Obtaining gold in The Elder Scrolls Online doesn't have to mean jumping between five different farms and hoping one finally pays off. From antiquities and daily writs to PvP, crafting, trading, and dungeon motifs, each method has a different skill requirement, profit ceiling, and level of consistency.
Sayphex Gaming's video guide ranks the most useful ESO gold-making methods into three tiers:
• S Tier: Easy to start and accessible to almost everyone.
• A Tier: Strong methods that reward time, optimization, or game knowledge.
• B Tier: Potentially very profitable, but they require significant skill, market knowledge, or group coordination.
The gold-per-hour figures below are rough estimates and can change significantly with server economy, item demand, RNG, and player efficiency.
Scrying – S Tier
Scrying is one of the most underrated gold-making methods for new and returning players.
The basic loop is simple: scry an Antiquity lead, dig up the Antiquity, and sell it. Green Antiquities are worth roughly 250 gold, while blue ones can be worth around 1,000 gold. Purple Antiquities are considerably more valuable, often around 5,000 gold, although they are limited to one per zone.
A typical run can produce roughly 30–45 green and blue finds, putting the method around 20,000–30,000 gold per hour for many players.
The biggest advantage is accessibility. There is no need for a Guild Trader, complicated setup, or expensive gear. It is an excellent choice for anyone looking for relaxed solo income.
Infinite Archive – S Tier
The Infinite Archive takes a little more work before its rewards become gold, but it can be surprisingly profitable.
Much of the value comes from Archival Fortunes, which can be exchanged for valuable materials. The first two Arcs can take around 35–45 minutes and, together with the daily quest container, can provide roughly 6,000 Fortunes. Rewards scale significantly as deeper Arcs are completed.
Two useful purchases include the Archival Alchemical Sachet and Archival Sack of Provisions, each costing 2,000 Fortunes. These can provide materials such as Columbine, Corn Flower, Bugloss, Dragon's Blood, Blessed Thistle, Perfect Roe, Morning Dew, Rubyblossom Extract, and other valuable materials.
Depending on material prices, this can work out to approximately 15,000–30,000 gold per hour.
It is completely solo-friendly and works particularly well for players with a decent PvE build.
Style Pages From Zone Dailies – A Tier
Zone daily quests can provide valuable style pages, making them an excellent option when particular motifs and pages are in demand.
Potentially profitable areas include Solstice, West Weald, Telvanni Peninsula, Apocrypha, The Reach, Gold Coast, and Southern Elsweyr. Specific daily activities can reward pages such as Tide-Born, West Weald Legion, Kindred’s Concord, Wayward Guardian, Night Hollow, Minotaur, Order of the Hour, and New Moon Priest.
Always check current Guild Trader prices before committing to a zone. Demand changes frequently.
There is also an important cooldown to consider. Some style-page drops are subject to a character-based cooldown, so switching to an alternate character can provide another opportunity on the same day.
A typical session may generate roughly 10,000–40,000 gold per hour, with much higher returns when an especially valuable page drops.
Crafting – A Tier
Crafting is one of the most flexible ways to make gold in ESO. The basic strategy is simple: buy materials cheaply or farm them yourself, craft items that players actually want, and sell them through Guild Traders. The real challenge is knowing what is currently in demand.
Furniture is one of the biggest opportunities. Popular furnishings and plans can bring in hundreds of thousands or even millions of gold per week when the right items are chosen and materials are sourced efficiently. Farming your own materials is slower, but it can also produce much better margins. Depending on the market, furniture can reach around 20,000–200,000+ gold per hour equivalent.
Trait research gear is a smaller but more passive market. Low-level pieces with traits such as Sharpened, Precise, Nirnhoned, Divines, Infused, and Charged can sell to players who need them for research. This usually works out to around 5,000–15,000 gold per hour equivalent.
Food is another option, with popular choices including Bewitched Sugar Skulls, Clockwork Citrus Filet, Orzorga's Smoked Bear Haunch, Lava Foot Soup-and-Saltrice, Ghastly Eye Bowl, and Jewels of Misrule. Food can generate around 10,000–25,000 gold per hour, depending on batch size and ingredient costs.
Crafting is best for players willing to learn a specific market and regularly use Guild Traders. It has a high profit ceiling, but it requires more market knowledge than simple farming methods.
