The strategies detailed here are suitable for both new and veteran players, focusing on methods that can be completed solo to generate significant income, ranging from 100,000 to over 2 million Gold per hour based on method and optimization.
Before pursuing high gold-per-hour methods, you must establish a strong foundation. We will focus here on passive gold making aka money that flows in while you are doing other things.
Hireling passives from 
Blacksmithing, 
Clothing, Woodworking, 
Provisioning, and 
Enchanting send crafting materials to your mailbox every 12-24 hours. This is true set-and-forget ESO gold farming.
- Requirements: Skill point investment only
- High-Value Drops: Dreugh Wax, Tempering Alloy, Rosin
- Notes: Jewelry Crafting and Alchemy do not have hirelings
2. Trading Guilds (Mandatory)
Trading Guild in Mournhold Deshaan, one of the best zones for trading.
Selling items to other players is the primary source of large gold income. Without a trading guild, your gold potential is severely limited.
- High-Traffic Traders: Vivec City, Mournhold, Belkarth, Rawl’kha
- Beginner Tip: Use the in-game Guild Finder to join trader guilds
3. Max-Level Crafting & Extraction Passives
Maxed crafting skills (Level 50) and extraction passives like 
Unraveling dramatically increase gold material drops from refining. Crafting proficiency directly scales your ESO gold farming efficiency.
Want to level all seven professions fast? Check out our ESO Crafting Guides for detailed steps.
4. Must-Have Add-ons for ESO Gold Farming (PC)
ESO-Hub addon shows prices for items on the tooltip and in your inventory
ESO-Hub Trading addon and ESO-Hub website: Market pricing data- Master Merchant (MM) or Arkadius Trading Tools (ATT): Sales history
- Awesome Guild Store (AGS): Advanced trader filters
- Dolgubon’s Lazy Writ Crafter: Automated daily writs
Console players can still farm gold effectively by using TSC Price Fetcher addon on their platform.
5. Farming Speed Optimization
Efficient farming requires minimizing travel time.
- Prioritize Major Expedition, Swift jewelry, and movement passives
- Use a dedicated ESO Speed Farming Build for harvesting and grinding
Top 3 Ways to Farm Gold in ESO
While The Elder Scrolls Online offers many ways to earn money, these three methods: Daily Crafting Writs, Market Flipping, and Material Grinding are widely considered the absolute best for earning the fastest gold per hour.
These core strategies are reliable, solo-friendly, and form the foundation of any effective ESO Gold Farming Guide, ensuring maximum returns for your time investment.
1. Daily Crafting Writs (The Easiest Way to Make Gold ESO)
The Easiest Way to Make Gold Solo in ESO: Run your Daily Crafting Writs on multiple characters in optimized hubs like Vivec City to farm Master Writs and Gold Upgrade Materials.
Daily Crafting Writs (or Crafting Dailies) are the most reliable and easiest method to generate wealth, providing a consistent low-effort daily income. This is your foundation for ESO Gold Farming.
Raw Gold & CP: A max-level character receives 5,075 gold in raw currency per completed set.- Scale with alts: Running writs on multiple characters (alts) is the key to scaling: 20 characters generates over 100k gold daily from the raw turn-in gold alone.
- The Real Profit: The reward coffers consistently drop high-value
gold upgrade materials, Master Writs and Crafting Surveys which point to higher yielding nodes that you can refine for even more gold materials!
- Strategy: Use the Lazy Writ Crafter add-on to run your max-level writs in the high-traffic, centralized crafting zone of Vivec City for maximum speed.
Step-by-Step Optimization for crafting writs
- Level crafting to 50 on each character.
- Slot
Gilded Fingers Champion Point
- Use Dolgubon’s Lazy Writ Crafter to auto-complete writs.
- Run writs in Vivec City or similarly compact hubs.
- Gather Surveys, sell received materials
- You can also refine and sell received upgrade materials. Just remember to slot Meticulous Disassembly.
