Gold Making Guide: A Guide to WoW Gold

By 1453431 Updated: 2018/08/26

Intro

Hello and welcome

~Please remember to rate this guide and comment any suggestions!~

-Disclaimer-New Content~Requirements:

A maxed character decently geared (250-350 ish).

A basic knowledge of the cities, classes, auctioneers/vendors, etc.

A reasonably developed Garrison. (Level 2 mines, herb, etc)

A class that can get around easily. (I use a mage with portals)

- for the basics.

A banker a.k.a a level ten in a capital city. (I personally use my main, but I would recommend a lower level)

A good skill in math (Joking ;), but you need to know basic percentages, problems, etc ;D)

Two hours or so on the weekdays and three or four on the weekends.

Acronyms

WoW-World of Warcraft

LK-Lich King

Cata-Cataclysm

MoP-Mists of Pandaria

WoD-Warlords of Draenor

BFA-Battle For Azeroth

PvP-Player Vs. Player

BoE-Bind on Equip

WTS-Want to sell

WTB-Want to buy

AH-Auction house

Mats-Materials

LW-Leatherworking

BS-Blacksmith

ServersHigh PopulationLow PopulationPVPNormalOthersAddonsKeldeshAddOns: How to Install and Maintain

Auctioneer is the best Addon I have. It does scans of the AH pages which can take about 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours on a high pop server and 15 to 45 minutes on a low pop server. Then you can search through the data that it collected and purchase the cheapest things. It really is a handy Addon to have even though it's older, in fact, it was just recently updated! Note that on low pop servers this Addon works amazing but on high pop servers I recommend the following Addon.

TradeSkillMaster is another amazing Addon. I would go for all the modules since they all seem to be pretty helpful. Just note that some are out of date such as WoWuction which will cause several bugs. One of the best mods that catches my attention is this one: Accounting. It keeps track of all of your gold made within the time you first got the Addon and the current time. The other part of this that is awesome especially being on a high pop server is the auctioning mod. It makes posting a BREEZE. There are videos on YouTube to help you set this stuff up. I'll show a screenshot below at the end of this guide.

MogIt seems odd in this section doesn't it? Well in this case it will be very helpful. MogIt shows what an item looks like when you mouse over it in your inventory which means you can identify what looks good. What that means is that if your item looks good then you'll get profit from it because it looks nice and people will be willing to pay more then usual.

Ark-Inventory is a must have in my opinion. It is extremely helpful. It provides a different interface where your bags are all joined, it's much easier to use, you can sort things, and you can search for things. Though some people prefer Bagnon. I personally enjoy Ark-Inventory's customization options and the design is aesthetically pleasing.

GarrisonCommander is the best for making garrison routines as fast as possible. This will be used for your Order Hall as well, and trust me that you can use anything that speeds up your routine every night.

TheUndermineJournal works well with it's website and is a must have for easy pricing. You can mouse over any item and it will tell you the going rate which is good for an approximate estimation of value.

Websites

TheUndermineJournal is the most amazing site for this. You first choose your server then you see the top sellers for your server that you chose and the servers connected to it. You can also view the auctions of anyone with auctions. It also shows the average prices of an item over time. You can search for an item using either its name or its ID number which can be found on Wowhead. It updates the information every hour or so. It's a great site if you need to look at something and all you have is your mobile device you can still see everything.

WoWuction is another cool site. It's very similar to UndermineJournal but Wowuction had a special option to work with TradeSkillMaster but I don't use it. I definitely recommend just using UndermineJournal for beginners. WoWuction is used just as another reference point.

Auction HouseAuction House BasicsSetting up your banker

First, create a character. For alliance I'd stick with a Human. For Horde you can do any except for Goblin. As long as they don't have separate questing areas (such as Worgen, Draeni, Goblins) any choice should do.

Next, either run or have a mage portal you to a major city. For Horde I recommend Thunder Bluff, Orgrimmar, or Old Dalaran. For Alliance just stick with Stormwind or Old Dalaran.

Then transfer gold (500 minimum) to your banker toon.

Equip yourself with all four, 20-30 slot bags

Equip yourself with four, 20-30 slot bags.

Clear out your bags and bank as much as possible.

Organize your bags extremely well. Use addons for this, and make mental notes of your organization process.

Since it's a max level character, or even your main you should already have a fair amount of gold, but if you don't transfer it. By the way, I don't recommend using your main if you're a Hardcore Mythic + player or raider/pvper. Only if you're a casual player.

