Shocking Truth About Getting Gold in WoW
Written by Jon.
My latest Gold Blueprint video in this free series is a kind of startling. In fact, I think some of you are going to be SHOCKED when you see this.
Because the fact is: everything you’ve been told, or that you’ve read about getting gold in World of Warcraft is WRONG. Seriously wrong.
In this video, I’m showing you the right way to do it. The right way, that is, if you want to get a ton of gold fast… and win back a huge amount of time for the parts of WoW you really enjoy. Questing… Raiding… PvP’ing… Arenas… Running Instances.
This video is 19 minutes long. Stick with it to the end, because I demonstrate a super technique you can use right away to make some Fast Gold. The easy Blueprint way 
- Jonathan
Watch the Video: Getting Gold the Right Way
If you have any questions about this video, or any of the other preview videos I’m sending your way, please post a comment.
56 Comments so far
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Holy crap, Jonathan. What do you do with all that gold. Trying out the recipie thing when I get home. thanks, marty
Hey Marty - you’d be surprised what I find to spend gold on
My playing goal at the moment is to develop at least 1 well equipped level 70 of every class before the Lich King expansion. Plus some serious twinks at 19 and 39. Plenty of room for spending 
- Jon
I have seen your tips work! I had a warrior with only 40G and turned into over 300G in a few hours. It seems I’m having problems with my auctioneer. When I search for items (ex: 30% buyouts or less) the items don’t always show up when I look for the specific item. Not sure if that is right or not. Your tips are working and hopefully in a month or so, my main can get his epic flyer! Thanks Jon
Marty,
I have been following your suggestions for some time now and with some success. Problem is people are just not buying in the AH. I bought some items and ended up “vendor trashing” them to make room for more.
What I really want to know is what software do you use to make your demo videos with. I am in education and I could use this for teaching other things. Thanks
Jon
Another excellent presentation.
I’ve followed the tips presented - loved the AH videos, the tips presented there help me make about 50G per 15 minutes of log in time. This is buying rats and mice stuff, not big ticket items, and selling them slightly under the middle of the ‘green’ banded items. Its a volume thing, rather than making a lot of gold per item.
You’ve got very good content in the videos - looking forward to the guide. Well done.
Cheers
oh this video you showed the alliance shops are they the same for the horde?
Jon - further comment
My daughter was struggling to keep cash flow coming with her level 32 Druid. I passed your link to her, and within a few days her cash flow has improved tremendously. When I first started out, I really struggled to find the cash to fund my first mount AND get training at lvl 40. Now, I have two more alts, both lvl 25’s (I also play with these alts but park them by the AH when not in use to act as bankers), both of whom have more than 1100G just with 15 min per day per alt.
Your methods certainly work mate.
Thanks again.
Mike:
thanks for letting me know of your good results!
You definitely should be able to narrow your “Buyouts” or “Bids” searches to specific items, you can even type in partial item names such as “Mana” or whatever… as long as there are items that meet the buyout criteria you’ve set, they should come up for you.
Try a buyout search without specifying an item first, then add an item name that you know is on the list and search again. If it doesn’t come up properly, there’s something wrong.
If that’s the case, then I guess you’ll have to uninstall Auctioneer, then re-install with the latest version.
I get weird problems with Auctioneer every now and then. I wish it were a more rock solid. But quirky as it is, it’s still an incredibly powerful addon, and I wouldn’t want to be without it.
- Jon
Mel -
The video software I use is Camtasia, made by TechSmith. That’s for PC, soon to be available for Mac. Also on the Mac, you can use Streamflow, which looks like it should be awesome… but I haven’t tried it yet.
For the auction house: if you can give me some examples of items that don’t sell, I could comment better. Try concentrating on trade goods that are always in demand and sell consistently… then all you have to do is make sure you buy well below the typical selling price. Look at Wool Cloth, Briarthorn, Clam Meat, Copper Ore, Dreamfoil, Mithril Ore/Bars etc.
