Key points
- Coins, or gp, are the money. 1k is a thousand coins, 1m a million.
- The bank keeps items safe, and every bank opens the same one.
- The Grand Exchange in Varrock matches buy and sell offers between players, no meeting needed.
- It keeps 2% of each sale as tax. Anything that sells for under 50 coins is tax-free.
Coins
The money is coins, also written gp for gold pieces. Players shorten big amounts: 10k is ten thousand, 1m a million, 1b a billion. Coins are stackable: any number of them takes one inventory space.
The bank
A bank stores items, and every bank booth or banker opens the same one. What is in the bank is safe when the character dies. The first bank most players use is on the top floor of Lumbridge Castle.
Banks can hand items out as notes: slips of paper that stand for items. Notes stack, so a thousand noted logs take one space. They make selling in bulk easy, and any bank turns them back into items.
Tip. Set a Bank PIN at any bank. Staying safe says why.
The Grand Exchange
The Grand Exchange, or GE, is a building in north-west Varrock where players trade without meeting. To sell, offer an item at a price. To buy, say what to pay. The GE matches the offer with another player’s as soon as the prices meet, even while both are logged out.
- Tax. 2% of each sale, up to 5 million coins per item. Items that sell for under 50 coins pay none.
- Buy limits. Each item has a buy limit: the most one player can buy every four hours.
- Prices move. Players set them, so they rise and fall with supply and demand.
This site shows every traded item’s live GE price and its graph over a day, week, month or year: search for the item, or browse the item list.
Careful. A new account cannot sell some items on the GE until it has played 20 hours, reached a total level of 100 and earned 10 quest points. Buying is not limited.
Making money early
- Sell what is gathered.
Cowhides from the cows at Lumbridge,
feathers from chickens, and
logs, ore and fish all sell on the GE.
- Do quests. Below Ice Mountain pays 2,000 coins and Black Knights’ Fortress 2,500.
- Walk the [Stronghold of Security](wiki:stronghold-of-security), a dungeon under Barbarian Village. It pays 10,000 coins once, for learning how to keep an account safe on the way through.
- Alch, later. The High Level Alchemy spell, at Magic 55, turns an item into a fixed number of coins.
The wiki’s money making guide lists hundreds of methods with how many coins each makes an hour.
Careful. Nobody doubles money. A player offering to "double" coins, or to give something for free after a small payment first, is running a scam. See Staying safe.