Diablo 3 RMAH Flipping Formula Basics

Buy Low - Sell High

Flipping For Profit In Diablo 3

When it comes to turning a profit on the dual auction houses in Diablo 3, there are a variety of basic tactics for making gold and real money profits.  One of the main tactics for turning a profit is through "Flipping". 

Flipping is the basic term used for the process of buying something at one price and selling it at a higher price, which results in a profit for the seller.

Flipping should not be confused with increasing an item's value.  A true flip uses the exact same item, in the exact same condition, without any improvements.  The item just gets flipped for a higher price tag.  Don't get it confused with flipping in the housing market, as often times those homes are fixed up before being resold.  Which means they were bought and then improved upon to get a higher value and selling price, so they aren't a true flip.

An example of Diablo 3 flipping would be buying an amulet off of the in game vendor to sell for a profit on the auction house, like I discuss in the post: Making Diablo 3 Gold With Amulets.

An example of improving an item's value in Diablo 3 would be buying an item with a poorly chosen gem and then replacing it with a more appropriate gem, like Adam discusses in his post: Swapping Gems For Profit. 

The Diablo 3 Basic Flipping Formula For The Gold Auction House

Anytime you are wanting to flip an item for profit, you need to be fully aware of the transaction fees associated with auction house sales.  While the cut that Blizzard rakes off of every auction house transaction is pretty steep, there still are profits to be made in both the Gold Auction House (GAH) and the Real Money Auction House (RMAH).  You must incorporate the fees into your prices or you could be losing money, when you expected to gain.


The Gold Auction House Rakes 15% of Your Final Sale Price

So when you buy an item to flip, you need to account for that 15% fee that gets rake off the top.

Cost / .85 = New Break Even Sale Price

So if you buy an item for 6,000 gold, you need to sell it for 7,059 gold just to break even.  If you flipped that 6,000 gold item for 7,000 gold, then you would actually be losing gold and would net 5,950 gold after Blizzard gets their fee.  Ex: 7000g sale - 1050g fee (15%) = 5950 Gold Net

NOTE:  Don't assume you can just multiple Cost x1.15 to get the correct sale price.  You must divide by 0.85 to get an accurate answer.


When using the RMAH, you have to account for two 15% fees for commodities and $1 +15% fees for equipment sales.  This means it is easier to focus on moving items you purchase with gold into RMAH sale, and focusing on equipment sales results in the lowest transaction fees.



Zygor Guides & Diablo 3 Billionaire
**Diablo 3 Secrets**

Making Diablo 3 Gold With Amulets

Amulets For Sale

Flipping Vendor Bought Amulets

The NPC vendors in Diablo 3 spawn random armor pieces that may or not be an upgrade for your character.  A few of these NPC vendors will also sell rings and amulets that you can purchase as well.  The best part about gear in Diablo 3 is that you can sell any gear you find, buy, or have already used because, unlike WoW, nothing binds to your characters.  That means any armor, weapons, rings, amulets, or follower items you obtain can be used by multiple characters and can be sold on both the gold based (GAH) and the real money auction houses (RMAH). 

Amulets Are Easy Money

It's no secret Amulets are one of the easiest ways to make gold in Diablo 3 on the gold auction house at the lower levels.  At lower levels of the game, you tend to find mostly armor and weapons, with the occasional jewelry drop.  When you do see a piece of jewelry drop, the rings tend to drop more often than the amulets.  Therefore, once you unlock the vendors that sell rings and amulets, you will probably be shopping for them for your own character because odds are you won't have found one yet from loot drops.  Don't stop at just outfitting the gear on your character though.  Other players will be wanting to purchase rings and amulets with great stat combinations, to help them level quickly.  Amulets are the better investment, because most players will have seen a handful of rings drop long before seeing any amulets drop from creatures and chests.

Using The NPC Vendors For Your Advantage

Since these NPC vendors in Diablo 3 randomly spawn the items they have available for sale, you never know what stat combinations you are going to have available to you for purchase.  So take advantage of any opportunity you get to purchase quality items when they appear on the vendor.  If you are on your Demon Hunter and the vendor is selling an ideal stat combination item for a Barbarian, go ahead and grab it for your low level or non-existant Barbarian character and transfer or save it in your shared stash.  You may not even get a good stat combination to appear on the vendor, while you are on the character that would best benefit from the item affixes combinations.  So transferring good items through the shared stash is a good idea.

The same thing applies for super amazing stat combination items.  Any of the nice low level damage boosting amulets (2-4 min-max damage boost at level 7 for example) will be good sellers and when coupled with one of the great item affixes for farming characters these good sellers become damn near instant sales.  I have been buying amulets that costs me 2.2k gold and am able to sell them on the auction house for 2-4 times the purchase price.  The best thing is they are selling in a matter of hours, which is crucial to prevent losing your items in the undercutting war.  When the stat combination is an excellent combination, these amulets can sell out in a matter of minutes. 

So if you see a great stat combination for sale on a ring or amulet, stock up and buy a bunch to sell on the dual auction houses in Diablo 3.


Zygor Guides - The Only Diablo III Guide You Can Trust
Be Sure To Check Out Our Podcast - The Eviscerated Gaming Podcast - at Eviscerated.net.
Diablo 3 Gifts For True Diablo 3 Fans