Merchanting is one of, if not the best way to make and lose money. This guide will show you how to merchant with the Grand Exchange. There is more to it than just buying items for the minimum price, and selling them for the maximum price four hours later. Merchanting is an art, and when done correctly can make you rich. This guide will not show you what to merchant, mainly because of the fact that prices fluctuate all of the time, but I will give you tips on how to merchant. Not a member? Not a problem! Even if you are not a member, you can merchant too, but being a member helps, as you get six Grand Exchange slots instead of two.

Note: This guide does not show you items to merchant. The items and pictures below are a reference so you can find an item to merchant. Yes, these still may be good items to merchant, but be aware: They are just examples.

Getting To Grand Exchange

[ Register or Signin to view external links. ] Walking: You can simply walk to the Grand Exchange which is located to the north-west of the West Varrock Bank.

[ Register or Signin to view external links. ] Varrock Teleport: If you have level 25 Magic, you can teleport to Varrock using 3 air runes, 1 fire rune and 1 law rune. From the Varrock Square, walk west until you reach the Varrock West bank. Go through it and follow the path to the Grand Exchange.

[ Register or Signin to view external links. ] Spirit Trees: If you have completed the Tree Gnome Village Quest (Grand Tree Quest to use the Spirit Tree at the Grand Tree), then you can use Spirit Trees. You can use the spirit tree from the Tree Gnome Village or in the Grand Tree to teleport to the tree a little bit north-east of the Grand Exchange.

[ Register or Signin to view external links. ] Amulet of Glory: You can use an Amulet of Glory to teleport to Edgeville, then cross the bridge and go under the Agility Shortcut, north-west of the Grand Exchange.

[ Register or Signin to view external links. ] Sceptre: If you have a Skull Sceptre from the Stronghold of Security, then you can teleport to Barbarian Village. Walk east across the bridge until you reach the West Varrock Bank. Go through it and follow the path to the Grand Exchange

Here is a map that should be helpful if you don't know where to go.

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Great! Now that you are there you can begin your road to riches!

The Basics
Let's start off with some basic merchanting rules.

Rule 1: Never Merchant Static-Price Items

Never ever merchant something that's price never increases or decreases! Unless you wish to make no money, of course.

Example:
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As you can see the price doesn't move at all. This would make it a difficult item to merchant.

A good item to merchant would be the death rune. As seen below it goes up and down. Sell when the price goes up, buy when the price goes down.

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If you are experienced at watching the Grand Exchange charts this shouldn't be a problem. If you aren't don't worry! You will get better over time.

Rule 2: Keep Track of What You Buy

Since you will be buying and selling a lot, it is a good idea to have a pencil and a piece of paper to write down what you bought, how many you bought, the cost per unit and the total cost. This way if you forget you will know, to make sure that you don't lose money.

Rule 3: Never Sell For the Maximum Price

Never ever sell for the maximum price! Nobody except desperate people buy things at maximum price. The trick is: A lot of people sell for maximum price, so beat them by selling lower than the maximum price. This way, you will beat everyone selling for maximum price, and it will probably sell faster. But, you can only buy a certain amount of items every four hours, to keep RWT's from Real World Trading"

100 Weapons/Armor
10k Arrows
10k Food
100 Jewelry
10k Feathers
25k Herbs
25k Ores
25k Logs
25k Runes
10k Potions

Short-Term Investments

Short Term Investing is exactly how it sounds. You make an "Investment" for the market price or less (market price is best, so you are almost guaranteed to get the item instantly) and then put it back up on the market for a little less than the maximum price.

So for example: Buy an item (not of a high price, so you can buy more) like a rune full helmet or a rune scimitar. Buy 100 (Or the most your money can buy you, don't worry you will be able to buy more later) at the market price, then put it right back up on the market for just below the maximum price. If a rune scimitar's maximum price was 18k, then you would probably want to sell it for 17.5k.

This way, you beat the competition. While that is waiting invest in other things, or log out and do something else. If you invest before you go to bed, that would be good because you can just pick up the money in the morning.

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Although the price doesn't change much you can still buy for about 500-1,000 lower than the regular price. This way you will beat everyone buying for the lowest price, and be closer to the regular price. Then once that is done re-sell it (4 Hour delay) for about 500-1,000 below the maximum price. You will beat everyone selling for maximum price and be closer to the market price.