Enchanting materials are great, because you don’t lose a commission fee if you list and don’t sell… so you can play with the pricing freely. If you have enough Gold to get started with, look at Large Prismatic Shards, Large Brilliant Shards, Large Radiant Shards, Void Crystal.
There are plenty of items (the vast majority) that are always hard to sell. I teach how to avoid those
and concentrate on likely profit makers.
- Jon
Hey Roger -
Wow, you (and your daughter) are doing great, I’m glad to hear it. Working on low-cost items and doing volume is fine, and I tend to keep that going all the time, regardless of how much Gold I accumulate. But eventually, you want to start doing exactly the same thing with high-priced stuff, because you make a heck of a lot more Gold in the same amount of time:
Look closely at your server’s patterns for these: Fel Armaments, Arcane Tomes, Pristine Black Diamonds, Fel Lotus, Void Crystal, Mithril Ore/Bars, Large Prismatic Shards, Large Radiant Shards, Large Brilliant Shards, Greater Nether Essence, Greater Eternal Essence. And so on
The huge payoffs come when you recognize that, for example, Fel Armaments normally sell around 20g, but right now they are going for 9g. Buy ALL you can afford (with your “mule” money) at the 9g price point, then patiently sell at 20g - even if you have to wait a couple of weeks for the price to rebound. It will, eventually.
Last month, I sold off about 500 Void Crystals I had bought under 20g on various servers, sold them all at 40g plus. That’s 10,000 Gold profit on just that one item.
- Jon
Heidi - thanks for the question.
The Horde vendors aren’t organized exactly like the Alliance vendors. For example, the Recipe: Elixir of Shadow Power is sold in Undercity, while the Pattern: White Wedding Dress is in Thunderbluff. But basically, it’s just as easy to do this magic on the Horde side as it is on Alliance.
For example, you set up a Level 1 character in Thunderbluff to buy the Wedding Dress pattern, as well as Prairie Dog Whistles etc., and send them to your Undercity auction house character (or to Booty Bay where you trade them over to the Alliance side).
I cover all this in detail in the Blueprint
- Jon
Hey Jon,
see how you got so much gold and you were only in the lower levels. its just not fair. haha I want to be rich too haha
I’m was just wondering when your coming out with the whole blueprint? I mean I enjoy the videos and hints, but I’d like to have them all at once
I’m tired of being poor, but am getting richer with your tricks/tips so far
thanks a bunch 
Hiya Heidi -
Hehe, you’re right, it’s totally not fair… but it sure feels good. And completely legit and ethical too.
The whole package will be out “within two weeks” - I’ve still got a huge amount of work to do on converting videos to online and download formats (there will be Quicktime MOV downloads of everything), and getting everything tidy for delivery.
Aiming at the Memorial Day weekend (May 24/25 or so), but can’t guarantee that absolutely. Maybe wait until after the holiday weekend, so everyone gets a fair crack at the “early bird” bonus stuff (which will be a huge extra
).
Hiya Jon,
How do you get that gold? I’ve tried doing the stuff you show but I’m either stupid or lazy. Or my server might be bad for auctioning. But how do you get your characters less than 10 like that? How do you get enough money to start farming the auction house?
Hey Jon,
you seem to keep refering back to the Undercity AH but aren’t all the AH linked? I mean if you put something in the Undercity AH it will appear at the Orgrimmar AH as well right. So wouldn’t you only have to have 2 characters? One at Boodybay (or Gadgetstan) and one at Orgrimmar and you’d be set? Am I wrong in thinking this?
oh sorry one more question totally off topic from the above. what are you planning on sell your blueprint for?
oh and I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that, while i was watching your latest video my husband over heard and is now trying your tips and sadly for me he’s getting more gold then me, now its more of a competition to be at the right place at the right time. so I can get something before he does.
