Herblore can be both profitable and extremely expensive, depending on how you decide to train. This skill has a lot of benefits – you can use it at raids, create your potions, or make a lot of money with it!
With a higher Herblore level, you can create more potions and earn more gold. This skill is very repetitive so as soon as you clean your first herb or make your first potion you will know how to train it.
In this Ezrsgold guide, we are going to cover every aspect of Herblore which is very useful if you want to get a couple of levels to make some OSRS gold or if you’re aiming for that 99 cape.
Getting started
Unlocking the Herblore skill
There are several pathways you can take on leveling Herblore, but to start training this skill you must first complete a quest. You can unlock Herblore by doing a quest that has no requirements called The Druidic Ritual.
This quest is located in Taverley, not far from the Grand Exchange, at the Stone Circle.
Druidic ritual quest guide
Bring Raw beef, Raw chicken, Raw Rat meat, Raw Bear meat.
To start it, talk to Kaqemeex at the stone circle, located in Taverley.
Now just go and talk to Sanfew a little bit south in the Herblore shop, on the top floor.
He will send you to the Taverley dungeon, and you must go to the Cauldron of Thunder, passing a few skeletons, ignore them and just run to the entrance, and press „Use” on all your meats on the Cauldron.
Afterward, just go back, speak to Sanfew, then Kagemeex and you’re done with your introductory quest, and you are now Level 3 and can go on your journey!
Herblore early Quest XP
Now that you know how to do Herblore, you are open to a lot of new opportunities.
Completing Jungle Potion, Recruitment Drive and The Dig Site quests will get you from Level 3 straight to level 19.
Here I have selected the quests for you which have fairly small herblore requirements but can give you a lot of XP. These are also all Herblore XP gaining quests in the game.
There are a couple of ways you can train herblore from here. We will go into more details later in this guide. Alternatively you can use our quest service and we will do these quests for you.
Herblore Items that will help you a lot
Amulet of chemistry
You can get an Amulet of Chemistry by enchanting a Jade amulet with a Level-2 enchant spell, or you can buy it on the Grand Exchange for 980-1000 coins.
This amulet starts with five charges.
What it does is, when you are brewing potions, you have a 5% chance to get one more dose of a potion out of it (4 instead of 3).
Botanical Pies
Botanical pies give you a temporary boost of +4 to your Herblore level.
These pies are very useful if you need to boost your herblore level by 4 in crucial parts of your leveling process. You can use it to make higher-level potions or you can use it during quests.
The first notable milestone where you may need a boost is at level 34 to level 38 herblore to make Prayer Potions, which are a good source of XP/hour for lower level players. There will be a leveling part of the guide so you can see them in use.
Herb Sack
This item is commonly not put into Herblore tutorials and is considered a hidden gem, you do need 58 Herblore to use it (And it’s very well worth it).
It can store up to a full inventory of grimy herbs only in one slot, so it’s very beneficial when doing anything that requires you to pick up a lot of herbs (Farming is an example). You can see our Farming guide here on our Blog.
You can get the Herb sack from your Slayer master for 750 points, or do the Tithe Farm minigame and get it for only 250 points from the shop in that area (Hosidious place).
Profitable methods for leveling up Herblore
If you want to level up Herblore without spending money, you came to the right place!
There are various methods which will be covered below.
Herb cleaning is probably the most click-intensive thing in the game, but it can help you level up your Herblore without spending a single GP.
For all of the methods below You will need at least some starting cash like 1M or something so you don’t have to go to sell and buy again and again at the Grand Exchange every minute because you can clean 10k to 20k Grimy herbs an hour.
To make this process smoother for you, you can Buy some gold right here on our website!
If you don’t have the money, you can check out our EZRS Gold AFK money making guide to get the things you need to start.
Herb cleaning
Here we will discuss a profitable method, but it also gives you a ton of XP, so stay tuned.
Probably the most commonly used tactic to level up herblore is herb cleaning. Maybe sometimes you can earn a little GP per herb, but it adds up because you can speed up the process, it only click intensive. Simple as that.
Before you start cleaning herbs, you might want to check the GE prices first, so you don’t end up in loss.
There’s a secret method below, you will see later, that will increase your profit margins, so keep reading.
Buy a grimy herb and clean it by clicking on it. Sell the clean herb back to GE to see the profit margin.
Let’s use Guam in this example – buy price is 20, and you can sell it clean for 28 giving you a profit margin of 8GP per herb. Each of them gives you 2.5xp in herblore, and if you want, you can level up this way all the way you want (even to 99 with cleaning more profitable herbs, later on, making more GP (some cleaning with high investments can give you 530k per hour profit, so it’s not bad at all).
Also, with the recent update you can auto-clean a full inventory of herbs, this way you can clean 5000 herbs per hour. But with manual clicking, you can clean up to 12000 herbs per hour.
Here’s a chart that will help you determine which level of herbs you want to clean. (Prices may have changed, so be sure to check it manually before making a big investment.)
At the moment only one herb doesn’t make you any GP. As you can see, at level 30 which is not too much clicking of Grimy Harralander or Tarromin, XP per hour of course keeps rising. I would advise you to do this if it’s profitable (always check the GE prices first), and you can make good XP per hour.
With the paid methods you get much more XP, but it costs you to level up. I achieved level 60 Herblore just by cleaning the herbs and reselling them.
It’s best to buy the grimy herbs in bulk and overnight, so you can make even more profit.
Herblore money-making and the cheapest route to 99
There’s a method that can make you serious GP per hour, but it doesn’t give you any Herblore XP. Many players just don’t have the time to brew the unfinished potions first (They don’t want to buy clean herbs and mix it with a water vial), and would rather pay someone to do it.