2. Playing the Market: Flipping & Sniping (2 Million Gold Per Hour)
The greatest potential for earning millions of gold quickly lies in utilizing the player economy. Flipping involves purchasing undervalued items from Guild Traders and reselling them at their normal, higher market price. This is the only way to consistently hit 2 Million Gold Per Hour.
- Sniping: Actively search Guild Traders in low-traffic areas (like Outlaws Refuges) for items listed far below the average price. New game events and DLC releases create massive, temporary demand spikes, so capitalize on them!
- Bulk Flipping: Find materials (like raw crafting materials or refined tempers) listed cheaply in bulk, purchase them and list them for a higher price per unit on your guild trader.
Requirements: Starting capital, market knowledge and a high-traffic Trading Guild (like Vivec or Mournhold).
Note: High-end gold-per-hour figures represent, optimized sessions (30–90 minutes) during favorable market conditions and should not be interpreted as sustained hourly income
How to search for flippable items fast on PC and Console
- Go to Outlaws Refuge Traders or Traders found outside of towns (Search for “Guild Trader” on ESO-Hub Interactive Map)
- Sort items by time (newest first)
- Check all items that are listed within 1 day (Shows up as 14d remaining)
- Hover over each item to see the average selling prices and compare the Unit Price to the listed price
- PC: Use ESO-Hub Trading addon to see prices in tooltips. Combine with Awesome Guild Store and Arkadius Trading Tools to easily visualize under/overpriced items.
- Console: Use TCS Price Checker addon to see the prices
- Buy items that you want to sell and relist them at a higher price.
- Make sure you are profiting after the dues that are explained in the next section
Need Flipping Ideas? Click here to see the definitive “What to Sell for Maximum Profit in ESO”-list!
Important Guild Store Mechanics & Taxes
Understanding how the trading system works is essential for maximizing profit and is the single biggest difference between a casual seller and a master flipper.
- 1% Listing Fee: 1% of the item’s list price is paid upfront and you will not get it back.
- 7% House Cut: When an item sells, 7% of the listed price is immediately deducted as tax. Half of this (3.5%) is a gold sink, and the other half (3.5%) goes into the selling guild’s bank.
- Listing Limit: You are restricted to 30 listings per guild per character. Maximize your profit per slot by prioritizing high-value, high-turnover items.
- Pricing Strategy: Always calculate your break-even point using the sales tax (or use Awesome Guild Store addon which shows it while listing).
3. Active Farming / Grind (High Gold Per Hour)
Follow optimized Material Harvesting routes to rapidly acquire and refine raw materials for maximum gold mats yield in ESO.
For active players focused grinding and harvesting are some of the Fastest Gold Per Hour methods, generating consistent 100k-500k gold per hour.
Material Harvesting: Consistent Gold
Harvesting materials is the fastest and most accessible way to make gold solo. This involves following routes to harvest crafting resource nodes repeatedly. Use ESO Farming Build Speedy G for max running speed!
- Earning Potential: Dedicated farming for flowers and jewelry materials can net roughly 100k–300k gold per hour (varies by server and market).
- Strategy: Utilize a specialized speed build and focus on zones like Craglorn for high node density and the chance to drop
Nirncrux stones. Blackreach (Arkthzand Cavern) is also a good zone since Crimson Nirnroots and runestones spawn there.
- Slot the following Champions Points: Plentiful Harvest (chance for double yield) & Master Gatherer (reduces harvest time)
- High-Value Materials: All crafting materials profit, but Alchemy materials are the most valuable as they are used for end game potions (for example
Columbine, 
Violet Coprinus).
Fishing for Perfect Roe
A low-intensity option for solo gold making.
- Strategy: Fish until you acquire
Perfect Roe, which is needed for the XP scrolls (Ambrosia) and sells for a high price, giving you a steady return for minimal effort.
Farming Gear and Motifs
DLC Zone Motifs: Complete World Boss and Delve Dailies. These reward unique, sellable style materials like Shimmering Sand (Northern Elsweyr) and provide motifs that sell reliably (especially those from the newest zones).