I’m sure you already know this but having the wedding dress pattern is worth alot like you had said in the video but its worth more if you had a tailor who could make it and then sell it in the AH. same goes for the Tuxedo(from the Undercity).
sorry such a long post
~Heidi
Hiya Rob -
There’s no such thing as a server that’s bad for auctioning… or at least, not so bad that it’s not worth doing. Some servers ARE better than others, but these techniques always work, one way or another.
If certain specific items don’t work on your server, just shift your effort to other profit makers. That’s why I show literally hundreds of techniques and variations in my Blueprint method.
To get started just takes a couple of days. You get one character up to level 6 or 7, take up Mining and Skinning professions, gather a few stacks of Copper Ore and Light Leather, sell ‘em for whatever you can get. This stakes you to at least 3 or 4 gold, real easy.
Then you buy a few low-cost, limited supply vendor items (less than 1g each), and re-sell on the Auction House for big profits. Now you’ve got 20+ gold. And you’re on your way.
Seriously, it’s that easy to get going. If one of these “seed” items doesn’t sell well on your server, there’s 50 others you can work on (get the Blueprint… hehe). Just be sure you check the market for these items on your server BEFORE you buy the goods from the Vendors. You want guaranteed results while you are working on a tight start-up budget.
- Jon
Heidi - good questions.
I advise Undercity rather than Orgrimmar as your main Horde auction house, simply because it’s easier to jump start your cash flow there (mostly because of the Elixir of Shadow Power recipe). You will also want a Level 1 alt in Orgrimmar, and eventually one in Thunderbluff as well - for specific “Profit Pipeline” items you can trade for profits, day after day.
Same idea on the Alliance side, with Stormwind as the main auction house city.
About the White Wedding Dress, like you say it’s profitable to craft the Dress and sell it, but you need 250 Tailoring skill to do that… and I’ve found that the Dresses sell slower than the Patterns. So the fast and easy approach is to sell the Pattern… especially when following my low-level-characters-only method.
Another approach would be to buy the mats, then advertise for a Tailor and tip them to make up the Dresses for you. Profitable, but kind of time consuming.
I haven’t settled on the price of the Blueprint yet. I’ve shown parts of the package to some of the established “gurus” in the game, as well as some friends who’s opinion I value, and they are telling me to price it way high… they’re actually worried that the method is so effective that it will mess up the economy on some servers if too many players start using it. So they’re saying price it high, and limit the availability.
I don’t know. What do you think?
- Jon
hey Jon,
I’m almost afraid to ask how high you were thinking for the blueprint. But at the same time your friend is probably right on thinking its might mess up the economy, but there are other guides out there that haven’t messed everyone up. So I’m not sure.
~Heidi
Hey Jon.
I’ve seen your movie, and tried some of your methods. I fast figured that buying vision dust 90s each and sell them 2g each was a good way to make the money. Now im trying your pattern thing, but how high should i set the wedding dress pattern and tuxedo patterns? There is currently none at AH.
- Villeh
Heidi -
Don’t panic
I’m going to make sure the Blueprint isn’t out of range, price wise. Not much point doing all this work, and nobody gets to use it. I’m all about helping other players get past the frustrations we all face at first in getting enough gold to enjoy WoW completely. I remember what it felt like to struggle in the early days (yipes! nearly 4 years ago…), and I really just want to be helpful. That’s why I’ve developed the Blueprint method…. that, plus I’m tired of answering so many questions in-game all the time, hehe.
- Jon
Hi Villeh - thanks for the question.
That’s pretty high for Vision Dust, sounds like you’re on a server with a lot of profit potential.
For the patterns, try 6g - 8g for Wedding Dress (call it 7g80s buyout, with 7g23s starting bid - these precise amounts with silver fractions make a significant difference). Tuxedo patterns not so high, try in the 4g - 5g range each… and try to put all 3 parts up at the same time - Pants, Jacket, Shirt - if you can get ‘em.
