OSRS Money Making Guide 2026: Best Methods by Level

Quick Take

Money making questions almost always come down to one thing: what can this account actually do right now. So this guide is organised by the requirement that unlocks each method rather than by a leaderboard of hourly rates.

Requirements are stable facts. Rates are not. A method that topped the charts last quarter can fall behind after one price shift, so every table below lists the gate and the shape of the method, and points you at the live wiki figures for the money itself.

How to Read the Tables

Each method carries three properties that matter more than its headline rate:

• Gate — the hard requirement. A skill level, a quest, or an access unlock. No gear or strategy gets around it.
• Attention — whether you can run it while doing something else, or whether it needs full focus every tick.
• Risk — whether a mistake costs supplies, or costs your inventory.

A method you will repeat at 70% efficiency beats a better method you abandon after two hours. Pick for your attention budget first and your account's gates second.

Low-Level Methods (Under 50)

These are reachable on a young account and mostly teach the loop-and-bank rhythm the rest of the game runs on.

Two of these are worth starting even when the profit is modest. Guardians of the Rift and Tempoross both hand out unlocks — pouches, the fish barrel, the tackle box — that make later methods faster, so the training pays for itself twice.

Mid-Level Methods (50 to 80)

This band is where most accounts find their long-term engine. The gates are ordinary skill levels rather than raid clears, and the rates are enough to fund gear upgrades.

High-Level Skilling (80 and Above)

Notice how much of this column is Hunter. If you want high-rate skilling income without learning a boss, Hunter is the single most efficient skill to push, and it stays useful through the antelope and impling methods well past 90.

Quest-Gated Bossing

PvM income is gated by quests rather than skill levels, which means the unlock is a one-off cost you never pay again. These are the standard progression targets, taken from our own boss index.

Zulrah and Vorkath are the two most commonly recommended first money bosses, and they sit behind quests most accounts want anyway. Both reward learning heavily: your rate climbs for weeks as the rotations stop surprising you.

Slayer-Gated Bossing

Slayer levels unlock their own tier of income, and the bosses double as task targets so the Slayer XP is not wasted effort.

If you are choosing between pushing Slayer and pushing Hunter for income, Slayer gives you gear you will use, Hunter gives you liquid GP. Most accounts end up doing both, in that order.

Benchmarking Instead of Guessing

Because rates move, the only figure you can trust is your own. This takes an evening and saves months of grinding the wrong thing.

1. Write down your honest weekly hours and the attention level you can actually sustain.
2. From the tables above, pick one low-attention method and one high-attention method you are eligible for.
3. Run each for a full uninterrupted hour, including bank trips and travel.
4. Subtract supply cost. This is the step most people skip, and it is where bossing rates usually shrink.
5. Keep the winner. Drop the one you only liked in theory.
6. Reinvest into the gear that raises the winner's ceiling rather than starting a third method.
7. Re-check after major updates or obvious price shocks.

A useful pattern once you have both: run the low-attention method as a baseline that ticks over regardless of mood, and treat the high-attention method as the thing you do when you have a clear evening.

Common Mistakes

• Copying a maxed player's method onto a mid-level account, then concluding money making is broken.
• Quoting a GP/hr from a guide without subtracting your own supply cost.
• Switching methods every session, so no method ever gets past its learning curve.
• Taking a Wilderness method to deep Wildy with gear you would be upset to lose.
• Ignoring the unlock rewards from Tempoross and Guardians of the Rift because their raw profit looks low.
• Pushing a skill to 91 for one method without checking whether an 80-gate method covers the same need.

Stability compounds. Method hopping resets the compounding every time.

Browse by account stage and style

Every child guide below is linked in server-rendered HTML so you can jump by stage or risk profile without hunting the category index. Pick the page that matches your gate, then verify live prices on the Wiki before you commit hours.

• F2P: F2P money making
• Low level: Best low-level methods
• Mid level: Mid-level money making
• High level: High-level money making
• Passive: Passive income methods and herb runs
• AFK: Best AFK activities
• Skilling: Skilling money making, Runecrafting, Thieving, Mining, Hunter rumours, birdhouse runs
• Slayer: Slayer money making by level
• Bossing: Best bosses for money
• Wilderness: Wilderness money making and Wilderness Agility
• Ironman: Ironman money making and Managing Miscellania
• Low risk: Low-risk money making, clue scrolls, GE flipping for beginners

Related guides

Specific engines covered in depth: low-level money making for a fresh account, the Wilderness Agility Course with its risk laid out properly, Zulrah rotations and Vorkath gear and inventory.

For choosing what to learn next, see the boss progression guide and the full boss index with every requirement in one table.

If you would rather buy liquidity than grind it, start with OSRS Gold Buying: What You Actually Need to Know Before You Buy, then the gold shop. Or use skills and PvM help to clear a specific blocker. Read the reviews first.

FAQ

What is the single best money maker right now?

Whichever high-rate method your account is eligible for and can sustain. Check the wiki money making guide for today's ordering, then filter it against the gates in the tables above.

I'm under level 50 in everything. Where do I start?

Guardians of the Rift at 27 Runecraft and Tempoross at 35 Fishing. Both pay while you train and both hand out unlocks that speed up later methods.

Is bossing better than skilling?

Bossing has the higher ceiling and a real learning cost. Skilling is more consistent and lets you multitask. Strong accounts run both: skilling covers supplies, bossing produces the spikes.

Should I grind for a bond?

Only with a method you can sustain. A miserable bond grind is one of the most common reasons people stop playing.

Bottom Line

Sort by gate, not by leaderboard. Find the highest-rate method your account can already reach, benchmark it honestly against one low-attention alternative, and reinvest into the one you will actually repeat.

Requirements in this guide were checked against the OSRS Wiki money making guide and our own boss index. Pull live GP figures from the wiki rather than from any blog, including this one.