Material Farming – A Tier
Material farming is one of the classic ways to make gold in ESO. For better results, focus on quieter zones and use efficient farming routes. You can realistically earn around 20,000–60,000 gold per hour, depending on the materials, market prices, and whether you use an add-on like HarvestMap.
Good spots include Spellscar and Upper Craglorn for Nirncrux, Hollow City in Coldharbour for general materials and alchemy ingredients, Bal Foyen for a quick and efficient route, and Hew’s Bane for combining jewelry material farming with Thieves content.
This method is great if you prefer a relaxed playstyle. With the right add-ons, a fast character, and an optimized route, material farming can become a very reliable source of ESO gold.
Fishing – A Tier
Fishing is a simple, low-skill, and relaxing way to farm gold. You can expect around 10,000–30,000 gold per hour, with extra profit coming from filleting white fish and getting a perfect roe.
If you prefer guaranteed income, sell raw Dhufish and Longfin in stacks of 100. In Summerset, you can also get items like Pyandonean Bottles, while Artaeum fishing can reward Waterlogged Psijic Satchels and mystic satchels, which may contain valuable recipes.
Overall, fishing is best for casual players who want an easy, relaxing gold-making method with some extra profit from RNG.
Motifs From Veteran Hard Mode Dungeons – A Tier
Dungeon motifs can be among the strongest repeatable gold farms for experienced players.
Veteran hard-mode dungeons can provide a guaranteed group motif drop, with one group member receiving the motif. Unlike trial motifs, dungeon motifs do not have a weekly cooldown, allowing groups to farm them repeatedly.
Newer dungeon motifs often command higher prices, although the most profitable targets can change after patches and market shifts.
A coordinated group can potentially reach 80,000–250,000 gold per hour, making this one of the strongest genuine hourly methods on the list.
The better and more coordinated your group is, the more you can earn.
Veteran Trial Motifs – B Tier
Veteran trials can provide valuable motifs, but they work differently from dungeon farming.
Trial motifs are generally subject to a weekly cooldown per character, making them better viewed as additional weekly income rather than an unlimited gold farm.
Depending on the trial and the value of the motifs, the effective return can be around 40,000–100,000 gold per hour.
Potentially valuable sources include trials such as Lucent Citadel, Sanity’s Edge, Dreadsail Reef, and Cloudrest. Prices should always be checked before choosing a trial specifically for gold.
This method is best suited to players who are already comfortable clearing veteran trials with a reliable group.
PvP: Alliance Points – A Tier
PvP provides several ways to convert gameplay rewards into gold.
Alliance Points earned through Battlegrounds or Cyrodiil can be exchanged for items with steady demand. Dawn-Prisms and Militant Ordinator pages are examples of items that can be converted into tradable value.
Depending on PvP efficiency and market prices, this method can produce approximately 20,000–60,000 gold per hour.
The more Alliance Points earned, the more efficiently the strategy scales.
PvP: Set-Item Chests – A Tier
Another PvP strategy involves purchasing or earning chests containing set items and hoping for valuable drops.
Average sessions might generate around 10,000–50,000 gold per hour, but RNG creates a much wider range of possible outcomes. Rare items can occasionally sell for hundreds of thousands or even millions of gold.
The lower baseline makes this less reliable than direct AP-to-item conversion, but the potential jackpots make it appealing to players who enjoy gambling on valuable drops.
PvP: Tel Var – A Tier
Tel Var farming in Imperial City is another strong option, particularly for experienced players who know how to survive and efficiently convert their currency into tradable items.
For example, Hakeijo can be purchased for 5,000 Tel Var and can often sell for roughly 15,000–22,000 gold, depending on the market.
The Waxed Apothecary Parcels purchased with Tel Var can provide an alternative with greater upside because valuable materials can produce a higher gold-per-Tel-Var conversion.
Overall, Tel Var farming can generate roughly 20,000–80,000 gold per hour, depending heavily on survivability and conversion efficiency.
The obvious drawback is risk: dying in Imperial City can cost accumulated Tel Var.
Market Flipping – B Tier
Market flipping has perhaps the highest theoretical gold-making ceiling in ESO, but there is no honest universal gold-per-hour figure.
The formula sounds simple: buy low and sell high. In practice, successful trading requires knowledge of item values, sufficient starting capital, reliable pricing information, patience, and emotional discipline.
Popular markets can include crafting materials, companion gear, popular motifs, and other items with consistent demand.
The biggest skill is often knowing what not to buy.