Mind you, if Vision Dust is going for 2g each on your server, maybe you can aim for higher prices. Get a sale or two at the starting prices I’m suggesting, then try pushing the price up if you’re still the only seller.
- Jon
i got a question i seem to pile up loads and loads of mageweave and runecloth and other high lvl cloths. So what my question is are they good to sell on AH?
Hey Terry -
You can definitely sell them, and get decent gold. Do NOT vendor them!! You should be able to get between 3.5g and 5g per stack of 20 for either mageweave or runecloth on most servers.
If you are trying to buy and sell for profit in the Auction House, you should keep an eye on cloth of all kinds. Get to know the standard selling price range, then buy up all you can get when it’s available for less than half the low end of the standard price.
Don’t buy anything until you’re sure of the prices first.
- Jon
Hej Jon.
Your movie really inspired me to try it out myself.
really nice.
I’m starting to make profit on more and more items, and i just bought a stack of Small Brilliant Shards for 60g = 3g pr shard. And now im selling them 5g pr shard. That’s a profit of 40g on just a few minut spend running from AH to mailbox and back again
- Villeh
Hey, Jon! I watched the video, and it seemed like a neat idea, that I’m willing to try. My brother and I (especially my brother) like to mess around with the AH, and he once tried to corner the market, though was unsuccesful, using arcane dust.
Anyhow, I see how the steps involved used alliance shops, and I have some alliance characters. However, is there an equal beginning process, similar to the one recipe and one pattern, for the horde side? Thanks!
-Rafe
Villeh - that’s the way to do it. The best stuff to watch for will be items that are volatile, and the prices swing up and down over a wide range. Enchanting shards of all kinds are usually good - just be careful with the Small Brilliant in particular, that’s one that can go into a long slump, like 1g each. Keep an eye out for Large Brilliant and Large Radiant - they are awesome, sometimes drop down to the 5g - 7g range, then 2 days later they are selling for 12g - 15g.
Hey Rafe -
Yes, I cover both the Horde and Alliance sources and Profit Pipelines in equal detail. There’s much much more than the recipe and pattern I show in the video, that was just a quick example. The Shadow Power recipe Horde side is in Undercity, the Wedding Dress pattern is in Thunder Bluff. You’ll have Level 1 alts in both locations.
About cornering the market. That is a very advanced technique, if you try it with a high-volume item like Arcane Dust. It’s much simpler - and can be just as profitable - to control the price on something smaller, for example a food item like Clam Meat, or a herb such as Briarthorn. This is the approach I show in the Blueprint.
- Jon
Yo Jon,
Love your emails/videos, have become a tycoon myself, earning around 3-5k gold w/in 1 week after the releases of patch 2.4, the badge new vendor, and patch 2.42. My personal favorite money maker is purely prospecting ore, coupled w/ Xmuting. But im also a huge fan of your various techniques. Just 1 tip to any readers out there that i personally have not seen from you, is the simple netherweave cloth profit. Any stacks of netherweave below 3g can be turned into heavy netherweave bandgages through first aid, and will vendor for 3g for 10 (1 stack of cloth). On my server netherweave consitantly sells for 2g a stack and its some of the easiest money in the game.
But heres the main reason im posting: You really need to get a mod like betterinbox (one i use), or any of the other inbox mods. After seeing you spend at least 3-5min opening mail i had to suggest this mod. It allows you to open all mail in your inbox with 1 button (generally is around a 10sec delay as it rifles through ur mail). U can even set it to ignore items and only withdraw the gold. I highly recommend it to any heavy auctionhouse users, as its saved myself at least 5 hours of my life
Thx again for all your tips, i look forward to seeing any new ones you may discover.
-Nate
I’m please to tell you that with only using the tips you’ve given so far myself and my husband were able to start up a guild(10g)and guild bank tab(100g) and are able to start a new tab(250g) in a few more days.
you have no idea how exciting it is for us to even reach 100g. THANK YOU!! 