Auction House Interface

This is the basic interface WITHOUT addons. No fancy tabs, or buttons, or anything. The buttons are quite self-explanatory. Drag an item from your inventory into the box and set the price and duration (48 hr) , then hit the create button. Very easy.

Now you're probably thinking, wouldn't the previous method take a while? It DOES. It does. However, if you can't install addons it does do it's job, just not nearly as effectively as with the addons. It's simple, drag the item you with to sell into the box, set the price and time to 48 hours and post it. Imagine doing this with 1000 auctions which I have gotten up to at one point. Thank goodness for addons, right? Well I don't work with the standard interface. As do most of my fellow gold makers. This is what I work with on a day-to-day basis.

Auction House Must-knowsFlooding the auction houseDon't post stacks of 1Very Long, Long, & Short

Very Long, which is greater than 12 hours, typically 48 hours if just posted.

Long, which is between 2 hrs and 12 hours, typically 24 hours if just posted.

Short, which is 2 hours or less, you can't post auctions at this time.

Checking The AHWatch the marketAuction House TechniquesResellingSky GolemSelling TCG ItemsBuying Out The AHSelling GearThe End of the Auction SectionReturn to TopWoW TokensReturn to TopProfessionsCommon Combinations

So when it comes to professions there a ton of common combinations used. Especially to make life easier and increase profit. For example, I have Tailoring and Inscription, Tailoring is one that can mostly stand on it's own, while Inscription requires Herbalism to be effective. Tailoring and Enchanting are pretty much standalone, but they do compliment each other.

Tailoring & Enchanting

Inscription & Herbalism

Alchemy & Herbalism

Leatherworking & Skinning

Blacksmithing & Mining

Engineering & Mining

Jewelcrafting & Mining

These are the most common combos. If you happen to have an army of alts you can do hybrids. For example, Engineering and Inscription on one character and then Herbalism and Mining on another.

LFW Tailoring

LFW Tailoring Just bring your own mats and it's free! Tips appreciated! Pst

LFW Tailoring My mats, pst for each price!

What to Sell~Inscription

Item

Selling Price

Materials

Notes

Card of Omens

10-Light Parchment 5-War Paints

Don't post too many at a time. Sell, then post, sell, then post.

War-Scroll of Intellect

Roughly

1-Light Parchment 8-Crimson Ink

Double check the price, as it fluctuates to make sure you're making profit.

Darkmoon Card of War

The price is going to vary depending on what you end up with.

1-Light Parchment 12-Viridescent Ink 1-Expulsom

These sell extremely well at the beginning of an expansion. This won't work as well after the first major patch or two drops. Collect the full set to sell the trinket or you can trade with people in Trade Chat.

Glyph of the Dolphin

These are in short supply at the moment, on my server it's going for so check yours.

1-Light Parchment 10-Crimson Ink 30-Ultramarine Ink

This one is extremely rare because of the rep needed for the recipe which is why it's worth more.

TailoringTidespray LinenEmbroidered Deep Sea SatinDeep Sea SatinTidespray Linen

Item

Selling Price

Materials

Notes

Hexweave Bag

100-Sorcerous Earth 10-Sorcerous Earth

Generally I undercut the lowest price by about to and it usually sells within 20 minutes. While 32 slot bags are now available in BFA the price is still so exorbitant stick with these until the price goes down.

50-Sorcerous Earth 10-Sorcerous Earth

This will take longer to sell. Undercut more if you're impatient to get a faster selling time. (Sell at lvl 24)

Embersilk Bag

15-Bolt of Embersilk Cloth 15-Hypnotic Dust

Undercut by or less depending on the current price. Usually sells within the day.

Engineering

Item

Selling Price

Materials

Notes

Findle's Loot-A-Rang

50-Gearspring Parts

It is old content but it's a fun toy.

Personal Hologram

Roughly

50-Gearspring Parts

This is also a toy, which is great for collectors.

Sky Golem

Right now it's going for but that's mostly because of BFA's launch. No-one's interested in old content at the moment.

30-Jard's Peculiar Energy Source 30-Living Steel

The price will come down eventually. And it might now sell now, but once BFA's been out for a while it will. And you can usually find someone in Trade Chat who wants it.

JewelcraftingJeweled Onyx Panther

Item

Selling Price

Materials

Notes

Jade Owl

Roughly

3-Wild Jade 3-Spirit of Harmony

Undercut by a little more than you normally would, the price is really high right now. There are two prices for this pet. One is in unlearned form, and one is straight after crafting.