Long-Term Investments


Long term investing is a little more complicated. You must use the Grand Exchange charts. To get to the GE Database, Go to the RuneScape homepage and click Game Guide and then Grand Exchange. Once there it is recommended that you choose an item that is decreasing by using the charts on the Grand Exchange. Or you can choose an item that you think is going to go up due to a future update.

Currently (Dec. 2010), rune armor is about 140-160k for a set. Due to PvP worlds where you can pk anywhere, rune armor sets are likely to increase in price, because you lose all of your items. So I invested in 15 sets, and now I wait until at least one of the updates comes out. This isn't the best way to do it, but if you have evidence that a price will rise soon, jump right on it! This isn't the "Right Way" to do it, but it can be very profitable.

The "Right Way" to do it, would be to use the charts like I said.

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As you can see Coal has gone down a bit here. You see how the line is beginning to thin out. This is the perfect time to jump right on it. Buy 1-2k coal depending on how much money you have. Don't spend it all so you can invest in other things. The price started at 192, but now it is around 181. If you don't jump on it now, the price will go back up, as you can see from the flattening line. Now wait a few days or weeks depending on how the market is, for the price to go back up and sell it for a little more than the market price for a nice profit!

As complicated as it sounds, once you do it a few times, you will be an expert at merchanting!

Here is another example:

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As you can see, the price is going down, so at the time, I bought 5,000 Chaos Runes and sold them when they went back up to above 105gp ea. Like I said, it is just a game of reading charts, clicking buttons and waiting.

"Dangerous" Merchanting

Now that you are rich you can either enjoy being rich, buy a bunch of rares or great armor to kill people with in Bounty Hunter... or you could double the danger and use "Dangerous" Merchanting. Why is it called "Dangerous" Merchanting? Because it is dangerous. In this kind of merchanting, you will either lose a lot of your money or make a lot more money. Remember this is only if you are a pro at reading and understanding the charts and how prices move.

Dangerous investing is simple. Invest in a high price item that's price is going down. Say that a Bandos God Sword's price fell to about 25 million. This is when you would buy one (only one - if you lose your money, it's your own fault!) and then wait for the price to go back up. Since the item is worth more than other items, it will take longer to go back up. Now this is where it gets dangerous. As the price goes back up:

People may lose interest in the item.
People may want to buy it for the minimum price.
People may just not want the item anymore, and buy a better item.

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This would be the time to buy. The Grand Exchange goes up and down more on higher priced items. Therefore, it will take about a week or two for the price to go back up. Don't wait for the line to even out at the top, because that is when It will crash again. The Bandos GodSword usually stays between 30 mil and 25 mil when it goes down. This is the best item to merchant (currently, Jan. 2009) because it is high in demand and the price keeps going up and down at a consistent pace. If you want to merchant others, you can -- just no party hats!

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Another example here is the Saradomin GodSword. It is going down heavily. If you ever see an offer like this, never hesitate. When you buy it, it will keep going down yes. Then it will start to even out and bounce back up. You MUST be patient. If the line is steadily going back up, don't sell it. Wait until the price starts to even out at the top again, then sell it for maximum profit.

The point is, it is dangerous, but if you play your cards right, you could make an easy 10% profit.

Warning: If you decide that you want to buy an item that's prices doesn't change, be warned you will not make money, and will most likely lose money. Do not blame anyone except yourself if you lose or make no money from this. We are warning you right now that you will not make any money from doing this. Things like party hats and Christmas Crackers, that are rarely traded and whose prices don't move will not make you money!

Set Merchanting

Set merchanting is an interesting concept indeed, though it is very profitable. Set merchanting sounds complicated, but in execution is very simple. If you were to go to the Grand Exchange and buy all the pieces of a rune armor set individually, put them into a set and sell them for market price, provided the buyer isn't purchasing for more, you will make no money. But if you go to the Grand Exchange and buy each piece of a rune armor set for a little less than the market price, put them into a set (to make profit and to avoid four hour trade limit) and sell for the market price you would make a profit.

For example, suppose the following items were on the market:

Rune Full Helmet: 23,000gp
Rune Platebody: 54,000
Rune Kiteshield: 43,000
Rune Platelegs: 46,000
If you were to buy each for 500gp less than the market price, put it into a set and sell it for the market price, you would make a 2,000gp profit:

4 items * ( Market Price - 500gp ) = 2,000gp

Now if you were to buy 5 sets of rune armor, you would make 10,000gp, as a 2,000gp profit per 1 set X 5 = 10,000gp profit. All you have to do is buy 5 of each item for lower than the market price. Do not buy for the minimum price, as nobody sells for minimum price. For the higher priced items like the Rune Platebody, try buying for 52,000. For the Rune Kiteshield try buying for 42,500. It isn't that complicated. Just make sure that you don't buy each piece for the market price, or you wont' make a profit!