Great tips and comments Nate… thx. I haven’t actually done the Netherweave bandage move, but I’ll add it to my list. Definitely a winner on any server where Netherweave is priced low enough.
A bizarre thing I’ve seen a few times: people actually selling stacks of bandages (various) on the AH - BELOW the Vendor buy-back price. What are they thinking?
Good advice on the mail mod. I normally run CT Mail Mod (and the whole CT package), but I’ve never looked at betterinbox - I’ll give it a try.
- Jon
Heidi - that’s awesome. I haven’t gotten around to setting up a Guild bank for my alts yet, but it’s a terrific idea. On my original Gold Speed Run, I was surprised to find that I made about 15g in the first 2 weeks just signing Guild charters for others who were doing the same thing
Anyway, you guys will need the space for all the goodies you’ll be able to buy with your tens of thousands of gold.
- J
I tried the Wedding Dress and The Elixir of Shadow Power and they both worked very well. Are there any other things that you can recommend?
Thanks,
Bob
Hey Jon I was just curious on a few things. I am seeing what you do with your methods but for some reason I get confused on the auction house thing all the time. I was just wondering if I made a character on the Ghostlands server and found you on do you think you could help explain them to me a little better one on one?
Hiya Bob -
I can recommend hundreds of things, but I can’t really list ‘em all out here. But here are a couple more you ideas in the limited supply recipes category, all available in major cities:
- Patterns for Tuxedo Shirt/Pants/Jacket
- Pattern: Barbaric Bracers
- Pattern: Green Whelp Bracers
- Recipe: Free Action Potion
- Schematic: Gnomish Universal Remote
- Jon
Hi jon.
Just wanted to tell you i’m getting better and better at this
Started out creating a lvl 1 char, sended 100g from my main, and after 4 days im at 1000g. Working on lvling a priest, so hopefully i’ll be able to buy Epic flyer for it, as soon as it dings 70 
buying Nightseyes, and get my IRL mate to cut them into Glowing Nightseyes is a good deal.
Buying them 30g on AH, my friend cuts them for free, and then they go for 45-50 gold!
- Villeh
Hey. i been trying your that thing on the video but i dont know how i am gonna get these thinks. am i gonna buy out.. bid out.. or how am i gonna get all these things as you have in the video.
I have seen many gold making tips from other people and i have to say you have pushed over all the limits of helping others earn gold just by simply answering our questions and replying to our comments, you are definetly winning everyones heart. The more ppl you help, the more ppl will buy your blueprint. You Are The Man
Mario
Villeh - that’s the way to go, I like your style. Priest is my fave class, BTW, I have 3 70’s as Priests
I haven’t done Nightseyes, but I made a killing a while ago on Talasites. Bought about 200 raw Talasites for 5g each, been selling cut Talasites of all kinds for 25g - 40g ever since. I don’t even have a Jewelcrafter, I just ask for a JC in trade channel, and tip them to cut the gems.
Another nice move for lower budgets is buying Ghost Mushrooms under 1g each, and tipping an Elixir Master to make up Shadow Powers - they usually give me the extra procs for nothing, as I tip generously… and I sell the Elixirs for 10g each, huge profit.
(this is another technique I detail in the Blueprint, not a core method, but an “added extra”)
- Jon
Daniel - I need to know which things you are asking about? Usually you want to Buy Out items that you know are priced low. Be sure you can sell easily for a profit, BEFORE you buy.
Try not to buy anything for more than HALF of its likely resale price. So if you *know* you can sell a stack of Wool Cloth for 1g50, never pay more than 75s for it.
“Bidding” is usually a waste of time, since you have to wait a long time for the purchase to proc, and your money is tied up while you are waiting.
I only “Bid” when the price is extremely low, and the remaining time on the auction is less than 12 hours. Usually only when it’s less than 2 hours.
