Just starting your WoW journey and wondering how to earn that gold everyone keeps talking about? We’ve got you covered!
In this guide, we’ll break down all the basics and walk you through the main gold-making methods in WoW. And if you ever need an instant boost of gold, you can always check out the WowVendor store. They offer WoW gold for sale for all game versions, with convenient packages and super-fast delivery straight to your character. Just a couple of clicks, and you’ll have as much gold as you need to fund your adventures and play the game exactly how you want!
How to Make Gold in WoW
Raw Gold
Raw gold is the gold you get directly from the game, without having to deal with the Auction House.
You can earn raw gold from killing mobs, as rewards for quests (especially Daily and World quests), and by selling loot to NPC vendors (mainly gray items and some lower-quality gear). At vendors, you not only can offload your unwanted junk but also buy gear, pets, or other special goods to use yourself or resell on the Auction House for a profit.
Raw gold farming is simple, steady, and especially good while leveling up, but it’s usually less profitable than other methods that involve the Auction House.
Crafting
Crafting is the process of using raw materials and reagents to create new items that you can sell to other players.
You can craft items using certain professions, like:
- Alchemy (for potions, flasks, and other consumables)
- Blacksmithing (for plate armor and weapons)
- Jewelcrafting (for rings, necklaces, and gems)
- Enchanting (for gear upgrades)
- Tailoring (for cloth armor and bags)
- Leatherworking (for leather and mail gear)
- Inscription (for profession tools, contracts, and other unique items)
- Cooking (for food)
To get started, you’ll need to learn a profession from a profession trainer. These trainers are usually found in major cities or expansion hubs. At first, you’ll only be able to make basic recipes, but as your profession skill increases, you’ll unlock more advanced and profitable crafts. To level up your skill, you simply need to use your profession. Once you hit the maximum skill for your current rank, you’ll have to visit your trainer again and rank up to unlock the next skill bracket and continue leveling.
Crafters also have access to the Crafting Orders system. This is where NPCs and other players place requests for specific items, and you can accept and complete them for a reward. To take an order, you must have the right profession, the required skill level, and know the recipe for that item.
All WoW professions also include various Specializations. These are talent-like trees that let you focus on certain areas of your trade and gain various perks. For example, a blacksmith might specialize in making weapons, armor, or profession equipment, getting extra skill points for certain crafts, unlocking new recipes, and getting stat buffs along the way.
To access all those perks, you’ll need to invest Knowledge Points that are earned for different profession-related activities and rewards like First-Craft bonuses, NPC Crafting Orders, and more. Knowledge Points are not easy to get, and the amount you can earn per week is limited, so you’ll need to spend them wisely. If you feel like you’re going in the wrong direction, you can reset the points with the help of Darla Fluxy in Dornogal and start over, but this offer is available only once.
All in all, crafting is a really fun way to make gold, though, you must be ready to invest in materials (or farm them yourself) before you can actually sell something.
Farming
Farming is one of the most versatile ways to make gold, covering a wide range of different activities.
Farming Mobs
The most basic farming method is killing mobs and selling the loot they drop. You can do it both in the open world and inside dungeons or raids.
Mobs drop all kinds of useful and valuable items, including crafting materials, gear, recipes or patterns, transmogs (appearances that can be applied to other gear pieces), and more. Apart from regular mobs, there are also rare and elite enemies that are stronger, offer more profitable loot, and spawn only at certain times in specific locations.
If we’re talking about farming in instances, there usually are more enemies packed closely together, and the loot tends to be more valuable. However, you can only do up to 10 dungeon runs per hour on your account. And for raids, each difficulty (Normal, Heroic, Mythic) has a weekly lockout, meaning you can only loot the bosses once per week per difficulty. Also, more recent dungeons and raids will require a full group to run, but older ones are usually soloable.
Farming with Gathering Professions
You can also farm materials directly using gathering professions:
- Herbalism (harvesting herbs)
- Mining (collecting ores)
- Skinning (getting leather and scales from beasts)
- Fishing (catching fish)
Just like with crafting, gathering professions also have skill levels, ranks, and specializations that give you access to different perks and buffs.
These professions are especially beginner-friendly because they don’t require any gold investment and are super easy to get into. Moreover, at certain points in the game (like the start of an expansion or season) gathering can be extremely profitable because materials tend to spike in price and demand.
Item Flipping
Item flipping is all about buying low and selling high. Instead of farming or crafting, you make gold by playing the Auction House and finding underpriced items that you can resell for profit.
First off, you need to go to the Auction House and look for items that are listed cheaper than usual. You can search for bargains by checking prices on each server manually or using special tools like TradeSkillMaster (TSM) addon or Undermine Exchange website.
Once you find a good deal, purchase the item and then put it back on the Auction House at a higher price. When setting your new price, don’t forget about the Auction House fees: an unrefundable 5% commission and a deposit that’ll you get back if your item is sold.
Flipping is quite risky and not exactly beginner-friendly, since you’ll need both market knowledge and some startup gold to make it work. But don’t let it discourage you! If you take time to study the market, learn which items actually bring profit, and begin with small, low-risk flips, you’ll soon get the hang of it and will start making solid amounts of gold without ever leaving the city.