Sometimes it seems like all the techniques and tricks you hear about only work for people who are already at the end of the game. Farming gold at lower levels has become very frustrating and discouraging because there’s a lot of misinformation out there. I know that I spent most of my lower levels questing for just a few pieces of silver and selling trash to vendors—and every bit of that went back into repairs and equipment.

When I first started playing, everyone basically gave me the advice of “Don’t worry about it, because you can’t really gold farm until you’re at least over 40. Just use the crappy quest gear until then.” This is absolutely NOT TRUE!

The truth is that—believe it or not—you can be rolling in some serious gold as early as level 10 onwards whether your are Alliance or Horde! If you want to, you can actually outfarm most of your level 80 friends (in fact, I won a few funny bets in my guild for it).

These are some basic tips that I follow on lowlevel farming characters:

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1. There is a “too early”

Okay—don’t get me wrong here, you can definitely gold farm at any level fairly efficiently if you’re good at it as long as you have a few startup silver for the auction house. But, for most players, it’s a good idea not to try to farm until at least level 10. By that time, you should have a good bit of startup coin, and you also don’t have to make a suicide run through the starting area to get to a major city for the Auction House, either.

If you’re planning on grinding for gold, you’ll start seeing some better results if you know the profitable hotspots at around level 10-12.

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2. A Full Bag = Empty Purse

A common phenomenon that plagues lower level characters is packrat syndrome. Unless you’ve already made another character, chances are you have a pretty small bag, and space can be very valuable. Make sure you’re vending everything that you can, because you don’t wanna be stuck without slots in your bag while you’re out grinding.

Likewise, if you’re out grinding and your bag just filled up, don’t hesitate to drop cheaper-value items to pick up the good stuff.

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3. Gather up Some Gold at the Auction House

The general idea of getting profession is to make some extra gold as you’re leveling—so it’s important to pick a profession as a lower level character that will actually generate decent gold!

There’s no point in picking a profession that’s going to take more gold to level it than it actually pays back. The best profession for lower levels (I’d say up to about level 70) is a gathering profession—herbalism, skinning, and mining are all great gold fetchers.

You can make great gold at the auction house by selling stacks of gathered items (Tin Ore and Copper stacks can sell particularly good right now) for a few gold a stack.

If you’re a serious gatherer, I’d suggest strongly to install the Gatherer addon so that you can view both plants and veins on your mini-map for easy gathering.

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4. Grinding Defias Trappers (Alliance)

Found in groups around the Westfall Windmill, these mobs drop some pretty nice armor but—most importantly—they drop insane amounts of linen cloth. Grind here, stack it up, and make an easy killing over at the Auction House.

If i’m leveling up a character quickly, I’ll grind here for a few levels and easily make around 6g per hour.

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5. Light Feather Farming (Horde)

Light Feathers are one of the more lucrative farmable items for lower levels as Mages buy them by the stack at the Auction House (on my server, they can sell for a little over 1g per stack). You can get them from the Great Plainstriders who roam near the Crossroads. You can start farming them at around level 10, and since the drop rate is a little over 90%, it’s a pretty nice grinding spot.

Every now and then, you’ll get the odd leather and recipe that you can resell for even better profits.

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While these are just some basic tips, every little bit can add up especially during the lower levels. The important thing to remember is that gold farming is always changing, and it’s important to always take every opportunity you can to learn something new. If you want to learn how to make gold more efficiently in later levels, you should check out Warcraft Millionaire. This comprehensive guide describes everything from the best grinding spots to utterly dominating the Auction House.

Brad Johnson was the first WoW gamer to reach the gold cap (214,748 gold 36 silver 47 copper) for a single player and documents his techniques in his 200+ page guide. It is widely regarded as essential reading for serious gold farmers and was recently upgraded to cover all new content in Wrath of the Lich King.

You can learn more about Brad and Warcraft Millionaire by visiting his official web site.