Ironman money making guide

Making money as an Ironman can be difficult. Unlike regular accounts, Ironmen cannot generate coins passively by obtaining valuable items from skilling, bossing, or other sources, and simply selling them on the Grand Exchange. Instead, they must generate coins themselves, usually in less efficient ways.

This is important because many Ironman account goals are expensive. Large amounts of Coins are needed to purchase runes and skilling supplies, for instance. An Ironman's ability to make money can be a rate-limiting step which determines how quickly they are able to accomplish their other goals.

The time-efficient way to make money as an Ironman is to generate coins while accomplishing other goals, such as skilling or working towards rare drops. However, coins are important. If necessary, they can be generated actively using some of the methods below.

Generally speaking, it is worthwhile to progress your account in other ways before focusing on making money. Few early game objectives require large amounts of coins, and most efficient moneymakers have not yet been unlocked. However, a small cash stack is still important for early necessities such as an elemental staff, runes, and charter ship fees. Below are a list of common ways to build a small cash stack while you begin to progress your account.

• The earliest starting cash available to all account types is the Stronghold of Security, which awards 10,000. Bring enough food to survive attacks from several high-level monsters, and run past them to loot the chests as you descend into the dungeon.
• Thieving can be trained immediately by pickpocketing men and women in Lumbridge. This is the quickest way to accrue small amounts of gold, and levelling Thieving unlocks many more efficient moneymakers later on, such as blackjacking, or stealing valuables.
• The Wintertodt is an early game boss which generates skilling supplies and cash without requiring food or potions. Players must first train Firemaking to level 50.
• After completion of Gertrude's Cat, you can purchase kittens to grow and sell to civilians in West Ardougne for 100 death runes. This becomes 200 death runes after completion of the Easy Ardougne Diary, which are worth 21,600 every few hours if sold to Aubury in Varrock. If using the death runes, the value saved from not needing to buy them would be 36,000.
• Items that spawn on the ground can be picked up and sold to specialty shops or general stores like the Pollnivneach general store which buys items for near high alch value. World hop until you have a full inventory, then bank or sell to shops.
  • Eclipse red in Varlamore can be sold at Moonrise Wines.
  • Steel platebodies in the Wilderness can be sold to Horvik.
  • Ruby rings (after Crack the Clue III) in Varrock west bank can be sold to Grum.
• Players unlock the Agility Pyramid at 30 Agility, which awards 10,000 for each successful lap after turning in the pyramid tops received to Simon Templeton. However, due to its low success rate at low levels, it is recommended to wait until 50 Agility to start this method. Bring food and purchase waterskins at the Shantay Pass or Pollnivneach to avoid the desert heat.
• With 50 Agility and Thieving, players can sell items to Martin Thwait in the Rogue's Den for their High Alchemy price. This can be helpful for selling unwanted bulk items that may be tedious or unprofitable to alch. If selling more items at once, the Void Knight General Store and Jennifer's General Supplies offer the best prices given the low change value.

After reaching 55 Magic, High Level Alchemy becomes the most reliable way to convert items into coins. Skills and activities that generate large amounts of items to alch will typically be a mid-late game Ironman's primary source of income.

Generally, items become profitable to alch if their high alch value is greater than 200 (the rune shop cost of 5 fire runes and 1 nature rune). Items with a high alch value less than this are generally not worth alching unless you are training Magic using the spell.

Notable alchable items include:

• Adamant, rune, and dragon equipment
• Elemental battlestaves
• Dragonhide equipment
• Rune and dragon javelin tips
• Onyx bolt tips, which can be fletched and enchanted into onyx bolts (e), then alched for even more profit
• Rune arrows
• Jewellery
• High-level Fletching products such as Yew Longbows

It is most time-efficient (though more click-intensive) to alch during other activities. Many players alch noted stacks of items while training Agility, for instance, or when traversing the map on foot or with Sailing.

• Crafting generates items of significant alch value. Gems can be cut and turned into jewellery, Battlestaves can be crafted into elemental battlestaves, and dragonhides from monster drops can be crafted into valuable armour.

• Ores and bars can be alched in bulk or smithed into more valuable items such as weapons or platebodies, then alched.
• The Hallowed Sepulchre and Wilderness Agility Course reward the player with large quantities of alchables and gold not offered by other courses.
• Training Runecraft at runic altars, the Ourania altar, or via the Guardians of the Rift minigame, generates runes which can be sold to shops (see below).
• Training Fletching can produce items which can be alched for cash, such as bows and shields. Ironmen will often have leftover logs from Miscellania or from training Woodcutting. Flax, to make bowstrings, can be obtained in bulk from Miscellania and bales of flax can be obtained from the Vale Totems minigame.
• Training Sailing via Shipwreck Salvaging can produce several valuable skilling items for early game and after 53 Sailing provides very good profit from alching.

• Many monsters assigned as a Slayer task, (especially at higher levels), have drop tables with high-value alchables.
• Many bosses and raids have lucrative drop tables. Many Ironmen generate a significant amount of coins while farming kills for rare drops.

• Extra runes, such as from Zeah runecrafting or Barrows, can be sold to the Tzhaar shop for Tokkul or to Ali's Discount Wares for coins. Ali Morrisane buys runes at fixed prices that do not decrease with overstock (requires completion of the runes section of Rogue Trader.)
• As mentioned above, tedious bulk items, such as lenses, unstrung bows, or other skilling products, can be sold to Martin Thwait in the Rogue's Den for their High Alchemy price.

While clue caskets are not usually a great source of money, many Ironmen will complete clues for Ranger boots, Blessed dragonhide armour, or to complete collection logs, and along the way can receive alchables, useful runes, and unique items. Clues can be passively obtained while training other skills such as Slayer, Thieving, Fishing, or Woodcutting, but there are a number of methods to quickly acquire a specific type. Clues become more efficient as the player fills STASH units and accesses more teleports and skills to complete clue steps quickly. Completing Combat Achievement tiers increases most drop rates for clue scrolls. Completing X Marks the Spot allows for the acquisition of scroll boxes, a stackable form of clues.

The following are the approximate values of each clue casket (excluding the value of master clues obtained from lower tier caskets). Unwanted rare or cosmetic items can be used to fill Death's Coffer, as their Grand Exchange price is often much higher than their High Alchemy value.

The following table lists some common sources of easy, medium, hard, and elite clue scrolls along with associated drop rates.

These money making guides are presented in 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.