IdleMMO Market Flipping Guide

Every few weeks someone in chat says they doubled their gold flipping. Usually they flipped one item that happened to spike. The repeatable version is duller: understand the fees, only touch items that actually trade, and price your orders so the maths works even when the price doesn't move in your favour. This guide sets out the rules from the official wiki, works through the break-even numbers, and points you at the tools on this site that do the screening.

The market rules that matter

• Listings are items you put up for sale. Unsold listings are removed after 90 days.
• Buy orders (purchase orders) are standing offers to buy an item at a set price. When someone lists that item, the game checks for matching orders, so an item can sell into your order instantly. Since version 0.42.0 you can't fill an order directly; you list the item and the system matches it.
• Limits: 10 listings and orders combined on a free account, 25 with membership. Alt characters need a total level of 150 before they can use the market at all.
• Trade-locked classes (Banished, Cursed) can't use the market, so they can't flip. See the classes guide.

The fee, in full

A buy order carries a base fee of 15% of the order's total price, or 12% for members. Longer orders add a duration fee on top:

The base fee is not refunded if the order expires unfilled. That single line is the reason most casual flipping loses money: an order priced too low sits there, expires, and you have paid 15% for nothing. The wiki's market page lists only these order fees; check the confirmation screen when you list for any cut taken on the sale side, and add it to the numbers below.

Break-even, worked through

Say you place a 24-hour buy order for 100 units at 50 gold each. The order total is 5,000 gold. As a free player the fee is 15% + 1% = 16%, which is 800 gold, so the 100 units cost you 5,800 gold all-in: 58 gold per unit. You need to sell above 58 just to break even, before any sale-side cost. As a member the fee is 12% + 1% = 13%, so 5,650 gold and a break-even of 56.5.

Turn that around and you get the rule of thumb: on a 24-hour order, the price you sell at has to be at least 16% above your buy price (13% for members) to profit. A 12-hour order shaves 1% off that, but gives the order half the time to fill. Members can use long orders on slow items; a 14-day order costs 12% + 8% = 20%, so it only makes sense on items with a very wide spread.

And if the order doesn't fill, you lose the base fee anyway. Pricing a buy order slightly higher to make sure it fills is often cheaper than pricing it low and eating an expired fee.

Picking what to flip

A wide spread means nothing if three units trade a day. Two things to check before you commit an order slot:

• Volume. Our Market Movers page shows the biggest gainers, losers and the most-traded items from cached price history, with average units sold per day. Stick to items that trade comfortably more per day than you plan to buy.
• Direction. The same page shows each item's change over its comparison window. Flipping into a falling item means your listing chases the price down. Items moving sideways with steady volume are the safest.

Look up any single item in the item database for its price chart and drop sources. If an item is a common drop, supply can jump without warning when an event or patch makes it easier to farm; that is the risk you are being paid to take.

Flipping your own production

The most reliable "flip" is not buying low at all: it is selling what you gather or craft at the market price instead of the vendor price. The bartering tool ranks items by the gap between market and vendor price, and the money making guide ranks gathering and crafting by profit after material costs, with a volume screen that flags thin markets. For crafters, buying inputs with buy orders and selling the output is a flip with a skill-XP bonus attached.

Order slots are the real limit

With 10 slots on a free account, every slot tied up by a slow order is a slot not making money. A few habits help:

1. Use 12-hour orders on fast-moving items. They fill quickly and cost no duration fee.
2. Cancel and re-price orders that are clearly below the market rather than letting them expire, since the base fee is gone either way.
3. Keep a note of your buy price per item. It is easy to forget the fee and list at what feels like a profit but is under break-even.
4. Don't flip with gold you need for gear or dungeon entry. A stuck order is gold you can't spend until it fills or expires.

Membership changes the maths enough to matter for heavy traders: a lower base fee, 25 slots instead of 10, and access to 3-14 day orders. Whether that is worth it depends on how much you actually trade, so run your own numbers with the fee table above.

Frequently asked questions