[Guide] ESO Best Ways To Make Money (Top 10 Ways)

It's easy to make money in ESO...if you're willing to learn!


I'll show you how to make money in Elder Scrolls Online in this article; completing quests, conquering dungeons, trading in guilds and much more. This is an easy guide on how to make money for ESO Online, and if you're new or returning, this guide will refresh your money-making skills in ESO! Let's begin.

 

1) Dark Brotherhood Quests

The Dark Brotherhood is...spooky!

If you’re looking to build up your skills in ESO and gain easy money, then learning the Assassin Skill in the Dark Brotherhood Questline will give you the ability to do so. Complete the storylines needed and then you will be contacted by the Dark Brotherhood to assassinate targets across Tamriel. 

Make sure you don’t get chased by pesky annoying guards that will make your life difficult…and beware of them if you have a bounty! I believe these are quick, easy-to-do quests that will gain a good amount of money and are repeatable. So why not try it out? 

How To Get To The Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary

  • Using a wayshrine from any city or part of Tamriel, travel to the Gold Coast Wayshrine. From there, make your path to the Sanctuary by bypassing the ruins and the minotaurs, where you will come across a small cave. 
  • Enter the sanctuary, go to Elam Drals, and accept the Marked For Death contracts via the book. Accept Your Quest.
  • Travel across Tamriel to identify and assist said target, return via wayshrine and collect your reward. You will receive gold + roguish poison potion which you can accumulate to sell.
  • If you’re above level 50, you can then pretty much assassinate in every alliance zone. If not, then you’ll only assassinate within your zone until you reach it.
  • These are good, although grinding repeatable quests to gain XP and money. Doing side quests will help with your solo experience as well.

2) Daily Rewards

One should never miss an opportunity to claim free rewards by logging in Daily!

Log into ESO Online every day to claim your prizes ranging from gold, potions, XP scrolls, and reward boosts. This is an easy step-by-step process and it is by far the easiest way to make money as I would personally recommend it. Who doesn’t want free money and free rewards? And most of all, it costs you nothing!

How to Claim Daily Rewards

  • Log into ESO Online
  • Claim your reward
  • Collect your reward and it’ll be stored in your inventory
  • Note that you can collect as much as gold even when you have 60 free slots starting. If you’re on ESO Plus, then inventory space is unlimited.
  • It is time-consuming but worth the rewards.
  • Gain the ability to use poison potions for your weapons, and collect magical crown restoration potions to revive your health during combat.

Though note, some months will have substantial cash rewards, while others won't. By gathering the resources needed, you can make a quick and tidy profit. Whatever is in your inventory will be locked until you sign up for ESO Plus. You can also use the inventory to retrieve your locked items which will come in handy. You don`t lose access to the items in your locked inventory when you're not in ESO Plus and neither when you are in the subscription.

3) Crafting Writs

Completing Writs and Mastering is an easy way to make money in-game.

Travelling around Tamriel means one out of two things; you farm materials, or you hunt down bosses and destroy enemy camps. Choosing the first option is a good and secure method of farming materials and crafting them. Going to specific regions such as Blackreach, or Bal Fayon to collect wood, ore, and leather is going to be needed. Go to writing boards that are located within these crafting stations. Make sure that when you’re starting, you complete the beginner crafting quests which will be located in your alliance zone. 

The main aim is simple; travel to a town where crafting quests are available, and start crafting the weapons needed. Go and collect your reward once done. Sell off any unwanted materials or store them in your bank account. 

How To Collect Resources and Craft Them:

Make sure that when you’re starting, you complete the beginner crafting quests which will be located in your alliance zone. You are then free to do crafting writ quests.

Farm materials that you will need to craft for woodworking, leather or for the blacksmith. This would be: red ruby wood, ore to convert to platinum ounces, hunting down animals or buying from a trade guilder

  • Invest skill points into the crafting tree to make sure you get better loot and better rewards. 
  • Once farmed, go to Blackwood or any respective city and go into the Crafting Zone.
  • Collect several quests from provisioning to woodworking, though you’ll do one quest at a time
  • For woodworking, accept the quest. Go to the woodworking station, and then you’ll get an indicator telling you if you have the required materials or not. Once you have them, craft a normal weapon or gear. Then go and collect your reward. You’ll get an instant source of new materials for farming and maybe some awesome gear and gold.

3) Alliance Points:

Gathering Alliance Points allows you to spend on new gear and weapons. They can also be claimed via the Daily Rewards.

Completing Battlemaster Robyn's Battlefield Challenges allows you to gather alliance points and gain good experience especially when you’re starting to go level 50/60. These alliance points can be accumulated quickly and allow you to purchase special weapons and equipment from special vendors in the game. Battlemaster Rivyn can be found in almost every city of Tamriel, and the three battlefield grounds of Vvardenfall.

