How to Flip in OSRS — A Beginner's Guide

Flipping is buying an item below its going rate and selling it above — pocketing the difference. No combat, no skilling, just the Grand Exchange. Here's how to actually do it.

The loop

1. Pick an item with a gap between its instant-buy and instant-sell price (the "margin"), and enough trade volume that your offers actually fill.
2. Place a buy offer at the low end (around the instant-sell price) and wait for someone selling in a hurry to fill it.
3. Place a sell offer at the high end (around the instant-buy price) and wait for a buyer.
4. Pocket the difference, minus the 2% Grand Exchange tax on the sale. Repeat.

The two numbers that decide everything

• Margin after tax. Your profit per item is sell − buy − 2% tax. A raw margin that looks fine can vanish once tax is applied — see the GE tax guide.
• Volume. A huge margin is useless if only three of the item trade per hour. High-volume items fill fast and let you flip in bulk; that's usually where steady money is.

Buy limits

Every item has a 4-hour buy limit — you can only buy so many of it per 4 hours. This caps how much you can make per flip cycle, so plan around it. More in the buy-limits guide.

Common beginner mistakes

• Trusting raw margins that ignore the tax (the flip is actually a loss).
• Flipping thin-volume items your offers never fill.
• Chasing a falling price — if an item is crashing, the margin you see won't hold.
• Over-investing in one item past its buy limit and getting stuck holding it.

One rule: never automate Grand Exchange buying/selling. Botting the GE is against Jagex's rules and gets accounts banned. Flipping is a manual decision — tools like this help you decide, they don't trade for you.