Ironman money making guide
 |
Making money as an Ironman is fundamentally different from regular accounts. Ultimate Ironman accounts operate differently still and are not well-served by advice for Ironmen. Ironmen have to do activities that specifically generate coins in some way, as they cannot use the Grand Exchange to simply trade the items in exchange for coins.
With 50 Agility and Thieving, players can sell items to Martin Thwait in the Rogue's Den for their High Alchemy price. This is mostly of interest to high level players, as low level players are better served by using the items to allow them to cast High Level Alchemy more to get Magic experience.
PvM Drops
Outside of activities you can do for the express purpose of generating money, lots of PvM is profitable for Ironman accounts and will yield items that can be effectively liquidated into gold. These include:
- Adamant, rune and dragon items.
- High-level runes; these can be sold to Ali Morrisane, although you should not do this unless you are sure you will not need them, making it mostly a lategame method.
- Dragonhide bodies and battlestaves, and their raw materials.
- Rune and dragon javelin heads.
- Ores and bars (mainly adamantite and runite); the ores can be processed into bars in the Blast Furnace, and the bars then smithed into platebodies.
- Gems (mainly rubies, diamonds and dragonstones); these can be made into valuable jewellery.
- Onyx bolt tips; these can be attached to runite bolts to make onyx bolts, which can be high alched for profit.
Training certain skills, such as Construction, Fletching and Smithing costs a lot of money. Receiving useful supplies for those skills saves money, and that can be considered as making money effectively, such as planks or gold ores.
Money Making
We present three sections. First, a list of the current recommended money makers that are believed to be most efficient by the Ironman community, in roughly the order that a new account will be able to access them. Second, a selection of other less efficient alternative money makers that are accessible to accounts early on in their Old School RuneScape journey, and finally a similar selection of alternative money makers with higher-level requirements.
| Method | Hourly Profit | Hourly XP | Hourly Resources | Requirements | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Picking up ruby rings | 400,000 | 22,000 Magic | None |  55 , Crack the Clue III
|
The hourly profit greatly depends on competition, since the ruby ring has a respawn timer of about 240 seconds (4 minutes and 15 seconds). The hourly profit includes time used to cast High Level Alchemy on the rings. |
| Wintertodt | 30,000 | 300,000 Firemaking, 20,000 Woodcutting | Various logs, gems, ores, herbs, seeds, and fish |  50 ,  50
|
The absolute hourly profit from this method is low, so it is not efficient to continue past your target Firemaking level. |
| Blackjacking (50 Thieving) | 127,000 | 103,000 Thieving | None |  45 , The Feud, Rogue equipment
|
This method is not macroefficient for training Thieving and is quite intense, so efficient routes do not continue blackjacking past the amount of gold required to complete Desert Treasure and unlock efficient battlestaves. |
| Blackjacking (99 Thieving) | 220,000 | 265,000 Thieving | |||
| Battlestaves (shop-bought) |
928,000 | 96,000 Crafting, 40,000 Thieving | None | Desert Treasure I, Lunar Diplomacy | The quoted rate depends on quite a lot of assumptions, specifically:
|
| Battlestaves (monster drops) |
2,057,000 | ||||
| Green dragons (lance) |
496,000 | Melee, unclear value | 320 dragon bones | Basic melee setup (Dragon defender, Berserker ring (i), A Kingdom Divided for thralls) | There are only two scenarios in which this moneymaker is worthwhile. The first is before Piety is unlocked, as this Prayer is such a very large DPS increase. The second is after all relevant upgrades have been acquired, so it can be done at maximum efficiency. In between these milestones, Prayer levels do not have enough marginal value to justify performing this method. |
| Green dragons (minimum gear) |
265,000 | 180 dragon bones | |||
| Hallowed Sepulchre (72-82) | 94,000 | 63,700 Agility,
2,100 Thieving |
 72 , Sins of the Father
| ||
| Hallowed Sepulchre (82-92) | 181,000 | 72,900 Agility,
2,500 Thieving |
82 , Sins of the Father
| ||
| Hallowed Sepulchre (92-99) | 990,000 | 88,200 Agility,
7,200 Thieving |
92 , Sins of the Father
| ||
| Corrupted Gauntlet | 915,000 | Combats, unclear values | Uncut gems, runes, crystal shards, dragon arrows | Song of the Elves | This method is chiefly efficient because the bow of Faerdhinen is a very powerful item that would be collected regardless, so it is worth routing the activity in as a moneymaker. It is not efficient to continue once a bow and six armour seeds have been acquired. |
| ZMI (banked pure essence) | 1,470,000 | 80,000 Runecraft | None (accounted as profit) | Raiments of the Eye, Colossal pouch, Lunar Diplomacy, 71 , Sins of the Father or banked Pure essence from PvM
