Flipping is the quiet way to make silver from the market itself. You post a buy order under what the item sells for, wait for a seller to fill it, then list it higher. No gathering, no combat and no road. The risk is arithmetic: forget one fee and a flip that looked like 8% profit is a loss.
What each step costs
| Step | Cost |
|---|---|
| Placing a buy order | 2.5% setup fee on the order value |
| Placing a sell order | 2.5% setup fee on the listing value |
| Changing an order's price | The setup fee again |
| A completed sale | 4% tax with Premium, 8% without |
| Instant buy from a sell order | No fee beyond the price |
| Instant sale into a buy order | Tax only |
The order window shows the exact silver before you confirm, so check it once against this table on your server. Setup fees are not refunded when you cancel or the order expires. The silver for a buy order is held from the moment you post it, which is why a flipper's real limit is how much silver they can tie up at once.
One flip, step by step
- Post a buy order at 250,000 silver. You pay 6,250 setup on top.
- A seller fills it and the item lands in your market box.
- List it on a sell order at 290,000. You pay 7,250 setup.
- It sells. With Premium the game keeps 4% tax (11,600); without, 8% (23,200).
With Premium you keep 290,000 − 250,000 − 6,250 − 7,250 − 11,600 = 14,900 silver. Without Premium the extra 11,600 of tax leaves you 3,300. On a 16% gap, Premium is the difference between a flip and a waste of an evening.
Break-even spreads
The spread is the gap between what you pay and what you sell for, as a share of what you pay. Below these numbers the flip loses money before you even count price drops:
| How you buy | How you sell | Break-even with Premium | Without Premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| Instant (sell order) | Instant (buy order) | 4.2% | 8.7% |
| Buy order | Instant (buy order) | 6.8% | 11.4% |
| Instant (sell order) | Sell order | 7.0% | 11.7% |
| Buy order | Sell order | 9.6% | 14.5% |
Each figure is (1 + buy fee) ÷ (1 − tax − sell fee) − 1. The last row is the classic order-to-order flip, and it needs almost a 10% gap with Premium. Every relist adds 2.5% of the listing to your cost, so a flip that needs two price changes needs another 5% of room.
Pick items that trade every day
A wide gap on an item that sells twice a week is a trap. You sit on the stock while the price drifts. Look for:
- Volume. The in-game sales history shows what buyers paid and how many sold. Ten sales a day beats one big sale a week.
- A steady average. The item details window shows an estimated market value, per item and for the stack since Radiant Wilds. Bid under it, sell near it.
- A gap bigger than your break-even. If the top buy order and the lowest sell order are closer than the table above, move on.
- Items you know. You will spot a bad price on gear you wear faster than on a recipe you have never crafted.
The Market Explorer shows every city's buy and sell orders for one item, each with the time it was seen, the spread as a share of the buy price, a Stale chip on anything over an hour old and a 7 or 30 day price history. How to read market prices explains what those numbers can and cannot tell you.
Outbid with a real jump
When another flipper tops your buy order by one silver, answering with one silver starts a bidding war where you both pay the setup fee every round. Raise yours by 5 to 10% in one move instead. Your order goes first in line for the next seller, and many flippers drop an item once someone shows they will pay for it. When the competition goes quiet, cancel and repost lower to keep buying cheap. Count each repost as 2.5% of the order.
Undercut with round numbers
On the selling side, list just under the cheapest offer. Round prices read cheaper in a list: 7,989,000 looks lower than 8,021,938, and 999 looks lower than 1,000 for one silver of difference.
Undercut by a little. Dropping 10% under the market to sell faster hands your profit to the buyer, and it resets the price for everyone, including your next batch.
Habits that keep flips profitable
- Spread silver across several items so one slow seller does not freeze your bankroll.
- Keep a list of your open orders and their prices. The market box fills while you are offline.
- Recheck before you relist. If the price fell under your cost, wait or take the small loss early.
- Flip in one city first. Cross-city trades add the road; Transporting between cities covers those.
- Buy orders can also stock your own crafting at a discount. A crafter who never buys instantly saves the spread on every material.
Check it in Outpost
The Market flipping page has two parts.
- Scan a route: choose Buy in and Sell in cities, whether you sell into Buy orders or My sell orders, the quality, tax and setup fee (they start at 4% and 2.5%), then add items. Each row shows the net for one item using the lowest sell order as the buy price. The scan ignores volume, speed and road danger, so treat each row as a lead to check in game.
- Check one trade by hand: type the purchase and sale price per item and the quantity, choose Buy from a sell order or Place a buy order, and fill in sales tax, sell order setup fee and any transport or risk cost. These fields start at 0, so type 4 and 2.5 (or 8 without Premium) yourself. It returns net profit, margin, return on investment, the break-even sale per item and the lowest sale price that profits.
Run each new item through the hand check once before you commit a large order. How to calculate real profit explains margin against return on investment.
Game balance changes between patches. Check requirements, yields and costs in game.