Sapphire Cub

Roughly

3-River's Heart 3-Spirit of Harmony

As with the Jade Owl, there are two prices. Watch which one your posting for. I'm using data from under the battle pet section, instead of the miscellaneous.

EnchantingGloom DustGloom Dust

Item

Selling Price

Materials

Notes

Enchanted Lantern

Roughly

8-Heavenly Shard 1-Maelstrom Crystal 8-Hypnotic Dust

The profit from this is pretty decent. Undercut by 1 percent roughly.

Enchanted Dust

1-Draenic Dust

This is just a fun vanity item, which is pretty cheap to make.

Alchemy

Item

Selling Price

Materials

Notes

Vial of the Sands

1-Pyrium-Laced Crystalline Vial 8-Sands of Time 12-Truegold 8-Flask of the Winds 8-Flask of Titanic Strength 8-Deepstone Oil

Calculate everything before you begin, and try to get the materials yourself, it'll be cheaper although time is money.

Blacksmithing

Item

Selling Price

Materials

Notes

Monel-Hardened Hoofplates

Roughly each

25-Monelite Ore 2-Durable Flux

Make sure to farm your own materials for this one, as if you purchase the materials separately you may end up losing gold instead of making it.

Monel-Hardened Stirrups

Roughly each

25-Monelite Ore 2-Durable Flux

This sells for more than the latter item with the same materials. So this one is technically more profit worthy.

Soul of the Forge

Roughly

50-Truesteel Ingot 10-Sorcerous Fire

Trade in for the above items in your garrison, unless you do a Garrison shuffle in which case that's fine too.

Leatherworking

Item

Selling Price

Materials

Notes

Coarse Leather Barding

Roughly per

25 Coarse Leather

There are a fair bunch on the AH so undercut accordingly. By a few gold I'd say.

Drums of the Maelstrom

Roughly give or take or so.

25-Coarse Leather 10-Blood-Stained Bone

It's not a huge moneymaker because in almost any group there's a Paladin, Mage, or Shaman but it's still a decent money maker if you need some gold. Don't undercut by too much because the price is already so low.

Skinning

Hardened Tempest Hide

Herbalism

MiningGhost Iron Ore

First AidThis profession has never been a money maker and most (I don't want to say all, but at least 99.99%) gold makers ignore it.FishingCookingArchaeologyHuon Bronzebeards Guide to Archeology GoldThe End of the Professions SectionReturn to TopScrapperInstances

Icecrown Citadel

Firelands

Ulduar

Stonecore

Tempest Keep

Mogu'shan Vaults

Throne of Thunder

The Eye

Karazhan

Return to TopWorld QuestsReturn to TopQuestingDaily'sRegular Questing Return to TopFarmingTempest Keep (The Eye) FarmingNetherstormKarazhan FarmingDeadwind PassFirelands FarmingMount HyjalMount HyjalBastion Of Twilight FarmingEmbersilk ClothTwilight HighlandsEmbersilk ClothbutCult in Aldurthar FarmingFrostweave ClothFrostweave ClothReturn to TopTrade Chat

Select an item that you want to sell and place it into your inventory.
Click on /2 in in chat. Put a WTS first before you put the item into the chat window. That will mean you wish the sell the item.
Shift+left click on the item. It'll put it into the chat window.
Put "pst" after the item then click enter to send it to chat.
When someones whispers you you'll have to give them the price. Check the AH first before giving out the price.
Then respond back with it and if he likes the price then you'll meet in a place that's easy to get to for both of you. Usually Orgrimmar or New Dalaran.
Make the trade by clicking on his nameplate and hitting trade.
Then bam! You just made your first sale.

Return to TopOld ContentPandaren FarmGhost Iron OreBlack Trillium OreWhite Trillium OreOrder HallGarrisonsGarrison MissionsMedallion of the LegionGarrison BuildingsTrue Iron OreBlackrock OreTrue Iron Ore

Storehouse.

The Storehouse is amazing, it provides more slots for your garrison buildings and gives you a void storage, bank, transmogrifier, & guild bank. It's an amazing addition to your garrison and is very helpful.
Select two buildings for your professions. For example, I have Tailoring and Inscription so select the Tailoring Emporium and the Scribe's Quarters.
Salvage Yard. Blizz severely nerfed the salvage yard. However, if you have two gathering professions i.e. Herbalism & Mining, you're kind of stuck and at this point might as well go with the Salvage Yard.

Trading post is the best medium gold making building. Garrison resources are traded for common WoD materials. The best one that sells is the Draenic Dust. Draenic Dust sells for around each! It's the best selling material on the market right now besides selling fish. Speaking of fish, fish sells for lots of gold too. So basically check your AH for what sells best then trade in your extra garrison resources for those materials and sell them! It's extremely easy and profitable.