Dungeon Motifs (High-Risk/High-Reward): If you can consistently clear DLC Hard Mode (HM) dungeons, this is a top gold farm. The harder the HM, the more the motifs sell for. Drop Chance: Normal= 10%, Veteran 50%, Veteran Hard Mode 100%.
Overland Sets: Identify the most valuable gear on Guild Traders at the moment or go for older sets like Mother’s Sorrow and Briarheart that beginners still buy. Drop sources by piece:
- Jewelry: Dolmens and World Events (Incursions).
- Weapon and Shield: World Bosses and Public Dungeon Bosses
- Head, Chest and Legs: World Bosses
- Shoulder, Hands, Waist and Feet: Delve Bosses
- All pieces: Treasure Chests and zone dailies in DLC zones
Companion Gear: Farming bosses (Delve, Public Dungeon, World Bosses) with your Companion active is an excellent source of high-value gear. Purple quality pieces with desirable traits (Vigorous, Aggressive, or Quickened) can sell for hundreds of thousands of gold per piece. Learn more about companions on our ESO Companions Guides
Curated Loot System in Dungeons: Maximize profit by leveraging the Stickerbook. Bind every piece of a desired set except one highly valuable item like a dagger. By doing this, the game’s curated loot system will only drop that unbound weapon, allowing you to sell carry runs to other players. Note that you always need to give the piece away to not accidentally bind it.
PvE Carries: High-skill players can sell carry runs for veteran trials or dungeons for immense sums of gold.
Crown trading
- Trade Crowns (bought with real money) via gifting items for large sums of gold. Always use a trusted middleman or only trade with reliable, established guildmates to avoid scams. Due to the high value, this method carries an extremely high risk of being scammed!
Bonus & Niche Methods
Once you have mastered the foundational gold-making techniques, these bonus methods provide unique, high-value opportunities by converting difficult-to-acquire currencies (like Alliance Points directly into tradable gold. These are ideal for veterans looking to push their income to the extreme.
Currency Conversion Grind: Tel Var, Alliance Points, Archival Fortunes and locked currencies
These are one of the fastest gold per hour methods for players who do not enjoy picking flowers or completing crafting dailies. This process converts non-tradable currencies into high-value, sellable goods.
Tel Var to Gold: Farm Tel Var Stones in Imperial City and use them to buy high-value, tradable items like Hakeijo Runes or sealed containers for sets like Powerful Assault. Selling the Hakeijo is a consistent way to convert Tel Var to gold as it makes a tri-stat glyph that many tank and pvp builds utilize.
Alliance Points to Gold: Earn Alliance Points (AP) in Cyrodiil/Battlegrounds. Buy gear boxes for desirable sets like Deadly Strike from Elite Vendors and sell them. You can also sell Dawn-Prism trait stones and Knight of the Circle Style Pages.
Archival Fortunes: Earn Archival Fortunes from Infinite Archive to purchase and sell crafting materials from the Archival Alchemical Sachet.- Transmute Crystals: Change a weapon trait to Nirnhoned on a transmute station, then deconstruct for a chance of Potent Nirncrux.
- Crown Mimic Stones: Craft gear in a desirable style (like Sapiarch), then deconstruct to acquire rare Style Materials like Culanda Lacquer.
Links to Tel Var Merchant locations and what they sell:
The Anniversary Jubilee Event Farming: Why the Jubilee is Key for Gold
Don’t Miss the Event! The ESO Anniversary Jubilee is the biggest temporary gold spike to maximize your daily writs during this period for rare Motifs and Gold Mats.
The ESO Anniversary Jubilee Event
is one of the single best ESO gold farming opportunities of the entire year. This major holiday event provides a substantial temporary boost to your wealth generation, enhancing the profitability of almost every other activity.
- Why it’s king: The event provides a massive, temporary influx of high-value items, mainly Gold Crafting Materials and rare Motifs, through Daily Crafting Writs and other Daily Quests.
- Strategy: Sell latest DLC motifs and style pages immediately for the highest price, or bank them and all materials for 5-10 months to sell after the event ends when prices naturally rebound.
