn't sell, then you lose that gold.
• Crafted quest items: Provide them if you can. When somebody gets a quest that requires a particular item, they will often look on the AH for it. Let yours be there to buy. Examples....Item "Adamantite Frame" not found.for a quest in Outlands, [Khorium Power Core] Outlands quest (also for flying machines), there are others, check out your profession and remember wowhead is your friend.
• Simple vendor items sell quite well on the AH. Jeweler's Settings, Dust of Disappearance, and Inscription mats (jawbones, etc) are great examples.
• Timing:
  
  • On the days that the JC daily required 3 cut gems, those uncommon gem prices usually spike quite high throughout the day. Be sure to list some up for a nice profit, and remember to post in both stacks of 1 and 3!
  • The best time to sell gems, enchants, and enhancements is after Tuesday maintenance.
  • Saturday is the best day of the week for buying opportunities. Tuesday is for selling opportunities.
  • Auctions continue to count down even during maintenance. You can score great deals by bidding on auctions just before servers go down on Monday night (aka Tuesday morning).
  
  

Farming & Leveling:

• Dual gathering (mining AND herbalism) on a single character makes the most efficient farmer.
  
• Certain classes are more suitable for gathering than others such as Druids with instant flight form or Paladins and Deathknights with both movement speed and mounted speed increases.
• Loot everything! All those grey items add up, especially at higher levels.
• Don't waste gold buying gear from the AH while leveling.

General - Beginner:

• Gold works on Economies of Scale, the more gold you have the easier it is to make. Be careful not to invest all your gold or have it all tied up in long-term returns else you won't have enough to keep going forward.
• Consider the opportunity cost of any gold-making activity. If you're serious about making gold, you must absolutely understand this concept.
• Never ignore gray items. Some vendor for hundreds of gold!
  
• Patience is a virtue. If you can't sell it today, you might be able to sell it tomorrow, next week, next month, or even next year.
• You make money when you buy, not when you sell. Know your prices and costs before you buy and make anything.
• Seemingly useless recipes may be rare and valuable. Do your research before selling them! The Consortium: Items That Should be on Your Snatch List | WoW's Rarest Recipes - Snatch 'Em Up!
• Pop a [Scroll of Enchant Boots - Minor Speed] on all your bank alts to give you that tiny bit of an edge over your competitors when traveling between the Auction House, Mailbox, Bank and Profession Trainers. Time is money friend!
• Vendor-purchased recipes can be resold at the AH at profit. The Consortium: Ironforge Limited Supply Route | Thunder Bluff Vendor Supply Route | Dalaran Limited Supply Route
• Don't beg for Gold in World of Warcraft. It's really annoying and actually pretty embarassing if you think about it. In a World where you can be a fearsome warrior, a powerful mage, defender of the light, a priestess of the moon or...well a smelly cow - you choose to roleplay the life of a beggar? My my such low standards...
• Never underestimate the intelligence of the average player, they'll surprise you with how below average they really are!
• Time is money. Anytime you are in a dungeon/BG queue, that's a perfect time to work the AH, craft up goods, fish, farm, do dailies, or anything more productive than sitting around in a home city. Being idle is being lazy.
• If you raid, run heroics, or PvP, always repair where you are exalted. The number one gold sink over time is repairs and you will save 20% off. Over the long term even millionaires clip coupons.
• Honesty and kindness makes people come back to you for more business.
• Always read patch notes and be aware of game changes. Between expansions, more gold is transferred in the weeks after a patch than at any other time. The ones that benefit normally are the people that planned ahead.
• Just because an alt is low-level doesn't mean you shouldn't level its professions. You don't need to be max-level to have a max-level profession, and even a profession which isn't maxxed out can turn in some very nice profits.
• Never trust AH price to reflect the real value of items.
• Always aim for the best gold per hour (GPH). It's can better to sell one really big profit item than 100's of low profit items.
• Mailbox is also seen as unlimited bank storage. Unopened mail lasts 30 days and after that it is automatically returned to the original character that sent it.
• Personal guild banks are a great way to hold large stockpiles.
• Always try to distribute your gold income sources. Never rely too heavily on one specific source. Every profession has it's benefits, you just need to find it!
• Low-level mages make great bank alts with Blink (level 16).
• When you buy [Jeweler's Setting], parchments or other vendor mats that you need en masse, buy them from a vendor of a faction with which you are exalted. In the long the savings are substantial.
• Certain addons can help you track rare mobs you may bypass during your adventures. These mobs drop valuable treasure.
• You can trade [Blackfallow Ink] for any other kind of ink at Ink Trader Vendors located near Inscription Trainers. Often inks like [Ethereal Ink] cost more / sell for more than Blackfallow does!
• Don't get so focused on making gold that you forget to / don't want to reward yourself every once in a while. Gold is meant to be used and make playing more enjoyable!
• Sometimes its difficult to keep track of all the methods you have to make gold with. Take some time out to write down everything you can think of that will make you a decent amount of gold. Create a routine that follows a logical order - it will help you stay on track and you won't forget anything.
• If you are feeling burned out from making gold, try mix things up a bit. Find that bit of inspiration. Start an alt on a new server and see how much gold you can have made by the time you are level 60. It's a good way to refine, hone and just appreciate your skills and knowledge.
• Don't be afraid to use the bid function. On rare items where the spread between buyout and bid are significant, a "Bid" can significantly reduce your cost basis and save you quite a bit of coin.
• Level 77-79 Cata Greens. Search for these underpriced items (10-25g) and relist them for 75-125g depending on armor type and stats. Avoid helms, cloaks, and weapons due to high deposit costs and the availability of BoA cloaks/helms.