Market flipping can eventually produce enormous profits, but inexperienced traders can also lose significant amounts of gold while learning.
Thieving: Fencing the Daily Cap – S Tier
Thieving offers two very different approaches to making gold.
The first is simply looting valuables and fencing them until reaching the daily Legerdemain fence limit of 140 items. For many players, reaching the limit takes around 20–30 minutes, while the daily income can reach roughly 20,000–45,000 gold.
The active farming rate can feel much higher, but the daily cap means this is best viewed as a short daily routine rather than an unlimited grind.
It is especially attractive for solo players who enjoy stealth gameplay and want predictable daily income.
Thieving Jackpots – B Tier
The second major thieving strategy is hunting for rare rewards such as paintings and valuable furnishing plans.
Unlike the daily fencing method, this approach is essentially a lottery. Rare drops can be worth a substantial amount of gold, but they are not reliable enough to treat as consistent hourly income.
It works best as an additional activity while completing a normal thieving routine rather than as the primary source of income.
Daily Crafting Writs – S tier
Daily Writs are one of the easiest ways to build a steady gold income in The Elder Scrolls Online, yet many players overlook them because each turn-in only gives around 5,000 gold. The real value comes from doing them consistently and collecting the valuable bonus rewards.
If you're running Writs on multiple characters, the Dolgubon's Lazy Writ Crafter add-on can save a huge amount of time by automating item crafting and reward chest openings. Combined with a convenient crafting location, what normally feels like a chore can take just a few minutes per character.
Location matters, too. Skingrad is one of the fastest options because the crafting stations are packed closely together. Vivec City is another popular choice, while Alinor and Rawl'kha
are also good alternatives. Pick one location, learn the route, and stick with it to save time every day.
The 5,000-gold turn-in is only the baseline. Writ reward boxes can also provide valuable items, including Master Writs, gold upgrade materials, and unidentified Survey Reports.
These items can either be used for your own crafting and gear upgrades or sold to other players. Survey Reports are particularly valuable because they can provide large amounts of crafting materials with relatively little effort.
For five characters, the basic calculation is simple:
5,000 gold × 5 characters × 7 days = 175,000 gold per week
Then add the value of your bonus rewards. Based on the estimates in the script, Survey Reports can add around 25,000 gold, while Master Writs can contribute roughly 24,000 gold per week. Gold upgrade materials add even more value, whether you sell them or use them yourself.
That puts the potential total at 200,000+ gold per week from a routine that takes only minutes per character once everything is optimized.
Over a month, that's 800,000+ gold—all from a simple daily habit.
So don't judge Writs by the 5,000 gold you see on the turn-in screen. The real profit is in the rewards that come with them.
Which Gold-Making Method Is Right for You?
• New or returning players: Start with Scrying, Daily Writs, or Thieving. These are easy to learn, require little investment, and provide reliable income without needing advanced gear or market knowledge.
• Casual and relaxed players: Fishing, Material Farming, and Scrying are great choices if you prefer solo activities without intense combat or complicated strategies.
• Dedicated solo PvE players: Infinite Archive and Material Farming offer solid returns while letting you play at your own pace.
• Crafters and market-minded players: Crafting is ideal if you enjoy studying market demand, managing materials, and selling through Guild Traders. It has a high profit ceiling but requires more knowledge and effort.
• PvP players: Alliance Points and Tel Var farming can turn PvP activity into substantial gold. Tel Var offers higher potential, but also carries more risk.
• Experienced PvE groups: Veteran Hard Mode Dungeon Motifs are among the best choices for coordinated players, offering some of the highest repeatable gold-per-hour potential.
• Veteran trial players: Trial Motifs are better suited to players who already run veteran trials regularly. Because of the weekly cooldown, they work better as additional weekly income than as an unlimited farm.
• Experienced traders: Market Flipping is for players with strong market knowledge, starting capital, and patience. It has the highest theoretical profit ceiling but also the greatest risk.
• Players who enjoy gambling on RNG: PvP Set-Item Chests and Thieving Jackpots can produce huge payouts from rare drops, but their returns are inconsistent and should not be treated as guaranteed income.
In short: If you want easy and reliable gold, choose Writs, Scrying, or Thieving. If you want higher profits and don't mind more effort, try crafting, materials, PvP, or dungeon motifs. And if you're highly experienced with the market or endgame content, market flipping, veteran dungeons, and trials offer greater potential.