Frostwall Tavern. Recruit followers with the Extreme Scavenger trait. Plus do the other quests, you'll get toys, extra stuff and followers! This is a very important building and in my opinion a must have.

Lumber Mill. Select either Lumber Mill or Frostwall. Personlly, I recommend Frostwall. However, Lumber Mill gives you more garrison resources which means trading in for mats which equals gold. So up to you.

Gladiator's Sanctum. To be honest I have never used this. According to the description I'd only use this if you have a tendency to drown and/or fall of cliffs constantly.

Barns. They are wonderful for making gold. You can make money with the barn by selling the furs, leathers, and savage bloods. Furs can sell for around each, leathers sell for around each, and savage bloods sell for around each. I've heard it's hard to keep the mobs alive now that we're 110 and it will be even harder at 120. Just not worth it anymore.

War Mill
This is amazing for starters. When you're first equipping your followers, or even months after (trust me) you must have upgrades. And waiting for this missions to come by can sometimes be slow. This provides a constant supply with the price of Garrison Resources. After you get your followers all upgraded ditch this building and I'd replace it with Spirit Lodge, or Barracks and hold onto Stables that way.

Stables
This is the kind of thing I'd either put at the beginning of my building list or at the end. So that's why it's in the middle. In total, you gain 6 mounts. It does take quite a long time to earn them if you're limited on playing time though. It also displays various mounts from your collection. It does increase mount speed at level 3, though that has never been an issue with me. This is the kind of building I'd build, do the quests then switch in the Barracks for it as a long term building.

Barracks
This building is really good. At level three you get banners, specialty guards. which is fun! This is purely for vanity but I like it. Also, you can have guards to help with the difficult mobs and event though almost all things in WoD are soloable it's still fun to have a bodygaurd This building also increases how many followers you can have, so it's actually really important.

Spirit Lodge
I personally would not go for this one. However, I play a mage so there isn't any need for the Spirit Lodge. For other classes though this is extremely helpful especially if you do battle pet trainers around Draenor.

Goblin Workshop
This one is definitely interesting but it's not exactly a money maker. It was more helpful in WoD, however you can get Goblin Gliders from there. A must have for any toy/treasure hunter. Other than that there's no real use for it.

Return to TopMiscellaneous TipsSelling low grade materials. I have actually done this in the past when I was on the low pop server. It works quite well. Not as well on high pop servers though. But on a low population server you can do stuff like farming turkeys, eggs, and buying materials from profession vendors and selling them for a few gold. It's a good way to grab a little gold if you're low level and starting out.Selling runs. This can vary from class to class. People will pay a LOT of money for PVP runs and Raid runs. Obviously, you can't do raid runs by yourself. Typically, large guilds will sell runs to people for gold, etc. But PVP runs are a good way to make money if you're geared for it. 2v2's etc. Before WoD dropped and the LK fight was still hard people would sell mount runs but most things can be soloed now. Even Yogg Saron.Credits

As I have said, I found many of the farming ideas from videos on YouTube unfortunately I forgot who I got the ideas from so if you, who is reading this guide made a video then thank very much! :)

The ideas for raiding and posting flasks and potions on Tuesdays and Thursdays I found by the user xeleratedguides.

I found a comment containing the needed info for the drops from a chest. The comment was made by Dragonarcher.

I learned the Bastion Farming trick from xAiron. (Thank you very much!) His guide can be found in the Economy and Wealth section.

Many thanks to SquirelKel for coding help

Thanks to Tumeknet for suggesting selling Copper Rods.

Thanks to all of those that have contributed to the Wowhead database.

The End of The Guide

Comments

Comment by 1497887

Thanks for putting in the time to write this guide, I thought it was really good.

Copper Rod sell really well on my server. I have an Auction House Alt in Orgrimmar which I use to buy these from Kithas (Enchanting Vendor) for 1 Silver 24 Copper and then I sell them on the AH for 20 Gold a pop. I've never had any not sell.

Comment by Atreyiu31

85k amani dragonhawk, on my server are all around 150k+ hell yeah nice bought

Comment by lankybrit

A good guide.

A few comments.

You don't really say much about selling on the AH. I was expecting strategies on Undercutting, Overcutting, etc.

Your estimates of gold from stuff seems pretty high. Ore for 3g? Draenic Dust for 4g? Maybe 2 months ago that was true, but Ore is always about 1g-2g and Draenic Dust has been dropping so it's barely above 2g now.

