Where the money in Herblore actually comes from
Herblore makes money in three layers. Cleaning herbs pays you for clicks. Unfinished potions pay you for banking. Finished potions pay you for knowing which secondaries are cheap this week. All of it can be done next to a bank.
The top of the table is rarely a "real" potion. Crystal dust potions, unf potions and Degrime casts often beat restore potions per hour, because a finished potion's margin is split across ingredients that all move separately.
| Method | Herblore level | You buy | Usual bottleneck |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cleaning grimy herbs | 3 to 75 (by herb) | Grimy herbs | Click speed; 11,000 or 13,000 limit |
| Degrime (Arceuus spell) | Herb level, plus 70 Magic | Grimy herbs, nature and earth runes | Herb limit; spellbook access |
| Unfinished potions | 3 to 72 (by herb) | Clean herbs, vials of water | 10,000 limit on most unf potions |
| Finished potions (Sanfew, magic, super combat) | 65, 76, 90 | Unf potion plus secondary | Secondary prices and 2,000 limits |
| Crystal dust potions | 70 to 97 | Base potion, crystal shards | 2,000 limit on the base potion |
Buy limits are the real ceiling
Read profit per hour next to the buy limit. The valuable grimy herbs (ranarr, snapdragon, torstol and friends) are capped at 11,000 every four hours, cheaper ones at 13,000. Unfinished potions are capped at 10,000, and finished potions such as magic potions and super combats at 2,000.
That last number is what quietly kills crystal dust potions as a full-time earner. You can make roughly 2,000 of them an hour, but you can only buy 2,000 base potions per window, so one hour of work uses up four hours of limit. If a method shows a big hourly figure and a small limit, multiply it by the hours you can actually feed it. Cleaning herbs and making unf potions are the opposite: generous limits, smaller margins, and you can run them for an entire evening.
Requirements that gate the best rows
- Druidic Ritual for any Herblore at all.
- Song of the Elves for crystal dust potions. Each 4-dose potion needs 4 crystal dust, and one crystal shard crushed with a pestle and mortar gives 10 dust. Dust cannot be traded, so the margin depends on how cheaply you can get shards.
- A Kingdom Divided and 70 Magic for Degrime on the Arceuus spellbook. Each cast costs 4 earth and 2 nature runes, cleans a whole inventory, and gives half the usual Herblore xp. You still need the level to clean each herb by hand.
- Zogre Flesh Eaters for Sanfew serums.
AFK or attentive
Unfinished potions are the most relaxed money here: 14 herbs, 14 vials, combine, bank. Cleaning by hand is the opposite, one click per herb, and the hourly figure assumes you keep clicking. Degrime sits in between, with one cast per inventory but very fast banking.
Amulets and goggles that change the maths
An amulet of chemistry gives a 5% chance of a 4-dose potion when you would make a 3-dose. The alchemist's amulet from Mastering Mixology raises that to 15% and holds charges, and prescription goggles give a 10% chance to keep the secondary. On expensive secondaries the goggles pay for themselves fastest. The Herblore boosts page lists the boosts that let you make potions a few levels early.
How to read the live numbers
Each row values inputs and outputs at the current mid price, takes the Grand Exchange tax off what you sell, and assumes the action rate shown. Offers placed mid-spread beat the table but fill slower. Check the 24 hour volume before buying a full limit; a thin market turns a good margin into a stuck stack. For a level by level route rather than raw profit, the Herblore training guide covers xp rates, and the herblore calculator works out how many potions you need for a target level and what they cost.
Herb runs belong on the other side of the ledger
Farming your own herbs is usually more profitable per minute than anything in this table, because the herbs are close to free once the seeds and compost are paid for. A run of ten patches takes a few minutes every 80, and the farming money making list prices each herb seed per run. Then use the margins here to decide whether to sell your herbs grimy or as potions.