Crafting on ESO is essential when it comes to so many aspects of the game, and making gold is no exception. The following guide outlines all of the possible ways to make gold in ESO by means of crafting.
Daily Crafting Writs
The easiest way to earn gold in ESO and acquire valuable materials (that you can use or sell for gold!) is to do your daily crafting writs.
Most cities have “writ boards”, where you can collect daily crafting quests that require you to craft specific gear pieces or consumables. Upon completing and turning in these crafting writs, you will receive gold (that scales with your level) and a daily coffer for the type of writ that you turn in that can contain materials that are also specific to the kind of writ in question.
For example: if you complete and turn in a woodworking writ and are max level (cp160+), you will receive 664 gold as well as a Woodworker’s Coffer that could contain woodworking upgrading materials like Mastic or Rosin!
My favourite place to do my daily writs is Vivec City, in Vvardenfell. All of the crafting stations are really close to one another!
ESO Surveys
Writs also have a chance to reward surveys, which are essentially maps that lead to special areas throughout Tamriel that contain special versions of nodes that reward you with significantly more raw materials than a normal node of the same kind.
For example: while a regular woodworking node may reward you with 3 (or sometimes 6) raw wood pieces, a woodworking node that is specific to a woodworking survey would reward you with 18, 20, or even sometimes 40 raw wood pieces! These pieces can be refined for a chance to get upgrading materials, or the raw wood can be sold on your guild trader!
If you do chose to refine your raw materials, be sure to max out your “extraction” passive in each respective crafting skill line to get the most out of your materials!
Master Writs
Another item that you could receive while completing your daily writs is a master writ. Master writs are more extensive and exclusive writs that require the player to craft a particular item that requires much more crafting knowledge and experience than the regular daily writ.
A master writ may require the player to know a specific style or research trait. It may require the player to have read a specific recipe. For the most part, these kinds of writs are not ideal for newer players that have yet to learn a lot of recipes or motif styles or traits for armor and weapons. Once you do get to this level, however, these master writs are a great means to earn some extra income.
You can either chose to sell your master writs or complete them. Once you complete a master writ and turn them in to the master mediator, you will be rewarded with the set amount of vouchers that was specified on your particular writ. These writ vouchers can be used to purchase a plethora of items from both Mastercraft merchants. If you are looking to convert writ vouchers to gold, I will provide a reference below of all of the items that you can purchase with writ vouchers. The items are ranked from most to least profitable (PC/NA prices).
| Item | Vouchers | Approx. Sale Price | Price Per Voucher |
| Hlaalu Furnisher’s Document | 25 | 38,000 | 1,520 |
| Summerset Furnisher’s Document | 50 | 53,000 | 1,060 |
| Jewelry Crafting Station | 125 | 130,000 | 1,040 |
| The Other Research Scrolls | 3 | 3,000 | 1,000 |
| The Other Stations | 35 | 33,000 | 942.85 |
| Jewelry Crafting Research Scroll | 10 | 9,000 | 900 |
| Attunable Station | 250 | 205,000 | 820 |
| Animus Stone | 50 | 40,000 | 800 |
| Gold Furnishing Patterns | 125 | 95,000 | 760 |
| Diminished Aetherial Dust | 50 | 38,000 | 760 |
| Gilding Wax | 20 | 15,000 | 750 |
| Transmutation Station | 1250 | 880,000 | 704 |
| Ebony Full Motif | 300 | 190,000 | 633 |
Besides showcasing the best way to convert writ vouchers to gold, I hope this chart also highlights the fact that while it is ideal to be able to attain a 1:1 ratio of vouchers to gold, many of the times you will not be able to do so. Even the top two most profitable items to buy, the furnishing documents, provide you with a RANDOM furnishing plan. Sometimes you may get a plan worth 5k. Other times it is a plan worth 500k. The approximate sales price is an average of all of the plans that you can get.
With this information, be sure that you keep your crafting costs low when you are completing your master writs so that you are truly getting your moneys worth.