How To Complete These Battlefield Challenges?

  • Go into Group List and search for Battlegrounds, click to join and then wait as the game loads you into a group. Alternatively, you can join guilds, or with a group of friends.
  • Complete each of three modes of the battlefield: Domination, deathmatch and Capture the Flag
  • Gain greater rewards and larger gold if you win. You gain the same rewards but not great gear and a lesser share of gold.
  • Once completed all five battlefields, go back to Master Rivelyn to collect your reward and via email for ‘Rewards of the Worthy’ which will be a coffer offering purple or gold gear if you manage to win matches repeatedly. 
  • A good place to find Battlemaster Rivyn 
  • Rinse and repeat.

If you`re into PVP or PVE, then this is a great challenge when you`re starting. It allows you to gain extra experience for your character and gives you more XP. If you`re willing to put in the time and effort, then this is a rewarding experience and will be a relatively easier way to gain money from the start.

4) Dungeons 

Dungeons are some of the best in ESO Online to get gear and loot!

Dungeons are another easy source of making good in-game gold. Participate with groups or guilds, and you’ll be able to rake in gear to sell vendors and complete quests at the same time. It’s also highly recommended to loot everything you can get from food to unlocking chests when you’re in that dungeon provided you have enough time. If you’re experienced enough you can try out the veteran dungeons.

Veteran Dungeons also give you more XP as well as Premium Undaunted Exploration supplies which are more gear and better rewards. If you’re on ESO Plus, you can then access even more unique Veteran Dungeons. But if you aren’t, then you won’t be able to access them unless there is a free ESO plus trial week or weekend.

How To Join Dungeons?

  • Go to Group Finder and Search for Group Dungeons, or add a friend online and participate with that friend by travelling to where they will be. 
  • Finish the dungeon, raid and destroy enemy bosses and soldiers.
  • Loot as much gear as possible, and loot as much gold as you can get.
  • Collect the rewards for defeating the enemy boss. Bear in mind that those weapons and gear can be repetitive, and you might end up selling the same gear twice for the same amount of gold.
  • If you're in a guild you can request in chat for `+dungeon` which will allow other players to group with you to complete a dungeon, delve or boss.

5) Undaunted Quests: 

During your ESO journey, you’ll meet the Undaunted. These adventurers will give you quests for group dungeons and trials. Completing these quests nets you special tickets to spend at the Imperassio and more gold. You can find them in Daggerfall or any other tavern within the big cities of Tamriel. 

How To Do Undaunted Pledges/Quests: 

  • Locate the Undaunted in cities such as Daggerfall or the Wood Elves’s Capital, Grahtwood. Travel to these locations, and talk to them in taverns
  • Gain a good reputation, complete dungeon achievements
  • Take the Undaunted Pledges, and do the quests. Most of these quests repeat in some of the same dungeons. You will get gear to sell after completing these dungeons.
  • Talk to Bolgrul to gain easy money from finishing delves
  • Completing quests means you get skills, help group play, and are good for experience.
  • You’ll get gold, special tickets, or a reward coupon. That’s mostly what you’ll get by doing the Undaunted Pledges, delves or dailies but these are repeatable quests.

6) Guilds

Joining Guilds can help you meet new friends, and find ways to find farm gold as well. 

Join public guilds which are accessible from public banks in zones that are available to you.

Guilds can be relatively fun and easy to join and are a great way of gaining money. As a beginner, perhaps joining a fee-free guild will help you be able to start by selling levels 1 to 25. There are multiple varieties of guilds from PVP to housing/crafting and questing. Make sure you select a good guild that helps you 

How To Join Guilds and Trade: 

By interacting with the bank vendor at the public bank, you can access the Guild Store and then sell your items depending on your rank. Some guilds will also have extensive weekly fees that if you don’t have a high income, can mean you won’t be able to stay in it for long. 

  • Use the guild search to find guilds that won’t overwhelm you with too much information, and enjoy the process
  • Some guilds run weekly lotteries via email, and if you donate to them, you might be drawn into the lottery as well
  • But also read the message of the day and the background information in your guild section. It’s important if you want to gain experience or talk in a group chat. Some groups might have discords, some might just rely on in-game chat. 

Unless you want to go down that path, some guilds would cost over several million a week, depending on how long you’ve been playing and how experienced you are. Guilds are also a great way to gain extra money!

7) Unlocking Chests  

Shiny chests!

Learning how to unlock chests via lockpicks gives you a great chance in terms of gaining gold and purple gear, or items. Initially, when you start, it would be ideal to buy lockpicks or loot from wherever you can find a delve or hunt down a boss. You can buy 200 lockpicks from trade guilds, or a friend. As a free player that will not have access, you will have around 60 slots so you can then at least get 30-40 lockpicks.  