This is where you can make serious money, especially if you leave your offers overnight, or just find a valuable potion to brew, and if you find one that nobody is doing, you can make serious GP).
Making unfinished potions
So, first I will give you some tips to do this more effectively. In the bank area, put the X value (shown in the picture) to 14. So, for each unfinished potion, you will need a clean herb, and a vial of water (or Blood). Here is a chart of your potential GP per hour using this method, but as I mentioned, prices are subject to change.
It’s still a lot of money, but you will not get any xp doing this.
Making unfinished potions – with a twist (cheapest way to 99 herblore)
So, now it’s time to get this guide a little bit of flavour. I have a far better surprise for you in this chapter. I will show you that you can make more than this by using a method not many people know of.
Do you remember herb cleaning? Well, you can combine Herb cleaning with making unfinished potions to make yourself rich in Old School Runescape, and you can do half of it watching TV or something (waiting for the potions to mix),
Here’s the fun part, you buy a Grimy herb, clean it nice and proper, and then WITH THAT SAME herb, you make an unfinished potion.
This way you almost doubled your profits, and you didn’t pay anyone to clean your herbs. This is where the real money is in Herblore.
Here’s a chart of what you can make. 477K per hour at level 30, 358K per hour at 50, and a whopping 803K on 80):
The best part about this method is, that you actually make way more per hour, but you’re still getting your XP, and sell your unf. potions that players often buy to save time.
That’s a WIN-WIN situation. Always check the GE prices first, but I can guarantee you that this method is profitable. Just look at the chart.
This is the method you will get the most out of, and I can say I was amazed when I first did this.
If you made a lot of money using this method (which can easily surpass your expectations), you can Sell the GP on our site and make yourself some real-life money!
Fastest herblore XP 1 to 99
If you can’t afford to spend hours making unfinished potions or cleaning herbs, you may want to consider boosting yourself by simply buying the unfinished potions and the ingredient you need, and start getting more than 300k/h on Herblore XP.
You can make Potions, make Tars, do Barbarian Herblore. There are a few ways to do this, and I will share the exact number and costs you will have to cover to get there.
I will be covering from level 1 here, and you can pick up where you might have stopped and don’t know what to do, so you can spend some money and get your XP, but the cheapest way.
Here is our article on why you should buy OSRS Gold and just enjoy the game how you want and when you want it, you can do it right here on our site, without spending too much money!
Fastest and cheapest way to 38 (120k GP)
This is a low-level method that will boost you from level 3 to level 38 with only 120k GP cost.
You will need a Guam unfinished potion, and combine it with the Eye of Newt.
This will make a great Attack potion you can either sell or use for yourself.
I suggest keeping it for yourself, since it’s not a great profit margin, but will give you a lot of XP per hour. 120K is not a lot for 38 levels, let’s move on.
38-99 The cheapest possible way (40M)
I will show you the CHEAPEST method in the game to get your 99 cape, and here’s a surprise, it costs only 15.8M from start to finish.
From level 38 to level 63, start making Prayer potions.
(you can use the perk of a Botanical pie here at 34 to cover a little bit of cost, and the Amulet of chemistry to cut the cost even more).
You will need to make exactly 3866 Prayer potions to get to level 63!
You will get 210k xp/h this way, and you can save money by including the methods above (cleaning herbs and making unfinished potions).
Here you make finished Prayer potions, and it’s worth it to have the Amulet of chemistry because a single dose more dose costs more than 3k.
This will cost you 1.6M total with Amulet of chemistry, and 2.3M without it.
From level 63 to 86, you will need to make Super restore potions.
You will need an unfinished Snapdragon potion combined with Red Spider’s eggs.
You will need to make 22662 potions to reach level 86.
This will give you 325k XP per hour, and it will cost 18.1M total with an Amulet of chemistry, or 24.2M without it.
From levels 86 to 99, you will make some profit back, and we will be making Super Combat Potions!
You can make a Super Combat potion by combining Super Atk, Str, Def (4) with a clean Torstol.
You will need to make 62911 to reach level 99 if you are aiming for that cape!
Here, we will be using Botanical pies on level 86, it will cost only 300k to 90 (so you can make them early).
Here, in this part, you will earn back some of your money by selling your super combat potions, and it is estimated to earn you 5.4M.
If you used The amulet of chemistry all the way, the way to 99 only costs you 15.8M with this method, since you earn back 5.4M.
This is the CHEAPEST possible way, and great for getting your character maxed.
Alternatively, to make it even cheaper, you can make Prayer potions to level 90 (or 86 if you want to use botanical pies), then switch to Super Combat Potions and at level 92 (or 88 with botanical pies) start making Super Antifire Potions, as at the moment it’s one of the best xps in game and currently you can even profit while making this potion.
Important note: When making potions I highly recommend to put up a sell offer of the potions you made every hour or so. This will protect you from price fluctuation and will free up some gold to buy more supplies.
Tips and tricks
The most effective way of making unfinished potions is by putting your X value in the bank to 14.
So, it just takes you one click to get your 14 clean herbs, and 14 water vials.
You can also speed up your process by pressing the space bar when mixing the ingredients.
Cleaning tips
Cleaning can seem to get you a carpal tunnel, but actually, it’s not that hard to do, it gets fun since you are constantly getting more XP or making more money, and still leveling up,
You can always do something else and go back to Herblore, you’re not locked to it, but it does feel good when you reach a level you need.
Most of the time lower level players make the most money in herblore making unfinished potions, and it’s a great way to make some extra cash.
Take some time, and you will see it’s a very profitable skill, and if you make a good amount of GP from it, you can always sell it here on the site for some real-life cash and turn your spent time into profit!
Good luck from the EZRSGold Team!