Note: Remember, these prices may not be accurate - this is only an example! Check the Grand Exchange for the latest price info.


Well that is about all there is too it! Don't buy items that's prices don't change, don't buy for minimum price when short term or long term investing, and don't sell for the maximum price when selling something. When you get enough money to "Dangerous" Merchant go for it! I hope this guide has helped you make money.

Happy Money Making!

Yes, we all hate doing it. But it sure as hell is worth it, if done right, and only if done right.
While some of these methods may not be the best, some of these are GREAT ways to make money, and some of these methods I invented or discovered myself.
I am a Runescape veteran, and I hardly ever bot, and if I do i don't on my main. I started around 2003, and very slowly adapted. It was around 2005 spring that I finally started to get the grip of runescape, and since then I have been studying the game and its methods, and seeing the things I can do to efficiently maximize profit and experience. My bank is only around 80 M at the moment, but I have easily made over 3 billion GP on runescape over the years, I'm just an afk person and die a lot . But enough of this, I've probably bored you with this and you just want to get onto the methods. Well, here they are.

First, the most over-used and over-botted method on Runescape.
Green Dragons 100-500k Per Hour (very inconsistent)
Yes, most of us hate this method. There are a lot of cannoners and botters stealing all of your dragons. I personally never use this method, as I maximize around 400k an hour even with 99 attack and strength, but if you do choose to do this method I recommend 60+ attack strength and 40+ defense, and at least 10 lobsters in your inventory. And, if you didn't already figure this out, use an anti-dragon shield -_-

Second, a method not as heard-of as green dragons, but can sometimes be crowded :/
Ankous or Cockroach Soldiers 150-300k an hour (somewhat inconsistent, depends on levels)
Ankous not only have the drops, but the potential to give great experience as well. Often assigned as slayer tasks, you can easy dish out a 15% strength bonus with a slayer helmet/black mask, even if you don't have the salve amulet. This is a great and efficient way to kill those noobish ankous in no time. Even if theyre not a slayer task, you can use the salve amulet (e) and get a wicked 20% strength bonus. (Haunted mine and tarn's lair required) These ankous can be found in the 4th floor of the stronghold of security and in the wilderness volcano. They even drop level 3 clue scrolls!
Cockroach Soldiers' drops are very similar to those of the ankous', but they have rune drops such as the rune sq and rune scimitar that the ankous dont have. While you can't dish out the salve amulet bonus or have the slayer task damage, their rune drops can make them good, if you're lucky. I would recommend ankous, but cockroach soldiers are a good and less-crowded alternative.

Method 3 Dagannoths 200-800k an hour (VERY Inconsistent)
(400k-1 M an hour with cannon)
Dagannoths are powerful creatures, and definitely not to be underestimated. They can easily kill you if your combat does not exceed 80 and your defense does not exceed 60. I would recommend the best defense bonus you can afford, the best weapon you have, and a lot of food. To do this method, you must have completed a portion of horror of the deep. The dagannoths are located beneath the lighthouse. The dagannoths are not only great experience, but can be assigned as a slayer task, making them ideal because you can have the 15% strength bonus on them. While the drops are very inconsistant, the drop many seeds. These seeds include snapdragon, ranarr, and torstol. Depending on the prices, the ranarr can be around 20k, the snapdragon 50-100k, and the torstol 200-400k. While the drops are not common, they are not extremely rare. As I said, it is inconsistent because the drops all depend on your luck, once I cannoned there and got very lucky, getting 1.3 MIL worth of drops!(keep in mind I didn't subtract the cost of cannonballs there) But I have hardly ever broken 500k since then, so as I said, very inconsistent.