- The High-Value Drops: Gold Crafting Materials (
Tempering Alloy, 
Dreugh Wax, 
Rosin), rare Motifs, Furnishing Recipes, and consumables like Perfect Roe.Some lucky players get high-value items like the 
Aetheric Cipher (used to create 
Mythic Aetherial Ambrosia drink recipe!
Beginner’s Money Making Guide
Beginner Gold Making: Focus on low-investment methods like Harvesting Materials and using the Antiquities system to quickly build your starting capital.
The key to ESO Gold Farming as a new player is to focus on accessible, low-investment methods that offer reliable, small returns to build your starting capital.
Daily Crafting Writs (Level 6+)
Become craft certified and complete your Daily Crafting Writs. This provides reliable raw gold, materials, and surveys, acting as your first reliable income stream. Read more about writs in our Crafting Writ Guide.
Harvesting & Selling Materials
Collect every material node you see (especially high-value Alchemy materials like Columbine). This is the fastest and most accessible way to start making gold as long as you are in a Trading Guild.
Stealing / Fencing
Steal, pickpocket, and use the 
Blade of Woe. Sell the most valuable stolen items (blue and purple) to a Fence found in Outlaws Refuges up to your daily limit. (Tip: Use our Stealth Thief Build for easier stealing.)
Antiquities (Scrying)
Unlock the Antiquities system in Solitude. Continuously Scry for the baseline Green (500g), Blue (1,000g), and Purple (5,000g) Treasures in every zone and sell them to any NPC. This is great for an initial 20k gold per hour. (Learn more about the system in our Antiquities Guide.)
Common ESO Gold Farming Mistakes to Avoid
- Expecting guaranteed gold/hour results
- Holding event items too long
- Flooding traders with identical listings
- Crafting gear without checking demand
- Ignoring Patch/Meta Changes on set items
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ
How does the meta affect gold making?Edenprime2025-12-12T17:34:00+00:00
Understanding the current or upcoming “meta” (the most effective way to play) is one of the most financially rewarding investments in ESO Gold Farming.
- Anticipate Demand: The meta changes with new patches. By reading PTS (Public Test Server) patch notes, you can anticipate which sets or materials will become high-demand before the patch goes live.
- Sell Reliable & Fast: Items that favour the current meta (like a newly buffed set) will sell reliably and quickly at high prices due to immense player demand.
How do I sell items to other players?Edenprime2025-12-12T17:33:12+00:00
The recommended and most effective way to sell items is by posting them on a Guild Trader.
- Join a Trading Guild: You must be a member of a player-run guild that has secured a Guild Trader NPC location.
- Find the Best Location: Join a guild with a trader in a high-traffic location for the best sales velocity. Prime spots include Vivec City (often considered the best), Belkarth, Mournhold, and Rawl’kha.
- Post Your Items: Interact with the Guild Trader NPC to post items for sale.
Is it easy to make gold as a solo player?Edenprime2025-12-12T17:32:43+00:00
Yes, making gold as a solo player in ESO is very easy. Nearly all primary gold-making methods can be completed alone.
How important are daily crafting writs for making gold?Edenprime2025-12-12T17:32:13+00:00
Daily crafting writs are absolutely essential and are considered the most reliable staple for consistent ESO Gold Farming.
What is the fastest way to make gold, especially for new players?Edenprime2025-12-12T17:31:50+00:00
The fastest and most accessible way to start making gold is harvesting and Selling Crafting Materials. This method requires virtually no initial investment and is perfect for new players.
What are the best ways to make gold in ESO?Edenprime2025-12-12T17:29:56+00:00
The overall best way to make gold in ESO is farming and selling valuable Overland Sets (armor/weapons that drop from enemies in the open world). Other highly profitable and reliable methods for consistent ESO Gold Farming include:
- Daily Crafting Writs (The Easiest Way to Make Gold ESO)
- Playing the Market: Flipping & Sniping
- Active Farming / Grind (Fastest Gold Per Hour)
- Anniversary event farming
Related Guides:
Consumables:
