OSRS: Easy Money Guide (Part I)

Oldschool Runescape: Easy Money Guide

How do I make money quickly and without putting in much effort?

This is probably the most asked question in Runescape by noob and veteran alike. Gold is essential in Runescape, and those that can earn it quickly and easily have a far better chance at getting ahead in this game than those who struggle to make stacks. But how do you make millions when you don’t have the levels, cash or patience to use a traditional moneymaking method such as bossing, merchanting, or staking?

Here are four of the easiest ways to make bank in Oldschool Runescape, with the minimum requirements and effort needed: 

Converting Oak Logs to Planks

With no risk, no requirements and able to be done almost immediately from Tutorial Island, this is one of the best money making methods for brand-new accounts. With the implementation of the Grand Exchange, you can quickly build up a large stack of oak planks and dump them on the market at the most profitable times suitable to your schedule. This is truly a self-sufficient “AFK” moneymaking method which provides constant return for money. While you can start this method with under 10k, it’s most efficient to have about 400k so that you can efficiently buy up a few hundred trips worth.

You will be buying oak logs from the G.E at around 45gp each (depending on market price) which can be bought at different times of the day for maximum savings. Usually, you will want to start buying just before 4PM EST since this is the sweet spot between when players finish dumping oak logs onto the market, and when the influx of afternoon players buy them up once school ends. While not a massive saving in terms of overall gp/hr, you can trim maybe 5gp per log using this strategy.

Once you have your few thousand oak logs, you can begin the easy (but extremely boring) process of converting them into planks to sell to the various markets that use them. With a stack of cash in your inventory 10k-1m, fill the other 27 slots with oak logs. You will be based in Varrock East Bank, then making your way along the math outside of Varrock and North towards the wilderness. You will be heading to the Lumber Yard. Once you’re there, you will talk to The Sawmill Operator who will offer to turn your oak logs into planks at 250gp each. You will then make your way back to Varrock East Bank, deposit your planks, withdraw logs and repeat.

The whole trip will take about 1:30, so you can do about 40 runs in an hour. At 27 logs to planks per trip, with a net profit of ~150gp per log, you will be making 4.05k per trip. If you are steadfast and determined, this gives you a rate of 162k/hr.

There are several ways you can speed up this process, but they require more time invested before you can begin to make money. The simplest is to buy energy pots and run the route, which will cut into your initial profits, but will give you more runs per hour, resulting in a higher gp/hr. Another advantage would be to level up agility, which increases your stamina regeneration. This will also significantly increase the number of runs per hour that you will be able to manage. Combined, this method can make up to around 200k/hr. 

Stealing The Wine of Zamorak

This method involves stealing the Wine of Zamorak from the Captured Temple, north of Falador. The map to the right shows you the temple’s location and the path you take from Falador.

You are going to need an air staff (or air runes) and law runes for the Telekinetic Grab spell. This is the only way that you can get the Wine of Zamorak from the temple while preventing the monks from attacking you. The spell requires level 33 magic, but aside from the runes, that is the only requirement for this method.

A loot bag can be used to store a full inventory of wine, allowing you to continue obtaining them without having to bank. Loot bags can be obtained from a 1/30 drop rate in the wilderness, or with 150,000 points at a Bounty Hunter Store. You can only place items in a loot bag while inside the wilderness, so you will have to exit the temple and enter the wilderness to the north in order to store the wines. Items from a loot bag can only be safely extracted at a bank.

Once you have a full inventory of wines (even more with a full loot bag) you need to bank them, then return to the temple to continue farming. At the current price of 1200gp, a full inventory (26, plus 26 in the loot bag) will net you 64k. The total cost of the runes used (if only using law runes with a staff of air) would be 11.9k, leaving 52k profit per full inventory.