General - Advanced:

• Always remember the law of Thorzek when selling rare items: target the ONE buyer that is willing to pay an extravagant amount for your item - you're not looking to sell to the average buyer. You have one item - find one seller. Keep listing - the item WILL sell.
• Befriending foreign farmers can get you great deals. Learning rudimentary Chinese is the best way to accomplish this. The Consortium: Chinese Speak 101 - All Your Goods Are Belong to Us!
  
• Diversification is the key to success. The more markets you cover, the more gold you can make.
• Add your competitors to your friends list. This can help you know when you've been undercut!
• The Auction House is often the most efficient way to make gold. MMO-Champion Forums: Multi-Millionaire's Auction House Gold Guide
• The neutral AH can be used to smuggle goods across to the opposing faction, where they can be sold at a premium. The Consortium: Shady Business - Cross Faction Trading!
• Using the right setup and addons, you can snipe said goods from the neutral AH. Heartless goblins rejoice. The Consortium: Monitor Your Competition's Cross Faction Trading Activity
• You can generate an item link for any item in World of Warcraft by visiting WoWhead by searching for an item in their database and when clicking on the red "Link" button, copying the script and pasting it in your wow chatbox.
• As mentioned in the professions section, it's a good idea to follow profession leveling guides and plan ahead when powerleveling a profession. You can also take advantage of this list by controlling the supply of items and recipes recommended by these guides. The Consortium: WoW-Professions Items List - Easy Profits.
• Get the biggest bags practical. Big bags while leveling means more time leveling and less time running back to town to clean out your bags. Bigger bags while selling means less time running back and forth to the AH/bank/mailbox.
• An unused character slot or alt is cheap permanent storage. 44 free slots (bank and original backpack) plus another another 176 slots for around 250g (11 16 slot bags and 7 extra bag slots in the bank).