- Jon
Mario - awesome comment, I really appreciate it… that’s the heart of the matter for me. I’m doing this to help out. It’s nice if I sell some guides, but the real reward for me is seeing other folks succeed at overcoming Gold anxiety.
-Jon
Hey again Jon. and thanks.
In ironforge there is a vendor that sells patterns for the tuxedo. whole set… i dont know the spawn time but their selling each pattern for 6-10g each.. and the vendor.. sells i dont remember but its like 30s.
Daniel
And about the question before .. im asking for everyting on ah.. but i think i know what you mean now. thanks again
I’m just starting now, seems good mate. I must say! It’s just very cool that ppls like u, wants to make a guide which is hekping other ppls with theire problems. ^^ Good job mate, i must say.
Hey Shaimmy - I’m glad to help. This stuff really does work, and it makes the game a LOT more fun
- Jon
Uh…so your secret is to have a high level main send stuff to you AH alt to sell?
MY GOD IT’S REVOLUTIONARY!!!
Ummm, Chris. You’re kind of stupid, aren’t you! That’s not what he’s talking about at all. Check it out, his system is about making tons of gold starting from scratch, without any help from higher level chars. In other words, you can start playing WoW for the first time today, and have thousands of gold within 30 days.
hi
just wondering how do u start off by getting all that gold, i dunno where 2 start.
how do u get items like orb of deception or the recipe deviete delight a such a low lvl???????????????? or large birlliant shard
I mostly make the gold from just selling profession items. Ores and Leathers make a ton of money on Maelstrom, the Elixer of Shadow Power recipe doesn’t sell, the only limited supply item I have seen that sells is the white wedding dress which you would have to buy and sell quite a bit of those to make any amounts of gold. Since maelstrom is a RPPVP I can’t set up a horde character to buy and sell the ‘callers’ or whatever they are called that usually go for quite a bit. Listen people you’re better just building up stacks of leathers and Ores selling them for at the least a gold per stack. Depending on your server, that should be the average they go for. Higher level items go for more of course, but the ores and leathers seem to scale like crazy, going from one to five to almost 20 gold a stack after just two upgrades of the material.
hey!!! why bother buying ur blueprint wen sum1 already told us how 2 make loads of gold. ore and bars.
p.s. U cant make a horde character on the same server as an alliance so thats a lie 2 start with.
Gary, there are many ways to make gold in the game. Some are fast and fun (see my Blueprint). Some are slow and boring (see “ores and leathers and professions”). Your choice whether you want to enjoy the game or not.
Several hundred players, from complete newbies to guys who’ve been playing for four years and have multiple 70’s, are using my methods to make several thousand gold per week, while spending about an hour a day on gold making play. The rest of the time, they are doing whatever they like in the game, without worrying about gold.
And yes, you can make a horde character on the same server as alliance if it’s PvE. So don’t be calling me a liar! You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Watch the *free* videos, pay attention, and you might learn something.
And if you want to become really good at the game, get my Blueprint.
- Jon
Bill -
You get expensive items on a low level character by getting a tiny amount of gold together through mining and skinning (a level 5 - 7 character does this), then building that into a larger amount by buying limited supply items from vendors in the major cities, and selling them for large profits.
In my Blueprint, the first Module of videos (covering the first week of a 4-week/30-day plan) shows you exactly how to go from zero to 100g or more, using nothing but new-rolled characters. It’s very easy, actually.
- Jon
Johnathon A quick little hint. If you want to be able to open all of your mail at once and save time getting the gold in your inventory from you mail box I suggest you put the addon CT Mail Mod on. It helps me out tremondusly.
Daniel on Kael’ Thas
hey m8. i tried to watch the vid but it cut off halfway through just after you explained the server start date. where can i see a full version of this vid?
Hi Alun -
I’m not sure why you had this problem. The video is complete here, perhaps your Internet connection was slow at the time? Maybe try again…
- Jon
hey Jonathan,
I was just wondering, on auctioneer how do you see how many times an item sells per day?