Method 4: Giant Mole 300k - 500k per hour (VERY Consistent)
WARNING: The Giant Mole is level 230 and can easily beat you down without high defense or 43 prayer -- Do Not attempt until 80 combat, 43 prayer, 70+ attack and strength + a good weapon, or a high ranged level.
The Drop is always 20k or higher, and on most occasions 30k or higher, on rarer (but not extremely rare) occasions it is 40k. (These are not including the separate drops that are not 100%)
The mole drops mole skins and mole claws, which are both around 10k, and always drops 1-3 mole skins and always drops 1 mole claw. (The money making for this method depends on GE prices) The mole is located in falador, use a spade on a dirt hole in the park. The money might go down, depending on your method of finding the mole when he hides, although after searching youtube deeply for the best guides, I found a low viewed one that is very helpful, and I also think this person will be grateful for the views (looks like a youtube noob tbh lolz)
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Method 5: Swamp Toad Running 150-250k an hour (Depends on clicking spe4ed and swamp toad prices) or 250-400k an hour (with terrorbird/bull ant)
I don't know if more people have discovered this method yet, I haven't done it for a few years.
Go to the tree gnome stronghold with the least weight equipped as possible. A spirit terrorbird's tireless run scroll or a bull ant's unburden scroll makes the money making MUCH faster. Go to the bank in the tree, go to the ground floor, and from there, make your way out of the tree and west a little bit and you will come across a swamp with many swamp toads and king worms. While it is best to collect all the toads, king worms can be collected too, but for less profit.

Those are enough old methods, don't you think? Time for my new/old methods I discovered. (If somebody already discovered them DON'T TROLL. I haven't seen anybody doing these tho)

Method 1: Black Scimmy Running 250-400k an hour (depends on speed & black scimitar prices)
Note: this method is extremely boring and not for the impatient. If you have never noticed, in the second floor of the Ardougne castle there is a black scimitar lying on the floor. A player did not drop this, it actually spawned there. Find the black scimitar on the ground and pick it up. Log out to the lobby and go to another world, and pick up the scimitar there, repeat. It takes a long time to spawn, so don't wait, hop worlds. I have waited there for over 5 minutes before and it hasn't spawned. In all my years of doing this, I have never seen anybody else doing it, although I fear that by posting this it will become more used. The prices as of 12/9/10 are around 6.5k for the black scimmy, and your profit depends on the price. Don't do this unless they are 4.5k or higher.

This Is The Same Method As The One In The Money Making Guide But This Is More Detailed And For People That Are Training Range.

Green Dragons are a really good way of making money. Their 100% drop of Dragon Bones and Green Dragon Hide, not to mention Loop Half of keys and clue scrolls make killing them very profitable, especially for those with high combat stats. However, every good thing has its disadvantages too...


Set Up

Green Dragons are level 79, although they do not do much damage. However, their dragon fire is really dangerous doing high hits (400+ sometimes) making a anti-dragon shield absolutely necessary or you will face a terrible death (not exaggerating at all!). Personally, i prefer to wear Range Void Armour, because you get higher hits. However, may people prefer to wear black dragon hide armour, because it is cheaper and easier to replace.

The only things that do not change in those setup are: Games Necklace, bolts, anti-dragon shield and ring of kinship, (ring of dulling if you do not have a ring of kinship)

Void Setup

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Black Dragon Hide Setup

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However, just because i recommend that you wear this armour does not mean you have to wear it. This is from past experience, but feel free to try out your own armour here!

Inventory

Your inventory should look something like this, please feel free to swap the monkfish for your own food, I prefer monkfish because they are fairly cheap and heal a lot. Also, i like to take an Anti-Fire Potion. They might be expensive, but you will not believe how much it cuts down the amount of food you have to eat. You can bring more or less food if you wish, this is just my standard inventory.

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Getting There and Killing The Dragons

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Use your Games Necklace to teleport to Clan Wars.


This is a simple map to get to the dragons themselves. I prefer the Dragons East of clan wars. Why? because they are easy to get to and they are only in level 20-24 wilderness, meaning you can run south and teleport if you need to.


Now killing the dragons. Just click on them and kill them. There are a number of safespots you can use, saving you food and potions, because there are plenty of rocks and skeletons lying around.


After killing a dragon, pick up the Dragon Bones and Green Dragonhide, and pick any valuable herbs such as grimy rannarrs. Also, pick up clue scrolls and loop half of keys and tooth half of keys, because they reap in a rather good reward too.


After getting a full inventory of your fabulous loot, you can teleport back to Daemonheim with your ring of kinship (or ring of duelling to castle wars or something). Bank your loot, restock your inventory and repeat!

Profits

As i have mentioned before, killing green dragons is very profitable, a good player can make about 600K per hour, now thats a lot! Here is my loot from about an hours worth of killing dragons:

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Just slightly less than 600K. However, do not expect to make this much money all the time. There are many factors which affect your kill speed, such as cannons, halfers (players who attack the dragons until the dragons health is down to half, and leave it for someone else to kill, and they get the loot) and revenants.