|
It is not efficient to perform inefficient PvM (e.g. Zulrah without endgame gear) to bank pure essence for ZMI Runecrafting. Daeyalt rates include the time taken to mine the Daeyalt - if you choose to discount this time because of its low intensity, you can treat the use of Daeyalt as banked pure essence. |
| ZMI (1.5 Daeyalt) | 780,000 | 120,000 Runecraft | |||
| ZMI (AFK Daeyalt) | 510,000 | 120,000 Runecraft | |||
| Three Tick Gem Mining | 165,000 | 110,000 Mining | 23,000 banked Crafting XP | Shilo Village, charged Amulet of glory, hard Karamja Diary | Profits can be increased considerably by processing diamonds into amulets (u) to alch, but this is technically only efficient before 87 Crafting. |
| Vorkath | 1,950,000 | 26,000 Slayer |
110,000 banked Cooking XP |
Dragon Slayer II, Osmumten's fang | Most efficient on task. |
| Processing adamantite ore | 3,150,000 | 80,000 Smithing |  70 , 55
|
||
| Processing runite ore | 15,774,000 | 104,000 Smithing | 85 , 55
|
Converting all banked runite ore into coins might endanger upkeep of Rune Darts for the Toxic blowpipe later. |
| Method | Hourly Profit | 
|
Requirements | Category | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Collecting steel platebodies | 128,000 | Maybe | None | Collecting | The Lava Maze is located in level 40–45 Wilderness and contains a steel platebody and staff of earth spawn. This method is widely known by most ironmen and is often camped out by them along with player killers. Steel platebodies can then be sold to general stores for 800 coins, to Horvik's Armour Shop in Varrock for 1,200 coins, or high alched for 1,200 coins.
An easier and safer alternative of this method would be to collect steel platelegs in the Eastern Ruins (level 25–28 Wilderness). Players can bring a looting bag and hop worlds until getting a full inventory and looting bag of steel platelegs. Steel platelegs can be sold to general stores for 400 coins, to Louie's Armoured Legs Bazaar for 650 coins, or high alched for 600 coins. This method is not recommended for
Lower risk but lower profit methods, such as picking up Bronze chainbodies from the Dwarven Mines or Iron swords from Briget's Weapons exist but will make less than 20,000 gp per hour. |
| Cutting gems at a gem shop | 90,000 | Yes |  20 , 27 recommended to cut emeralds
|
Skilling/shops | Players may buy uncut gems from a gem shop, cut the gems, and then sell the cut gems back to the shop for a fair amount of profit. This moneymaker does not require going into the Wilderness, it has low requirements, it is a medium level of click-intensiveness, and players may travel to other gem shops if the one they have been using seems to have a low stock of gems in most worlds. Due to the slow restock time of certain gems, this method is not sustainable long periods of time. |
| Fletching willow shortbows | 13,000 | Yes |  35+ , 30+ , 10
|
Skilling | Fletching and Woodcutting level fairly fast, are very low intensity, are quite useful, and are required several times through quests. A way to produce some decent money is by fletching the highest available bow fully completing them. Afterwards, any bows created can be high alched or sold to general stores. |
| Stealing from H.A.M. Store rooms | 67,000 | Yes with alch | 20 , food, completed at least half of Death to the Dorgeshuun
|
Skilling | After completing half of Death to the Dorgeshuun, players have access to the H.A.M. Store rooms. There, one is able to pickpocket guards that commonly give keys to chests which provide fairly good jewellery. Bank or high alch the loot obtained and make sure to save some of the emerald rings and sapphire necklaces for personal use. This is considered the best low level method for ironmen to acquire early jewelry and additional starting cash. Rate assumes 200 chests opened per hour. (NEEDS TESTING)
(wearing full H.A.M. robes helps reduce the chance of being kicked out when in the H.A.M. Hideout, but players will never be kicked out in the storeroom area so rogue equipment is recommended to potentially double the rate of keys). |
| Stealing silk | 24,000 | No | 20
|
Skilling | Silk can be stolen from the stalls in the Ardougne market. After waiting 20 minutes the stolen silk can be sold to the silk merchant (located in the market) for 60 coins each. Assumes 400 stolen and sold per hour. |
| Selling cats for death runes | 13,300 | Yes | Gertrude's Cat quest, easy Ardougne diary, 9 fish. | Collecting | Cats can be traded in for 200 death runes each in West Ardougne (100 death runes before completition of the easy tasks of Ardougne Diary). Raising a kitten to adulthood requires three hours and 9 fish. Every 20 minutes, interact with the kitten, stroke it twice, and use a fish on it. Once it is fully grown, you can trade it to a civilian in West Ardougne for 200 death runes. Assuming you would buy the runes for 200 coins each, this saves you 40,000 coins, or about 13,300 coins an hour.