A lot of your profession stuff talks about old content. This is probably not for most people. People will come here wanting to know what to do with Draenor Mats for their professions. Inscription and Tailoring are well done, but the others seem to talk more about old stuff.

I gave you 4 stars for it. Fleshing it out a bit would make it even better.

Comment by tigersclaw69

Your garrison section could be spruced up a bit.
For small buildings the salvage yard is a great choice for making steady gold. if your an enchanter it can be a great source for dust as well. Or you can save the items to disenchant and use someone's garrison with an enchanting building.
Also the daily from the jc building (you need a follower assigned to it to see the quest.) can give anywhere from 150- 300g per day. Often the quest requires you to spend <60g of materials to complete. Even the ones that require above that still give a profit. This becomes very profitable if you can do it on multiple characters.
The storehouse is honestly worthless outside of the convenience it provides.

For medium buildings you want an inn. This provides multiple benefits. Each week you can recruit a character with a trait/ability of your choice. If you pick ones with treasure hunter you can multiply your gains from garrison gold missions. Over time you can build up a full roster of treasure hunters. I've pulled in 4k from a blingtron vault quest thanks to this. Also a level 3 inn will unlock some extra treasure missions for gold.
Once you have a full roster of treasure hunters you can trade this in for a trading post.

For large buildings I would recommend a barracks. This combos with the inn by allowing up to 25 followers. This allows more characters with treasure hunter making it easier to complete multiple gold missions while using the trait.

Comment by Gwiez

A link to undermine journal would let people check the current selling prices on their servers, so you don't have to worry when your quoted prices go out of date.

Comment by voodoopimp

The MoP instances part feels a little too conservative. Pretty much anyone can solo the dungeons, Mogu'shan Vaults and some of the world bosses can be reasonably soloed by tank/pet specs, and I expect most of the others could be done with 2-3 people if one of them is a tank.

However, I don't think there's much point in doing so unless you're going for achievements or farming specific drops - they take a lot longer to clear than Wrath/Cata instances (less gold/hour) and there's enough of those that you should be fine unless you have way too much free time.

Comment by 1258561

Thanks for the guide!

Comment by 661836

I don't get why this guide says it's updated for Legion and you still say Auctioneer takes up to 20 minutes to scan... It's been a few extensions that we can quick scan with the double right arrow button thanks to a change in the wow's api a while ago. :O

This makes a huge change!

Comment by 1841870

Try out these addons, it makes gold easy to make
http://6502f3rbjjttste928mn-x0b0j.hop.&*!@#$%^&.net/

Comment by 1931397

Dynasty Tcoon gold addon automatically find the best gold strategies in the game in seconds heres the link for the add on

Comment by Capesword

I found a low-level strat for earning gold in Battle for Azeroth. You need an active subscription, and obviously, the Battle for Azeroth Expansion. It's okay if you're a newbie with this strat, in fact, new players and starting characters are the audience this works for.
Create your character as normal and complete any content necessary to level and possibly to get to the open world (goblins, pandarens, and worgens get this kind of starter zone).
If your faction is the Alliance, travel to Stormwind as soon as you choose all your professions. You should have Fishing as well. In the harbor, where the boat used to go to Darnassus, you'll find a ship periodically comes for Kul Tiras. Take the boat there. When you arrive at port, be careful. DO NOT FALL INTO THE WATER OR YOU MAY DIE! The objective here is to go fishing. Junk items come up frequently and vend for 2-8 gp. You can process most fish into oil that vends for 62 sp 50 cp, meaning a 200 count stack will bring 125 gp. I suggest casually fishing here to pick up coins part time. 30 minutes to an hour will bring a decent income, but don't expect riches.
Horde players can access Zandalar from a ship at Echo Isles. As long as you treat the monsters in the water with the same respect, a fledgling Horde player can accomplish the same goal. Both ports have vendors if you don't have vendor mounts.

Comment by Mithmarr

Good guide. I made a WoW gold farming guide at MMORPGTips with some additional info if people want to check that out :)

Comment by Logan500

Is it just me or is this guide more for those who don't know how to make gold at all? This guide is time invested for gold. It's not entrepreneurship for millions per hour. As nothing but a miner and skinner, I get the same results as this guide ,and WITHOUT trying to farm it. Where are the real guides for those who already know the customary ways of making gold? Thanks.

Comment by TulkorHammer

I found this guide to be very helpful. Thank you!

Gold Making Guide: A Guide to WoW Gold

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