Professions:

• When leveling a profession, purchase all of the materials needed ahead of time. Use a well laid-out guide such as those found on WoW Professions.
• Enchanting: Abyss Crystals can be shattered into valuable essences & dusts.
• Enchanting: Extra honor can be spent on disenchantable gear, which yields a great gold/honor. Just My Two Copper - Turn Your Honor Into Gold | Cold's Gold Factory - Large Brilliant Shards For Honor
• Enchanting: You can make a living by simply disenchanting items from the AH. MMO-Champion Forums: Multi-Millionaire's Auction House Gold Guide (See Disenchanting Section)
• Never ignore low-level enchants. Some yield tremendous profit. The Consortium: List of Profitable Enchants.
• Inscription: Mysterious Fortune Cards are great sellers at the AH. Do not use them for yourself - they're actually quite worthless.
• Alchemy: All sorts of transmutes are profitable. Before blowing your cooldown on Truegold, check Transmute: Living Elements first! Anaalius' Hunt For Gold: How to make Gold with Transmute Mastery.
• Engineering: Wormhole Generator: Northrend has a small chance to give a 6th option, teleporting you underground in Dalaran. This gives you potential access to the very rare Schematic: Arcanite Dragonling.
• Engineering: Engineers have several profitable niche markets. Pets and Motorcycles are particularly profitable. The Consortium: Profitable Engineering Markets.
• Inscription & Jewelcrafting:
  
  • The process of Milling and Prospecting can be greatly facilitated by using macros. The Consortium: Milling and Prospecting Macros.
  • Automating Milling and Prospecting is a bannable offense. Each keystroke must correspond to a single action, and you must be at your keyboard in order to mill or prospect. There are legitimate workarounds to this, however. You can configure your hardware/software to send every single keystroke as a macro command to WoW, even when minimized. This is not a bannable offense!
  
  
• Blacksmithing: Check out prices for Blacksmithing crafted Rods. They are needed by enchanters to skill up and make enchants.
• Blacksmithing: Friendly with Darkmoon Faire? Buy [Dense Stone], convert to [Dense Grinding Stone], turn in 8 at the faire for 20 faire tickets. Turn in tickets for either [Lesser Darkmoon Prize] or [Greater Darkmoon Prize]. Chances at very valuable (and quite rare) items await! The Consortium: Profit From Dense Stones and The Darkmoon Faire.
• Jewelcrafting: Many players will socket prismatic sockets with a prismatic gem, unaware that prismatic sockets accept any color. For this reason, the best prismatic gem available; Nightmare Tears (1 Dragon's Eye, 5 Infinite Dust) sells well.
• Mining: Smelting ore and selling bars can be profitable. Hardened Elementium, for example, is usually a winner.
• Skinning: Converting Savage Leather to Heavy Savage Leather is usually profitable. 10 x Heavy Savage Leather can be exchanged for 1 x Pristine Hide (Alliance NPC | Horde NPC).

Here are some of the ones that I can think of off the top of my head, will add more later too.

• Running a simple vendor scan in Auctioneer is a great way to generate startup gold for new players.

• You don't always need to list your item as the cheapest on the Auction House. Some items like gems and enchants have such high demand (especially right before and after peak raid times) that they burn through your competitors auctions and go straight to yours before more can be put up, allowing you to squeeze an extra 5, 50, 100 or even 500 gold or more out of your auctions.

• Try posting items in different stack sizes. Check Wowhead's "Reagent for" tab of an item to get an idea of the most demanded sizes (in this example it's 1, 3, 4 and 5 per craft).

• Gold works on Economies of Scale, the more gold you have the easier it is to make. Be careful not to invest all your gold or have it all tied up in long-term returns else you won't have enough to keep going forward.

• You can make buying/posting Auctions quicker and less tiresome by using the /framestack option, hovering over a button, reading the button name and then adding it to a macro such as "/click BrowseBuyButton" to "press" the Buyout button at the Auction House. Typing '/run print(GetMouseFocus():GetName())' while hovering over a button will also display the button's name in your char window.

• Check out prices for Blacksmithing crafted Rods. They are needed by enchanters to skill up and make enchants.

• Always remember to take into account the Auction House (5%) and Neutral Auction House (15%) AH cut on a sale of every item when calculating profits for crafting items. An easy way to work out the listing price is take the sale price X 0.05 (Horde/Alliance Auction Houses) or sale price X 0.15 (Neutral Auction Houses).

• You can trade [Blackfallow Ink] for any other kind of ink at Ink Trader Vendors located near Inscription Trainers. Often inks like [Ethereal Ink] cost more / sell for more than Blackfallow does!

