Old School RuneScape is a game with a vigorous economy – much to the envy of most real world countries. Every player can find a financial opportunity and earn money the way they enjoy – or at least don't hate. Surprisingly, you don't even need to have access to the majority of the game's content – you can easily build wealth without ever buying a membership. Of course, you need to know the optimal ways to do so – and in this blog post we'll tell you all you need to know about F2P money making in OSRS.
We'll start by explaining what the membership actually is and comparing the experience of a member and a non-member. Then we'll cover the most lucrative earning schemes – you'll be able to just choose any from the list and give it a shot.
🤔 What's Membership and Do You Need One?
Membership is a subscription fee you pay to get full access to OSRS content. That's most of the stuff added to the game after its initial release: regions, quests, skills, activities, bosses, items, and many more. Without membership you only get the basic version of the game – some even go as far as to call it a demo. Truth be told, that's not completely incorrect.
Nevertheless, some people still choose to stick to F2P for various reasons. It's not uncommon for newcomers to spend some time in the base version before upgrading to the paid one. There are also people who find the membership too expensive but still love the game. Sometimes you just don't have time to play a lot, so you don't see any reason to pay for membership for the time being – but logging in and doing some simple stuff is free.
Here's a brief video about the current state of membership in OSRS and what you can do in the game without it (made by Kaoz OSRS):
So let's see how you can choose what works for you. Do you want the full game experience? Membership is worth your time and money. You don't think you need it right now? It's okay to play without it, so go ahead. However, if you choose the latter, what you absolutely need to know are the best money making methods in OSRS F2P – and that's what we'll move on to right now.
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💰 The Best F2P Ways to Make Money
Surprisingly, the community has worked out a great number of truly lucrative ways to earn gold pieces without membership. Despite F2P players being a relatively small, almost marginal group, the list of earning methods goes on and on and keeps getting more entries.
We've picked five particularly popular ones for our money making guide in F2P OSRS – and as of October 2025, you'll hardly find any better ways to get rich outside the paid game version. So let's see what those ways are.
1. Sell Archery Supplies 🎯
There are several price anomalies in OSRS and Brian's Archery Supplies is one of the most well-known ones. This NPC vendor is willing to pay a better price for certain archery items than players at the Grand Exchange. What that means for you is that you can buy archery items from the GE and sell them to this NPC for profit.
Sounds simple, but it comes with caveats. First of all, NPC vendors in OSRS are notorious for having flexible prices that change with the vendor's stock. That means you can't just buy a thousand archery items and sell them to the vendor in one go – the buying price will go down at some point and you'll start losing money. You'll have to do some world hopping to make this method work properly.
Secondly, there's competition. Despite there being millions of ways to make money in the membership-only regions and activities, many players still choose to earn gold pieces with F2P-friendly methods. So if someone has just dumped a bunch of bows to Brian in your world, you'll need to try another one.
If you're careful with the number of items you sell and lucky enough to have little active competition (they do sleep sometimes, don't they?), it's possible to earn about 950,000 per hour this way. If you're ready to try it out, find Brian in the town of Rimmington in south Asgarnia. Do it well, and you'll see why this is often called the best way to make money in OSRS F2P.
Here's a little video guide explaining this method (by BenDoesVariety):
2. Craft Runite Items 🔮
This method is for maxed smiths among us. If that still excludes you, grab your hammer and level up to 99 in Smithing. You'll also need plenty of Runite: you'll craft 2-hand swords, platelegs, plateskirts, and more – anything that requires just three bars. Such items are fairly easy to craft and are in high demand with alchemists.
Here's how you go about it: you smith your Runite items in Varrock and sell them right away. It's better to trade them to players directly instead of relying on the Grand Exchange – thus you'll avoid the tax. It's also recommended that you equip the Smith's Uniform to speed up crafting – but it's optional.
If done right, you can reach an hourly profit of about 750,000. Of course, it's not guaranteed: prices on Runite bars and items might go up or down, there might not be enough alchemists online to handle all that massive supply of yours, and many other things can go not as planned. But it's still worth a shot – after all, there's a reason why this method is frequently mentioned as one of the best OSRS F2P money schemes.
Here's a brief overview of this method by Spookdog:
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Smithing level 99 is no laughing matter – it takes so much time and dedication. But you don't have to go all that way alone – ArmadaBoost offers help with a fast and safe OSRS skill boost. Choose any skill you need to level up – and before you know it, your character will rise to any level you need.
3. Create High Alchemy Items 🧙♂️
For this method you'll need 55 Magic, a Staff of Fire, and several million gold pieces to buy items from the Grand Exchange. Sounds strange, doesn't it? You're here to earn money and we're suggesting spending it on junk you don't even need – what a sick joke! But bear with us a little: these items are to be later sold for profit – and an impressive one, too.
The idea is to buy items without alchemic bonuses, cast High Alchemy on them, and sell them for a higher price via trade to avoid taxes. Thus you can earn up to 1400 coins per item, and if you sell a lot of them, your hourly profit will reach a few hundred thousand.
Since we're talking about OSRS non-member money making, you won't be able to use all the items available at the Grand Exchange. Don't worry about that, however, since there are plenty of F2P items that keep their value after all these years. That includes such items as:
- Dragon med helm
- Ancient ceremonial mask
- Blue moon helm (broken)
And many, many more. Sometimes you can observe a sudden surge in demand for a particular item – and if you're lucky enough to notice it, you're in for a heyday.
Here's a tiny video explainer for this method (by OSRS LEGENDS):
4. Mine Runite Ore 💎
Good old Runite – here's another OSRS F2P money making scheme that involves it. Yeah, it's a valuable resource, and extracting it is also quite profitable. To try your luck at this, you need to have the following:
- 85+ Mining
- Rune pickaxe
- A bladed weapon to cut webs
When you're ready, venture to the Lava Maze and locate the Runite mine. Travel around it, harvesting Runite and switching between worlds when all the deposits around you are depleted. That's it basically – if done correctly, you'll rake in about 400k profit per hour.
But you should come prepared. It's recommended that you bring at least some high-level food – preferably, Anchovy Pizza or Swordfish – in case you're attacked by other players. The caveat is that the maze is a part of the Wilderness, hence dying there drops all you have on the character at the moment. So try to find the balance: your gear shouldn't be too valuable, and yet it should help you fight back or at least escape if necessary.
Here's a recording of this method's main loop by RizzyGyatt:
5. Cast Bones to Bananas 🍌
For some reason, OSRS has a spell that lets you turn bones into bananas. And bananas can be sold to other players – and that's exactly what makes this method work. Why would anyone buy bananas though? Not only are they tasty and nutritious (that is, they restore HP), but also they have several practical uses in the game, like summoning a Fruit bat familiar or getting fruity mush (farm animal food).
As long as people buy bananas, you can sell bananas – and it costs you almost nothing to gather a heap of bones (you can simply buy them at the Exchange) and start turning them into bananas. What you'll need for that is a Water staff and 15 Magic. Surprisingly, you can make about 330,000 coins per hour this way.
Here's a video on this method by BenDoesVariety:
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Now you know that even if you don't have access to most of the game's content, you can still lead a comfortable life of a rich adventurer in Old School RuneScape. The five methods we've described above are just the tip of the iceberg – many more are available and you can try them all out.
And if you just want a lot of GP to jump into your pocket without any effort on your side – you can have that too! ArmadaBoost offers a very convenient OSRS coin delivery: just choose the amount you need and you'll have it delivered to you right away. Need help with anything else? We offer services for all kinds of activities in the game, from skill leveling to quest completion – browse our catalog to see everything we have for sale, or reach out to learn more and request a custom boost.
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