This method is especially useful while using AFK training methods such as fletching or sand crabs, as it gives you an income boost with less than five minutes of time invested. |
| Agility Pyramid | 100,000+ | Yes | 30 ( 70+ recommended)
|
Minigame | The Agility Pyramid can be unlocked at 30 Agility, however, 70 is recommended as obstacle fail rates are drastically reduced. Players can make up to around 200,000 coins per hour.
Because most of the activity involves running around, you may want to bring supplies to train other skills, such as high alching noted items or fletching darts.
|
| Selling runes from Guardians of the Rift to Ali Morrisane | 60,000 | Yes |  27 , completion of Temple of the Eye and Rogue Trader
|
Skilling | Guardians of the Rift is an efficient Runecraft method which yields a large number of valuable catalytic runes. Starting at level 27 you can make runes and gain rewards from the Guardians of the Rift minigame, these can then be sold to Ali Morrisane's rune shop for coins. These runes are also useful for early game magic training and teleports. Nature, chaos, law and blood runes can be gained as a reward from the minigame and sell for good profit. You can expect around 30,000 Runecraft experience per hour, and around 60,000 coins per hour. This will increase further as you unlock the ability to craft high tier catalytic runes.
Note that the Runecraft level requirements can be gained from the Enter the Abyss and Temple of the Eye quest. |
| Giants' Foundry | 92,000 | Yes | Sleeping Giants, 15 up to iron, 30 up to steel
|
Skilling/shops | Depending on the alloys used, the Giants' Foundry minigame can make a profit or a loss of coins and give a good amount of Smithing experience when buying equipment from shops for it but players can also use leftover bars and unneeded equipment. The cheapest equipment to buy for their bar input are claws, so mithril claws from Jatizso's Weapons galore would reduce the cost of bars used for combinations involving mithril. But to profit from Giants' Foundry using purchased equipment alone, it's recommended to buy bronze + iron equipment ( 15 Smithing) or iron + steel equipment ( 30 Smithing), and buying better moulds for your Smithing level will increase profit.
|
| High alching rune arrows from Last Man Standing | 144,000 | Yes | 55 , 44 recommended, staff of fire.
|
Minigame | Last Man Standing is a PvP minigame with no requirements and no risk of death. Justine's shop sells a stack of 300 rune arrows for 3 points, which can be high alched for 240 coins each. Teleport to the Ferox Enclave using a ring of dueling and join the competitive lobby. Kill one player inside the game, then hide from other players by staying in a corner of the map or going upstairs inside a building (not the wooden towers). Wait until there are three players remaining, then run towards the safe zone. The remaining two players will be too busy fighting to kill you, and once one of the final two players die, you can either run into the lethal fog or let the final player kill you. By using this strategy, you will come in second or third place and earn 4 or 3 points a game.