• You can generate an item link for any item in World of Warcraft by visiting WoWhead by searching for an item in their database and when clicking on the red "Link" button, copying the script and pasting it in your wow chatbox.

• Don't get so focused on making gold that you forget to / don't want to reward yourself every once in a while. Gold is meant to be used and make playing more enjoyable!

• Don't beg for Gold in World of Warcraft. It's really annoying and actually pretty embarassing if you think about it. In a World where you can be a fearsome warrior, a powerful mage, defender of the light, a priestess of the moon or...well a smelly cow - you choose to roleplay the life of a beggar? My my such low standards...

• Most Auction House searches actually sort the price by the bid amounts, not the buyout amounts. So instead of placing your big price at the same as your buyout, try lowering it a bit to get your Auction listed lower than your competitors. Careful not to make it too low that you loose a profit.

• You can type /auc getall or click on the two blue arrows at the top of the Auctioneer's Auction House Browse Window to do a VERY fast scan of the Auction House. Great for saving time. If your Auction House is too big / zone is too busy / internet connection is too poor / you live far away from wow servers this might cause you to disconnect from WoW or the scan will be aborted halfway through.

• You can protect the Auction House window with the Auctioneer addon from closing when you press Escape by opening the Auction House and clicking on the Configure button at the top > AHWindowControl > Setting the 'Protect the Auction House window' status to 'Always'. This also allows you to open the social tab, professions window, spellbook, talents window, honor window, dungeon finder window, quest log and even map (if using certain map modification addons) while the Auction House is open. Usually they force the AH window to close instead.

• Sometimes people are willing to pay a bit extra for items in larger quantities (3 clicks to buy 60 ore in stacks of 20 each) rather than saving a couple of gold but needing to buy the item 60 times (60 clicks to buy 60 ore in stacks of 1 each). This works well for items ore, herbs, enchanting materials, cloth, etc.

• Pop an [Scroll of Enchant Boots - Minor Speed] on all your bank alts to give you that tiny bit of an edge over your competitors when travelling between the Auction House, Mailbox, Bank and Profession Trainers. Time is money friend!

• Always try to distribute your gold income sources. Never rely too heavily on one specific source. Every profession has it's benefits, you just need to find it!

• Mailbox is also seen as unlimited bank storage. Unopened mail lasts 30 days and after that it is automatically returned to the original character that sent it.

• Be careful of Auction House deposit costs. Some items have a heavy cost to list on the Auction House - the price rises the longer you list it up for and the deposit cost is only returned to you if the Auction Sells. If you cancel or it doesn't sell, then you loose that gold.

• Sometimes its difficult to keep track of all the methods you have to make gold with. Take some time out to write down everything you can think of that will make you a decent amount of gold. Create a routine that follows a logical order - it will help you stay on track and you won't forget anything.

• Remember to reset your Auctioneer or TradeSkillMaster item price databases once in a while to keep up with current prices. It is recommended that you make a second copy of wow and for 1 week scan the Auction House every day with a blank Auctioneer Database on the copy of WoW. Once you have a week's worth of information you can then switch over to the new copy of WoW, otherwise your price database isn't accurate enough for basic price comparisons. You can now also switch between the new and old copy of WoW to compare past and current prices/item seen counts.

• If you are feeling burned out from making gold, try mix things up a bit. Find that bit of inspiration. Start an alt on a new server and see how much gold you can have made by the time you are level 60. It's a good way to refine, hone and just appreciate your skills and knowledge.

• If you need to do a daily for your professions such as the JC daily or Forge Documents/Glyph Research Inscription Daily, get them done first thing in the morning.

• On the days that the JC daily required 3 cut gems, those uncommon gem prices usually spike quite high throughout the day. Be sure to list some up for a nice profit, and remember to post in both groups of 1 and groups of 3!

Most of the easy ones have been said but i'll give it a go

• One mans trash is another mans treasure. Just because you wouldn't buy it, doesn't mean someone else won't.
  
• Loot everything! All those grey items add up, especially at higher levels.
  
