You've been there. Staring at a 50 million GP item on the Grand Exchange while your bank balance looks like a desert. It’s frustrating. Most players spend their time running laps around the same old bosses, wondering why their stack isn't growing as fast as the YouTubers they watch. The truth is that an effective osrs money making guide isn't just about clicking a boss; it's about understanding time-to-value ratios and the brutal reality of the Old School RuneScape economy.
GP is everything. It buys the gear that lets you play the game faster. But if you’re spending twenty hours a week making 500k an hour, you’re basically paying a second job’s worth of effort for digital breadcrumbs. You need to pivot.
Why Your Current Strategy is Probably Slowing You Down
The mistake isn't usually laziness. It’s inefficiency. Players often get trapped in "noob traps" like picking up flax or even killing Green Dragons long after their stats have outgrown them. If your combat stats are in the 70s, you shouldn't be tanning hides. You should be looking at entry-level bossing or high-yield skilling.
Take the blast furnace, for example. It’s old. It’s click-intensive. But if you have ice gloves and a coal bag, making steel or mithril bars can easily net you over 800k an hour with incredibly low requirements. Yet, people ignore it because it's "boring." Boring makes bank.
The Real Cost of "Passive" Income
Everyone talks about bird house runs and herb runs. They are great. Honestly, they are the backbone of a healthy account. If you aren’t doing your Ranarr or Snapdragon runs every time you login, you are essentially throwing away 100k to 200k for five minutes of work. Over a month? That's your bond paid for.
But passive income alone won't get you a Twisted Bow. You need a "Main" grind. This is the activity you settle into for three hours at a time. It needs to be something that scales with your focus.
High-End PvM: The Gold Standard
If you want the big bucks, you have to kill things. Hard things.
The Theatre of Blood (ToB) and Tombs of Amascut (ToA) are the current kings. In ToA, even at mid-level invocations (around 150-300), the chance of a Tumeken's Shadow drop keeps the "expected value" per hour incredibly high. We’re talking 3 to 10 million GP per hour depending on your speed and luck.
Don't have a team? Go to Vorkath.
Vorkath is the "blue money dragon" for a reason. Once you finish Dragon Slayer II, he is a consistent 2-3 million GP per hour. He doesn't rely on "purple" drops to be profitable. His base loot—superior dragon bones and dragonhide—is worth a fortune. Use a Dragon Hunter Lance or Crossbow. If you don't have those, a simple blowpipe with high-tier darts works, though your profit will take a hit from scale costs.
The Zulrah Factor
Zulrah isn't what it used to be in 2017, but it's still a staple in any osrs money making guide. The unique drops have stabilized. The real value now lies in the Zulrah scales. Since almost every high-level player uses a Serpentine Helm, Blowpipe, or Trident, the demand for scales is infinite. It is a guaranteed profit machine.
Skilling for People Who Hate Combat
Not everyone wants to prayer flick for six hours. I get it. Sometimes you just want to watch Netflix and see the numbers go up.
- Thieving: At level 91 (or 82 with a Thieving cape and some luck), Elves in Prifddinas are insane. You’re hunting for Enhanced Crystal Teleport Seeds. You can easily clear 2 million GP an hour here. It’s clicky, but it’s consistent.
- Smithing: As mentioned, Blast Furnace is the GOAT for low-level players. At higher levels, making Rune 2h swords at a forge is decent, but the profit margins are thin due to alch values.
- Runecrafting: Forget what you heard about it being slow. Guardians of the Rift made it tolerable, but Blood Runes at the True Blood Altar are where the money lives. You need the Sins of the Father quest done. It’s heavy on requirements but pays out in spades.
The Wilderness Risk-Reward Gap
Is Revenant killing worth it? Yes. And no.
If you can play during off-peak hours (think Tuesday morning in the US), Revenants are perhaps the best mid-level money in the game. You can walk in with a Magic Shortbow and some black dragonhide and walk out with 2 million GP. But you will die. You have to factor the "death tax" into your hourly rate. If you get tilted by PKers, stay out. If you view your gear as a disposable cost of doing business, the Wilderness is a gold mine.
Market Flipping: The Infinite Scalability
The Grand Exchange is the most powerful tool in the game.
Flipping isn't just for the rich. It's about volume. Look at items that people use in bulk: Zulrah scales, various potions, cooked fish, and runes. The margin might only be 2 or 3 GP per item, but when you buy 20,000 of them, it adds up.
The secret to flipping is the "buy limit." Every item has a limit on how many you can buy every four hours. Use this to your advantage. If you have 10 million GP sitting in your bank while you go to sleep, you are losing money. Put in lowball offers for high-volume items. Wake up, sell them for the market price. It’s free GP.
The Mid-Level "Slayer" Delusion
A lot of people say "just do Slayer."
Honestly? Slayer is terrible money until level 75 or 80. Gargoyles are the first "real" consistent money maker in the skill. Before that, you’re mostly spending money on cannonballs and potions. If your goal is strictly to build a bank, don't rely on early-game Slayer. Do it for the levels, sure, but don't expect to buy a Ghrazi Rapier from killing Bloodvelds.
Once you hit 85 for Abyssal Demons or 95 for Hydra, the game changes. Alchemical Hydra is one of the most profitable solo bosses in the game, hands down. It’s strictly a Slayer boss, meaning you need a task. This creates a barrier to entry that keeps the loot valuable.
Practical Steps to Actually Get Rich
- Stop buying cosmetic gear. That 30m you spent on a decorative ornament kit could have been a gear upgrade that increases your kills per hour by 10%.
- Use a calculator. Prices in OSRS fluctuate daily. Use the OSRS Wiki’s live price trackers. If the price of mahogany logs spikes, go do something else.
- Finish your diaries. The Varrock Diaries give you daily discounted battlestaves. It takes 30 seconds to buy them and sell them on the GE for a 15k-100k profit depending on the tier. It sounds small, but it's "free" money that covers your supplies.
- Invest in your house. A Max House (with a Pool of Restoration and Teleports) saves you thousands of hours and millions in supplies over the life of your account. It is the best "money maker" because it reduces your "money spent."
The path to a multi-billion GP bank isn't a straight line. It’s a mix of consistent farm runs, one "active" bossing grind, and smart GE management. Pick a boss you actually enjoy—whether it's the Phantom Muspah or the Corrupted Gauntlet—and get good at it. Mastery equals speed, and in OSRS, speed is the only thing that matters for your bottom line.
🔗 Read more: Yo Noid\! Why This Bizarre Domino's Ad is Actually a Platforming Gem
Focus on completing the Desert Diary 4 or Elite Lumbridge Diary as soon as possible. These rewards, like the unlimited teleports and the removal of the need for a dramen staff, shave seconds off every bank trip. Over thousands of kills, those seconds turn into hours, and those hours turn into millions of GP. Get to work.