Guide

OSRS merching guide

Merching is flipping with a longer memory. You still buy low and sell high on the Grand Exchange. The difference is you treat limits, tax, and stack size as the whole game — not an afterthought once the spread looks green.

Open Flip Finder → Live flip list

What merching actually is

You are a market maker on one item, or a small basket, for a 4-hour window or longer. You are not chasing every green candle. You pick items with real volume, a spread that survives tax, and a buy limit you can fill and unload without panicking.

If you want the short loop (find spread, offer, wait, sell), start with the OSRS flipping guide. This page is the merchant version of the same rules.

GE tax is not optional math

Sellers pay 2% per item, capped at 5m gp. Bonds are exempt. A 100k “margin” that loses 2% on the sell is not 100k of profit. Bake tax into the offer before you buy. Run the numbers on the GE tax calculator.

Buy limits run your calendar

Most items reset every 4 hours, per account. Filling a full limit with no exit parks capital until the reset — or longer if the sell side dies. High-volume junk with a huge limit can still be a bad merch if the after-tax spread is a few gp.

Look up the limit before you size the offer: OSRS buy limits. Then check 24h volume on most traded items so you are not the whole market.

The 70% rule

A rough guide some merchers use: buy at or below 70% of the item’s sell price so there is room left after GE tax. It is not a law. Thin, liquid items will never give you that kind of spread. Fat spreads on quiet items will, and they will also sit in your offer for hours.

Use 70% as a “do I have any margin at all?” check, then look at live high/low and volume. GE Hound is for the live book, not a substitute for judgment.

Size the stack to the item

A 1m stack wants high-limit consumables. A 100m stack can sit in a PvM drop or a bond. Mixing those on one offer is how people freeze gold they needed for the next buy. Split by cash stack on best items to flip (1m / 10m / 100m / 1b).

Sit vs rotate

Sit when the item still trades, your offers are at a real price, and you can wait the limit. Rotate when the spread was a fake wall, volume died, or you cannot explain why anyone is buying today. Patience beats force-buying a manipulated print. If the fill does not come, cancel and move.

Alerts help you sit without camping the booth. Set a price alert on the buy and the sell, then go train.

A simple merch loop

  1. Pick a stack size you can lose overnight without rage-quitting.
  2. Filter for volume and a spread that survives tax. Confirm the buy limit.
  3. Offer below the live sell. Do not insta-buy a spike unless that is the plan.
  4. When you are filled, offer the sell with tax already subtracted.
  5. If four hours pass with no exit, you sized wrong. Cut or wait — pick one, don’t refresh forever.

None of this is a profit guarantee. Updates, bots, and one player with a bigger stack will move your item. The job is to see it faster. That is what GE Hound is for.