How to Unlock Chests: 

  • Raid dungeons or delves, and find chests to unlock
  • Master the unlocking skills with lockpicks ranging from easy to advanced
  • It is a fun transitioning skill from which you will gain much experience

If you’re on ESO Plus, the main aspect is if you fill your inventory with four stacks of 200 lockpicks each, this provides an unlimited ability to master unlocking chests and not have to worry without running out of them. It will help in skill points for crafting as well. 

Once completed, you will find random chests. Use your lockpicking skills to unlock the chests, as you’ll get an easy-to-advanced level. The more chests you unlock, the more the better the gear drop will be. The less you unlock and miss those chests, you won’t get anything but random gear or you’ll miss out.

You can often find these chests in camps, around ridges, mountains, and roads. The world of ESO is expansive enough that you will find what you want. But I also recommend gaining your skills in the craft session, as you need to get Treasure Hunter, which will increase the quality of items you find in treasure chests. 

If you get purple or gold gear, these are worth selling to top-tier guilds that you might be a part of or trade. Either way, investing in lockpicks and learning how to unlock chests is another good source of income!

8) Stealing  

So much gold!

Stealing in ESO is also a fun and vital activity when you’re just starting out or whether you’re at a later stage in the game. Learn to pickpocket without being caught. The main aim is stealth. You can’t sell stolen items to a vendor, however. You can steal and sell it to a Thieves Guild or Refuge in a city to a fencer.  

How To Steal:  

  • Pick up items that are marked with red, meaning they can’t be sold at a vendor
  • Use the crouch button to avoid onlookers
  • Sell to a fence or ledger, but there is a limit to how much you can sell per day
  • Using Lockpick skills to sneak into houses and steal the items from there
  • Stealing items from markets, shops and other locations that will give you a chance to do so
  • Pickpocketing when crouched, though, is a harder task to master.

9) Endeavours

Endeavours are great ways to level up and acquire crown items, but it is tedious for grinding.

Endeavours are the game’s way of making you get in-game crown store items for free. Beware though that most of these crown items can be outdated, and they are grinding to do. However, in an age where the Crown Store dominates, this is a worthy goal to do. Collect endeavour points by doing challenges. Each of these challenges presents crafting, stealing and other such rewards. Endeavours will have some cash prizes for you as well, so while tedious, they are a good way of ensuring you get items for free as well as money to earn at the same time. And who doesn’t want free items?

How To Do Endeavours

  • Access the Endeavours Challenge via the Crown Store Menu
  • Complete and collect all challenges
  • Gain your rewards by completing the said challenge.

9) Looting Everything:

Learning the skills of looting will help you gain easy money in-game!

Make sure that when you’re in a dungeon, dolmen run, or any activity, you loot as much as you can. Use the TTC addon (which tells you the prices of what is being sold on ESO Online in various guilds) to boost your chances of selling at a good price and perhaps buying a thing or two. You have to loot food as well to farm recipes that can be sold at a high price, and also make those items that need selling as well. It’s imperative!

 How To Loot And Sell: 

  • Loot Gold from enemies and bosses
  • Sell Purple and Gold Gear at a High Price if gained
  • Sell weapons to merchants and vendors, or for a higher price, sell them to a guild
  • And sell as much as you can! The more you loot, the higher the income.
  • Be aware of inventory space if you’re on ESO Plus and not on ESO Plus. The only outcome is storage in which a subscription is needed.
  • Spend your crafting points on unlocking treasure chests so that you will be able to loot better gear.

10) Doing Story Quests and Dungeon Quests/Delves

This game is exceptional for its story quests!

This might be a known fact by now, but I thoroughly recommend doing the story quests. Engage in your guilds when they do farm runs weekly, and complete delves. As you gain more experience, you will gain free weapons, and free swords simply by completing these quests. And the quests in ESO are exceptionally well written. Doing dungeon runs will also give you gear. Sell all this gear when you collect them to gain more money.

  • Complete the main story quests
  • Do side quests and dungeon quests
  • Completing these side quests gives you more income and extra gear
  • And do period events whenever there is a new Boss or enemy to defeat. You defeat these bosses and gain loot to sell.

 

 

More on this topic:


I am a freelancer, writing in the RTS field and also playing RPG games. I've loved franchises such as Age of Empires/Total War, and games like Witcher/Assassin Creed, and CRPGs such as Warhammeer 40k
Gamer Since: 2004
Favorite Genre: RTS
Currently Playing: Total War Pharaoh, Age of Empires II and RPG games
Top 3 Favorite Games:The Elder Scrolls Online, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Assassins Creed Rogue


More Top Stories