Players who do not wish to gain combat experience, like Skillers, may opt to purchase 350 adamant arrows per LMS point instead, and sell the arrows to Brian in Rimmington. This process can be somewhat tedious, as players can only sell 50 arrows per world, in order to find a balance between speed and profit. For example, if a player had 13,000 arrows or so to sell, they would need to hop worlds around 270 times in order to sell all of them. Selling 350 adamant arrows (costing 1 LMS point) to Brian (by hopping to 7 different worlds) yields 7,112 coins. Once you've purchased a stack of 300 arrows, you can immediately buy 300 nature runes at an average of 200 coins each and alch the stack for a profit of 12,000 coins. As this profit is unimpressive, the better method is to runecraft the nature runes at the Nature Altar, then use the free runes to alch the stack for a profit of 72,000 coins. Assuming 6 Last Man Standing points and 600 nature runes an hour, this equates to 144,000 coins an hour. As the stack can be alched while performing other activities such as the Agility Pyramid, this method offers a convenient way to increase your coin stack while also gaining decent magic experience. |
| Method | Hourly Profit |
|
Requirements | Category | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pickpocketing Knights of Ardougne | 270,000 | Yes | 55 (95+ strongly recommended)
Completion of the medium tasks of the Ardougne Diary Full rogue equipment |
Skilling | Pickpocketing Knights of Ardougne is an easier and slightly more profitable alternative to blackjacking, but it also has higher requirements. From level 95 onwards, players can make up to around 270,000–280,000 coins per hour.
More information about pickpocketing Knights of Ardougne can be found here. |
| Crafting blood runes | 330,000 | Yes | 77 and 73
|
Skilling | Using any pickaxe and a chisel, mine dense essence, venerate them, run to the Blood Altar, and repeat. One run returns 212 blood runes, which the player can sell to Ali Morrisane for 200 coins each. The player can make up to 330,000 coins and gain up to 38,000 Runecraft experience per hour with optimised runs. |
| Blast mining and smithing runite | 650,000 | Maybe |  75 , 89 |
Skilling | Blast mining offers decent Mining experience and good profit. At level 75, players can obtain runite from the blasted ores, which makes the bulk of the profit gained.
For this method, players will need a lot of dynamites (330 per hour per Money making guide/Blast mining) They can be obtained in large amounts from the Chambers of Xeric. Players who have completed the elite tasks in the Kourend & Kebos Diary can claim 80 dynamites from Thirus every day. Buying the dynamites is not recommended, as this slows experience rates and cuts down the profit a lot. Smelt the ores obtained from Blast mining at the Blast Furnace. Additional coal can be bought at the Blast Furnace or acquired from Miscellania. Smith all runite bars into rune items, such as rune swords, and alch them for profit. |
| Crafting amethyst javelin heads | 364,000 | Yes | 92 , 87
|
Skilling | Mining Amethyst to craft and cast High Alchemy on Amethyst javelin heads offers both a low intensity and afk method of obtaining a constant source of gold, and a click intensive method that offers greater rewards. At high Mining levels and with efficient gear, players can expect to mine anywhere from 80 to 100 amethyst per hour with standard mining, and up to 160-200 using tick manipulation (In this case 3t actions, e.g. knife on teak/mahogany log), resulting in between 400–500 Amethyst javelin heads, resulting in between 364,800–456,000 (700,000-900,000 with tick manipulation) coins worth of javelin heads that can then be high alched. This method can be useful for ultimate ironman players as the amount of inventory space needed is minimal, needing only the ability to cast High Alchemy, a chisel, and enough inventory to hold at least one amethyst.
For increased efficiency, completion of the Varrock Elite Diary gives the player access to Varrock armour 4, which gives an additional chance to mine an Amethyst. Expert mining gloves can be purchased within the Mining Guild, and gives a 25% chance that the node will not be depleted, and the player will continue mining the rock until it depletes. The Celestial ring offers an invisible +4 boost to Mining while worn, but does not offer an additional chance at mining ore. |
| Killing rune dragons | 1,000,000 | Yes | High  , Dragon Slayer II completed
|
Combat | Killing rune dragons requires relatively low effort and can be very lucrative in getting cash, through the runite bars and valuable alchables. Dragon hunter lance is highly recommended. At the cost of supplies, you should expect over 1m/hour in alchables.
More information on killing rune dragons can be found here. |
| Crafting nature runes with the Achievement Diary Cape | 2,376,000 | Maybe | Achievement diary cape, 91+ , Colossal pouch, Full Raiments of the eye set
|
Skilling | Rate does not account for time selling nature runes to Ali's Discount Wares |