Revenants

What are Revenants?
Revenants are really powerful ghosts which replaced runescape classics pkers. They are very dangerous and should be avoided at all costs.

If a revenant appears, run west to clan wars and hide there until it is gone, or run south and teleport out using your games necklace. If you feel confident in killing the revenant, stay there and kill it, just do not attempt this if you think you can not beat it.

Dying

If you die, there is no reason for you to freak out or panic, just go to your nearest bank, get a anti-dragon shield or potion and games necklace, run to your grave and pick up your items. This is a good reason why you should kill dragons here. Also, there are always plenty of nice people at the dragons location that will repair or bless your grave should you die.

Strength (often abbreviated as Str) is a melee combat skill that determines how much damage is done in melee combat. The higher the Strength level, the higher the maximum hit and the higher the average damage. Strength also helps with some other skills, such as fishing and agility.

Attack (sometimes shortened to Att or Atk) is a melee combat stat that determines the accuracy of the player's melee attacks. The higher your attack level is, the fewer 0s you will hit. A player's Attack level also determines which weapons he/she can use.

Defence (spelled "Defense" in RuneScape Classic; abbreviated as Def) is a skill that gives the player protection during combat. Though often seen as a 'melee' skill, defence actually contributes to a player's combat level in any of the 3 combat disciplines. As a player raises their Defence level, opponents will deal damage less often, rather than deal less damage per hit. Defence levels also affect what kind of armour a player can equip ranging from level 1 for bronze armour and iron armour to level 80 for the Dungeoneering shields.

Now that you have read what each skill does and is made for decide on what skill to train and lets get hopping to it! Usually if your starting a new account or your skiller is going to be doing combat then usually you should start with getting around 10 str, 10 attack, 20 str, 20 attack, and so on until you decide to stop. Normally pures would get 60 attack, 99 str, and 1 defence. Its up to you what you want to train actually but the training methods and ways i will show you might be difficult if your defence level is low. Lets begin! *WHEN YOU TRAIN AND IF YOU EVER LEVEL UP TO SOMETHING THAT UNLOCKS YOU TO USE A BETTER WEAPON THEN ALWAYS GET IT, IF YOU TRY TO USE A BRONZE SCIMITAR UNTIL LEVEL 99 THEN YOUR GOING TO HIT A ROCK... REALLY BAD....

For what Armour and weapons to wear its just easy. Wear the best you can. At level 1 att and 1 str wear iron scimitar and an iron armour set. After level 45 get a fighter torso and rune armour and your good to go to 99 for your armour. IF you want to get bandos you can but its optional and pointless if you ask me since you gota spend that much money. Use a whip for training attack and defence but use a dragons scimitar or a saradomin sword for strength. Whips don't train you strength so yeah :/

Levels 1-15
Now these levels are easy but you want to start training in the chicken farm that is north of Lumbridge... You could pick up the feathers and bones and sell them but that might takeaway some time. Do it as you wish. Or you can kill cows... Your choice.

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Levels 15-30
This is also easy but it may take a little more time. You want to train at goblins (G) (After you open the first gate) You wont make any money off this but Its a good place to train for these levels. Please note: After level 20 move on the goblins further on, Explore the stronghold and fight the level 15 goblins, not the level 2 -.-... :S

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Levels 30-50
For level 50 you want to make your way ahead to rock crabs. They are very easy to kill and they only hit 1s on you very rarely. These are Member only but if you are a non-member then you should make your way to the M in the strong hold of security [MAP ABOVE]

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Levels 50-65
For these levels you want to train at flesh crawlers in the stronghold of security. If you are member then you will make a lot of money from the herbs. If you are F2P you will still do good but you wont make money. Flesh Crawlers are over here:

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Levels 65-75/80
For level 65-75/80 you should train at spiders in stronghold of security. It is fast xp like 25k-35k per hour if you at level 65 ish and its fast but you need to bank every often. Here is a map:

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Levels 75/80-99
You want to train now at Ankous. They are the bottom of stronghold security and you will make a lot of money. It is roughly around 40k-60k XP per hour depending on how good you bot/hand is. You need to know the XP/hour rate at this level because it does not matter in the lower levels. From level 80-99 in a skill here will make you ~15-45m depending on your drops and if you bring Bones to Peaches then you NEVER have to leave and the items for money you get ALL stack up. You might need to bank once every 20-30 hours but you really don't have to.

THERE are ANKOU at every A on the map. I recommended the top right hand corner Ankou.