The Wine of Zamorak has a spawn rate that depends on how populated the world is. In a full world, the wine respawns every 30 seconds, while on an empty world, it takes several minutes. Using OS Buddy to immediately switch worlds after taking a wine, you can harvest wines from multiple worlds in rotation extremely quickly. If you get the majority of wines in each world, you can easily make 500k per hour with this method.

The loot bag can be obtained in the wilderness at a drop rate of 1/30, or from a Bounty Hunter Store with 150,000 points.

The Blast Furnace

The Blast Furnace is a minigame located in Keldagrim which opens up a lucrative method of making money. The minigame requires you to manage and repair a “blast furnace” which smelts ores into bars. The benefit is that it takes half the amount of coal that is usually required to smelt bars, with the challenge of repairing the machine while it smelts the ore. On your own, this is difficult and inefficient, but when a large number of players are all working on the machine, it is by far the most efficient way to smelt bars in the game.

World 358 is the designated “Blast Furnace” world, where all players who want to take part in the minigame work together, for the benefit of all. By using these players, you can continuously smelt bars without tending to any aspect of the minigame other than loading the ore and retrieving the bars.

The Blast Furnace minigame is located in the Dwarven city of Keldagrim which you can reach through the mine cart transportation system. There is a bank inside the minigame room, so you don’t need to know where the closest banking places are. The map on the left shows the location of the room in Keldagrim.

You will need a minimum level of 30 to smelt steel bars and if you have under 60 smithing, you will need to pay 2.5k per 10 minutes of minigame use. This is halved when you use a Ring of Charos. You will want to buy several thousand iron ore and an equal amount of coal to stock up before you head over to keldagrim. Once you are there, keep one slot in your inventory for a cash stack (200k+) to use as payment for time in the minigame if below 60 smithing.

Looking at the image to the right, you can identify what you will be using to smelt the bars. You can ignore most of the diagram since the other players will be repairing the rest of the machine. The 3 parts you will need to know about are the conveyor belt, the bar dispenser and the conveyor pedal.

You will take an inventory of 27 iron ore, then dispense it in the conveyor belt. Go back to the bank, get 27 coal, then deposit those into the conveyor belt as well. At any time, parts of the machine can break and need servicing, but most players will do this for you. The only part where you may need to take part is by driving the conveyor pedal. If nobody else is doing it, you should probably do it to get your bars through the machine as fast as possible. If somebody is already operating it, then you can probably ignore it with the rest.

Once the bars are smelted, you can retrieve them at the bar dispenser. Bank your steel bars, then repeat the process until you run out of ores, or just get bored.

1 iron ore + 1 coal usually hovers around 200gp total. Steel bars are usually priced between 520 and 580gp. This gives you a profit of 340gp per steel bar, and since you can smelt 1200-1500 bars per hour, this gives you a per hour income of 408k-510k. Since the market for steel bars is extremely reliable, you can expect this method to always be very profitable, though dependent on other players being at the minigame. This is a method best used at peak times. 

Unicorn Horns to Dust

 An extremely simple method of making money with no requirements at all. You will be buying unicorn horns on the G.E, grinding them into dust, then selling the dust back to the G.E. You can literally stand in one spot and make upwards of 300k/hr using this method. A great “AFK” use of your time while you plot how to spend the stacks of cash you will be making.

Simply set low buy offers for large quantities of unicorn horn on the G.E overnight, then come back in the morning and see how many you have. Once you have enough for a good long session of watching TV while pressing 2 buttons, just sit back and grind those horns into money. It costs nothing to grind the horns and you can grind around 1800 per hour. At 220gp profit per horn, that’s 398k/hr. The market is large enough to guarantee this method will stay profitable for a long time to come, so it’s always a great fallback option for when other methods become less profitable. 

While these methods are great for those with few levels or resources, there are others which reap far more lucrative rewards. These however, require more levels, resources and concentration to effectively generate large stacks of cash.

What are these methods, you ask?

You will have to find out in the next guide: Easy Money—Big Stacks Edition