Why Farming is the best money per minute in the game
Farming pays you for time you were going to spend anyway. A herb run takes a few minutes, the herbs grow in 80 minutes whether you watch or not, and the inputs (a seed and some compost per patch) cost a fraction of what comes out. Even a modest run beats most active skilling per minute played. The trade-off is that you cannot sit and do it for an hour; your income is capped by how often you log in.
| Run | Farming level | Time between runs | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Herb run | 32+ for ranarr | About 80 minutes | Best profit per minute in the skill |
| Hops (jute, hemp, cotton) | 13, 37, 71 | Several hours | Hemp and cotton feed Sailing |
| Fruit tree picking (papaya, coconut) | 57, 68 | Daily or so | Low effort add-on to tree runs |
| Cactus spines | 55 | A few hours | Small but almost free |
| Celastrus tree | 85 | Daily | Battlestaves at the Farming Guild |
| Coral, saplings, ultracompost | Varies | Varies | Side earners and processing |
Herb runs: which seed to plant
Ranarr weed (32 Farming) is the default answer because the stat restore potion it makes is used by almost every bosser, which keeps demand steady, but it is not always the winner. Toadflax, snapdragon, torstol and kwuarm take turns at the top as herb and seed prices shift, which is exactly what the profit per run column is for. Check it before you buy seeds, not after. Herb seeds have a buy limit of only 200 every four hours, which is still 20 runs' worth.
Profit per run depends on how many herbs you harvest. The table assumes a typical yield per patch with ultracompost. Three things push your real number above it:
- Magic secateurs from Fairytale I add 10% to herb yield, and the Farming cape adds 5% more.
- Ultracompost lowers the chance of disease, and a bottomless compost bucket halves how much of it you use.
- An Attas plant (76 Farming) raises yield further across your patches.
Getting patches
A full herb run covers up to ten patches: Ardougne, Catherby, Falador, Port Phasmatys, Hosidius, Trollheim, the Farming Guild, Harmony Island, Weiss and Varlamore. The extra ones are locked behind quests and diaries, such as My Arm's Big Adventure for Trollheim, Making Friends with My Arm for Weiss, the elite Morytania diary for Harmony Island and 65 Farming for the Farming Guild. Each new patch adds roughly a tenth to your income for very little extra time.
Hops, trees and the rest
Hops patches are worth filling if you pass them. Jute (13) supplies drift nets, while hemp (37) and cotton (71) are bought for sails and nets in Sailing, which has made them more interesting than they used to be. Fruit tree checks for papayas and coconuts, cactus spines, and a celastrus tree at the Farming Guild (85 Farming), which grows battlestaves, all add small amounts with almost no effort.
Ultracompost is a processing method you can do anywhere: supercompost plus two volcanic ash makes one ultracompost, and the margin is often healthy because every serious farmer buys it. Ultracompost has a buy limit of 2,000.
Reading the profit per run
Each row prices what you plant and what you harvest at today's prices, with the Grand Exchange tax taken off the herbs you sell. Rows that need teleports assume you already have them; rune costs for teleports are small next to herb values but not zero. If you also turn your herbs into potions, compare the herb price with the Herblore money making table, because sometimes the potion adds more than the herb. The Farming calculator shows xp per crop, and the Farming training guide covers the tree runs that give most of the xp. For a broader view of passive gold, the OSRS money making list ranks every method together.