It seems that at least once a week, I see posts asking how to make money in ESO. Since I enjoy making in game money, I tend the read the comments and try anything that seems somewhat feasible and some work, others don’t.

This is a compilation of my person technique and, as the commercials say, results may vary from person to person depending on the pieces you follow, how much of it you follow and how frequently you do the things I recommend.

FROM RAGS TO RICHES

Many of the techniques I’ve seen assume you already have money. The old saying “You need money to make money” seems to come into play. But, what if your ESO characters are living hand to mouth? Where do you start if you have no money. My later suggestions do require some “seed” money, so I will tell you how to start earning money from day one.

Ways to Make Money if You have None

Stealing and/or Pickpocketing

Addons Needed: None
Skills Needed: Legerdemain (Trafficker and Light Fingers)
Cost: None

If you’re looking for a quick fix with a modest return in investment, I recommend a life of crime. Stealing can be moderately profitable, though there are some hard caps.

How does it work? Go to your local palace, building of note or just start at some small random locked house. Pick the lock, enter and steal anything not nailed down. In the beginning, just steal everything, but once you’ve leveled up Legerdemain, you may want to limit yourself to just items of a particular quality.

In general, white items fetch 40g, green items fetch 100gp, blue items 250gp and purple items 1000gp. These are TREASURES, which is a ESO speak for sellable only. Items that are actually useful (armor, weapons, etc) will have a value based on the item type and quality. Sometimes, these are better laundered and sold.

And speaking of which, when you first start out you will be able to fence (sell) 60 items and launder 60 items each day. When starting out, try to fence and launder your maximum items to improve your Legerdemain skill. The main reason is that you want to take the Trafficker ability in that line, which will increase your fencing capacity by 120% with a single skill point. You can increase it more with additional skill points, but there are serious diminishing returns.

Once you have at least one point in Trafficker, you can once launder items that you plan to use or sell and be more selective about what you steal.

Pickpocketing can also profitable, but also more dangerous. Pickpocketing chances are low and can shift by 20% at that last moment if you move or the person moves and if you get caught you get a bounty - which can cost money to clear or time to clear, thus depriving you of access to town resources.

Despite this, certain classes of people can carry motifs or nice items (nobles are great for this) that can make it worth it. A single motif could net you 5-50K on the guild trader.

Special hints: If you are SERIOUS about pickpocketing, I would create a Khajitt for their bonus to pickpocketing, then get the Dark Brotherhood expansion and get the Blade of Woe by doing the first quest in the line. Why? Because an NPC will carry a max of 3 items (with an exception I’ll note below). It takes a LONG time for those items to respawn. Also, in the Legerdemain skill line is the Light Fingers ability. Max that out for the best chance to pickpocket.

What I like to do is pickpocket the NPC 2 times, then Blade of Woe them. You’ll get the 3rd item and since you kill the PC, you need only wait for their respawn counter and they will respawn with 3 more items.

The exception to the 3 item rule I mentioned above is if they are carrying crafting style materials. I’ve noticed this mainly in Vvardenfell but it may be true in other zones. If you pickpocket them and you get a crafting style material, it doesn’t count towards their total. I’ve already gotten 5 items from an NPC - 3 items and 2 crafting style materials.

That’s the basic in choosing a life of crime. If you consider the bare minimum you can make (getting all white items to fence), that’s 60 items x 40gp each… that’s 2400 per day and once you put a point in Trafficker, that’s double that 4800gp per day. In a week, you can make a little over 30K this way, which is enough seed money to start the main money maker. If you expand it to two characters, that’s 60K a week for about 30-60 minutes a day.

A Crafter’s Life for Me

Addons Needed: None
Skills Needed: Various crafting skills
Cost: Crafting materials

If you prefer not to turn to a life of crime, or prefer to supplement your criminal activities, you can do crafting writs. Once you get certified, you can do 6 crafting writs (soon to be 7 I assume with jewelcraft) each day with each character.
Additionally, you can get intricate items, which sell for 200-250gp each on the guild trader - or you can decon them to level your skills. And you can also get purple recipes, which sometimes sell well.

Each writ rewards you with money (which various with writ level) and the possibility of a rare item, such as a Gold Temper. Tempers are (currently) worth from 2.5K (Rosin) to 6K (Tempering Alloy). They are found in Clothing, Woodworking and Blacksmithing rewards. These are the most profitable and the only ones I do. You also have a chance to get a Master Writ. Master writs can be sold and come in random values from 2 - 288 “writ vouchers”. Writ vouchers is a type of currency you get from doing master writs. The value of master writ current value is somewhere around 500gp per “writ voucher”. So a 100 writ voucher Master Writ would be worth about 5000gp.

For a better chance at Master Writs dropping, you want to make sure all of the traits your crafting skills are researched. This takes time, but you can still make money as you level up your crafting skills.

The other method to make money with crafting is to make things players want and sell them. Potions, food and crafted set armor & weapons are the common sellable items, as are certain housing items.

Buy Low, Sell High

Addons Needed: Master Merchant / Tamriel Trade Center / Awesome Guild Store
Skills Needed: None
Cost: Varies

This is a common suggestion and one that is worthwhile. The theory is simple, buy items people want from someone selling low, then sell it at market value to make a profit. To do it, you really need some seed money to start out. You also need 2 addons - Master Merchant and Tamriel Trade Center. Master Merchant (MM) works best if you are in a trade guild and can give you an idea of what items are SELLING for - but only in your guild(s). Tamriel Trade Center (TTC) will give you an idea of what items are LISTED for. Just keep in mind, that doesn’t mean they sold for the TTC amount, only that someone listed them for that amount.

The final addon, Awesome Guild Store, allows you to do better searches. The best thing is, you can search by DEAL quality. I like to search for Purple and Gold deals only, but occasionally, the algorithm messes up and blue or green deals can be just as profitable. Together with MM and TTC, you can figure out what the going price is and when you see the item cheaper, you buy it and list it on your own trader.

Which brings up a good point. Unless you want to be shouting in zone chat, offering up your wares (which takes time and can be frustrating), you need to join a trade guild. Preferrably you want to join a trade guild with a popular trader (Vivec, Mournhold and Rawl’kha are just a few of the popular ones, I’m sure you’ll find the rest).

My method is simple, I go to the less known, less frequented and sometimes lone traders since they tend to have better prices. I’ll find items I think (or know) will sell well and buy them up if they will turn a good profit. One way to know what is popular is MM. When you hover over an item, MM will show you the number of sales in the last x number of days. I only buy items with a high number of sales, otherwise you risk getting stuck with an unwanted item.

I buy 10-15 items per venture and try to keep my store stocked with these items. Not all sell and sometimes I end up having to sell at cost or slightly below. The market is a fickle thing. Just be prepared to have some ups and downs.

Finally

These are methods I have personally used. I created a new account and using these methods, have easily made half a million gold in a little over a month, mostly from buying low and selling high but also crafting writs. I’m a crafter, so I keep the tempers, but I do sell low writ voucher Master Writs.

If I can do it, so can you. You just need to start.