• Get the biggest bags practical. Big bags while leveling means more time leveling and less time running back to town to clean out your bags. Bigger bags while selling means less time running back and forth to the AH/bank/mailbox.
  
• Don't waste gold buying gear from the AH while leveling.
  
• Patience is a virtue. If you can't sell it today, you might be able to sell it tomorrow.
  
• Always aim for the best gold per hour. It's can better to sell one really big profit item than 100's of low profit items.
  
• Old or low level does not automatically mean useless.
  
• Expand, expand, expand.
  
• Knowledge = Gold.
  
• If using the mail box for storage, have a reminder for when mail will expire and be returned.e.g. altoholic or set a reminder in the calender.

.p.s. i think it should be 1001 tips...and one always has a better ring to to.
Depending on how it goes maybe 101 might be a more realistic aim.

Extra thoughts

• An unused character slot or alt is cheap permanent storage. 44 free slots (bank and original backpack) plus another another 176 slots for around 250g (11 16 slot bags and 7 extra bag slots in the bank).

Originally Posted by calianna

I've got the most important tip for any potential goblin. But you have to wait for it. And keep waiting. Then wait some more. And if you can do that, then I will no longer need to tell you the tip because you have already learned patience.

Well played. What do you say to the young goblin who waits the whole time and still asks for his tip?

Originally Posted by calianna

I've got the most important tip for any potential goblin. But you have to wait for it. And keep waiting. Then wait some more. And if you can do that, then I will no longer need to tell you the tip because you have already learned patience.

We could easily change it to something like:

"Certain classes are more suitable for gathering than others such as Druids with instant flight form or Paladins and Deathknights with both movement speed and mounted speed increases."

Great idea - but a long way to 1000

• Diversification is the key to success. The more market you are able to cover the more gold you can make – and you don’t have to spent time looking for a certain profession.
• Adding your competitors to your friend list often lets you know when they logon and undercut you.
• Never trust AH price to reflect the real value of items. They might be worth a lot more or completely worthless.
• Pristine Hide can be bought at vendors in major cities for the 10 Heavy Savage Leather.
• Never underestimate what ONE person is willing to pay for your item. If 99 people are willing to pay 100 gold and 1 person is willing to pay 200 gold – List it on AH at 200G.
• Never underestimate how impatient and lazy a lot of people are. People often pay several hundred gold extra for items if they can’t find a better offer – rather then waiting a day or two.
• 99% of all trades are done on the AH not in trade, but you can make great deals both places.
• Honesty and kindness makes people come back to you for more business.
• consortium.stormspire.net are the place to be if you’re a serious goldmaker

--

Considered adding: “You know you are successful when people offer you a paid realm change to get you off the realm”. Happened to me last night – pretty funny(

Great thread! Here are a few I can think of:

• Just because an alt is low-level doesn't mean you shouldn't level its professions. You don't need to be max-level to have a max-level profession, and even a profession which isn't maxxed out can turn in some very nice profits.
• Start by setting goals you can reach quickly, it'll encourage you. Don't set a 100k gold mark if you only have 2,000 to your name: set a first goal of 10k (you quintupled your fortune!), a second one at 50k, and then the 100k. Aiming too high too quick will just discourage you when you aren't doing anything wrong!
• Read your patchnotes and wow information every day! New stuff in the game means more ways for you to make gold!
• As the French saying goes: there are no small profits. If you can do something, that it is profitable, and that it is not stopping you from doing something more profitable, then you should be doing it.
• Opportunity Cost: if you ever want to become a serious gold-making goblin, you absolutely must understand this concept. An example of understanding it would be not thinking the mats you farm are free: they're not. They cost you time, and you could be selling them on the AH, so they have the same worth as mats you would have bought instead.
• Dailies still generate a fair amount of money if you have the time and little capital to start with. A week's worth of ICC/Tournament dailies will net you around 2,500-3,000 gold (300g per day in quest reward gold, plus enough marks to buy a minipet, generally worth about 500g). Every little bit helps, especially at the beginning!

I'll add more if I can think of them