Selling Craftable Gear
By doing your writs daily and on several toons, you will find that you will make a lot of passive gold while also stocking up on valuable materials, surveys, and other goodies that can contribute to your financial gain in ESO. Another way to make gold in ESO by means of crafting is to sell craftable gear!
There are a substantial amount of sets in ESO that can only be acquired by means of crafting. A lot of these sets are really useful, and even in some cases “meta”, making the notion of crafting sets to sell on the market a worthwhile endeavor.
Each craftable set has a trait requirement, meaning that the player must know a certain amount of traits in order to be able to craft gear of a specific set. In order to know a trait, you must have completed researching it. Not everyone is a “Grand Master Crafter“. Not everyone is going to be able to craft every single set piece in the game, which really opens up a window of opportunity for crafters to sell their craftable sets for reasonable prices.
For example: The set, “New Moon Acolyte” was introduced in the Elsweyr update, and it was used in a wide array of pvp and pve builds. It was considered to be a “meta set” at the time. Despite a handful of nerfs that it received, it still remains a strong option for pve stamina dps builds. NMA is a 9 trait set, meaning that pieces of gear from this set can only be crafted if the player knows all 9 traits for each given piece of armor/weapon. Researching all 9 traits for each piece of gear takes a very long time, I’d say a little over a year of constant and persistent researching. Because of this, NMA sold and continues to sell well. I myself have been selling Nirnhoned NMA daggers (66k crafting cost) for 180k (114k profit!) for about a year and a half now!
Be sure to keep up to date with the current meta each patch and what sets are selling well in ESO to be able to get a head start on crafting gear that is bound to be popular with each update.
Selling Consumables
Much like how those that invest a lot of time, effort and money into researching all of the traits (to craft gear!) and learning all of the styles (to complete master writs!) are rewarded, players that invest in learning all sorts of different recipes for foods and drinks will also find that their efforts are very much worthwhile. This is largely because of the fact that it is a far more rare occurrence for a player to be skilled enough to procure these items than it is for a player to not have the necessary skill or requirements to do so.
There are plenty of consumables that are an absolute necessity for daily gameplay, such as Artaeum Pickled Fish Bowl for pve magicka dps players, or Artaeum Takeaway Broth for stamina pvpers. There are also experience-boosting drinks that are a must-have for players looking to level up a new toon as quickly as possible. And I can’t forget to mention the new war torte consumables that are also a desirable commodity for anyone looking to level up their alliance war skill lines while participating in the least amount of pvp possible!
In order to craft any of the aforementioned items, one must first have read the recipe for them. These recipes are often pricey, and often require that you have your provisioning skill line completely levelled as well as your recipe Improvement maxed out.
By learning a multitude of recipes, you can put the materials that you collect from doing daily writs and/or daily quests in ESO to use, as opposed to just selling them. You will find that you will get more bang for your buck if you use your materials to craft a consumable to then sell on the market as opposed to merely listing those same materials.
I have made a lot of gold buying up [Powdered Mother of Pearl] at reasonable prices and then crafting [Artaeum Pickled Fish Bowl]s to sell!
Crafting Furniture
Housing is the true endgame in ESO. I’m not lying! While the crown store does offer a lot of furnishing options, the prices for these items are lucrative. Players instead resort to buying these same furnishings (and others that are not on the crown store!) from guild traders instead.
If you have the necessary skill lines and passives needed to craft furnishings, I’d highly recommend doing so, especially any new furnishings that pertain to the newest DLC or chapter, as those furnishings are going to be the most in demand.
Purchasing and crafting the gold furnishing plans (as seen above, in the “master writ” section) is also a great way to make gold! I find that, especially upon their initial release, crafting and selling these gold furnishings are among one of the more profitable crafting endeavors in the game.
For a full category of all of the ESO furnishings as well as what materials are required to craft them, I would highly suggest ESO MMO Fashion.
Tamriel Trade Secrets 