While not what most players think of when it comes to gold farming, providing player services is a legitimate way to earn some gold. It requires you to have the proper class available and decent communication skills. In many cases, it won’t be as much gold per hour as a full-on farm. But it requires less attention and effort once underway. A good way to make some gold while hanging out with guildmates in Discord or watching videos.
Updated for WoW Classic Phase 6
Know Your Raiders & World Buffs
Hunter Dire Maul North Tribute Access | Mage Portals | Warlock Summons | Tanking Dungeons
See all my gold farming guides.
Know Your Raiders & World Buffs
Most of these services involve helping raiders get world buffs in a more time-efficient manner. So you need to understand how world buffs work on your server.
- Popular raid times: Tuesday/Thursday/Friday evening and throughout the weekend. Can vary on your server.
- World buff locations: Yojamba Isle (ZG island), Booty Bay, Dire Maul North, Felwood, and Dark Moon Faire (one week a month).
- Most guides recommend doing Dire Maul North Tribute and Songflower buffs before Onyxia/Nefarian and ZG buffs.
- Keep track of when Onyxia/Nefarian and ZG buffs are scheduled to go out.
- Download Nova World Buffs addon (disable the guild chat spam, please).
- Some raiders will want access earlier in the day, with potentially fewer competitors. Check out your favorite spots throughout Saturday and Sunday to see if there is an opportunity for you.
If you haven’t joined your server’s Discord find an invite link and sign up. Coordination and communication of world buffs are often found there.
Hunter Dire Maul North Tribute Access
The most popular hunter farm is Dire Maul North tribute runs. You can find lots of guides and videos with details on how to pull a solo run. The result is tribute loot in a chest and access to the king buff. That king buff is what opens up player services around your newly cleared instance.
Pros
- Clearing the instance is doable alone, without any interference from other players.
- Handoff instance to a mage or warlock alt to provide additional services at a higher price.
- Can opt to reset and clear a new instance for loot if not getting enough customers.
Cons
- Dire Maul is inconvenient to get to for Alliance.
- Possible to mess up and get killed, costing you time and gold.
- Can only handle up to 5 active customers at a time.
- Competition from other players doing the same thing
Offering Your Player Services
You’ll want to have some experience running the instance first. After that automate as much of the process as you can.
- Learn how to solo a tribute run and what materials you’ll need to bring. I recommend practicing before trying it before a popular raid time.
- Setup AutoInvite or any other addon that supports keyword invites. Make sure “inv” and “invite” are set as keywords.
- Create a macro to advertise your services. As your customers are local a Yell or Dire Maul general chat channel both work. Make sure to include your auto-invite keyword.
- Get set up early.
Rotate Around the Competition
- The more hunters selling this service the fewer customers you’ll get.
- You (and they) can only have up to 5 customers inside the instance at once. Players take several minutes to run to the end, then back out again. This creates a time when competitors aren’t advertising.
- Start your advertising when there is a lull. Ideally, you should be working through your customers while they are recruiting new ones, and vice versa.
Profit Potential
You could earn 125 gold per hour, but in most cases, it’ll be less.
- Best case you’re getting 25 gold per batch of customers (5 gold each on my server). You might be able to go through 5 batches per hour under ideal conditions, so 125 gold per hour is likely your best case.
- In all likelihood, you’ll see less than this. Or the demand drys up after the first hour.
- If things are too slow consider going back to solo farming. If you know your average gold per hour farming the instance that helps you decide when to stop selling access.
Team Up for More Profit
- Team up with a mage and/or a warlock to offer a combo service.
- A warlock (and one other clicker) can summon new customers to you from anywhere. Expand your advertisement to the LFG or World global channels.
- The mage can keep a Stormwind/Orgrimmar open for your customers when they exit the instance.
- You can increase your asking fee and pull in as many, if not more customers.
- You’ll need to work out profit sharing with the other players. But if you can bring in more customers you’ll all make more together than you would have alone.
Mage Portals
Mages are accustom to being paid for various player services. Their food and water were in demand during our leveling days. Now the easiest way a mage can make gold is by offering access to portals. Though not necessarily the best gold per hour. If you have a mage alt level 40 or higher you can also get in on the action.
Pros
- Desire to save as much world buff time as possible increases the demand for portals away from popular buff spots.
- The most in-demand portal will be Stormwind/Orgrimmar, only requiring level 40.
- Solo venture and easy to watch videos or chat with friends.
- Low reagent cost (18 silver can port a large group).
Cons
- Income is based on tips, not fees (on my server).
- A lower barrier to entry means more potential competition.
Offering Your Player Services
You’ll need to get ready to offer portal services ahead of time. Prime raid hours are no time to run out of portal reagents.
- Stock up on Runes of Portals.
- Setup AutoInvite or any other addon that supports keyword invites. Make sure “inv” and “invite” are set as keywords.
- Create a macro to advertise your services. As your customers are local a Yell will work, but can also use the zone-wide general chat. Make sure to include your auto-invite keyword.
- Get out to your location early.
Once ready the workflow for providing portals is fairly easy given you don’t have to force a trade with every customer.
- Advertise your service with your macro every few minutes.
- With your first invite convert the party to a raid.
- By default have a Stormwind/Orgrimmar open when working at a world buff location. Open other portals upon request.
- Let the other players trade you if they’re going to tip. Get those trades complete ASAP, or you may lose a tip from an impatient player.
Profit Potential
It’ll vary as your income will by a tip on most servers.
- The recommended tip amount on my server is 1-2 gold. Remember your reagent cost is low, so the real cost is your time.
- For every generous donor (5+ gold) you’ll get a freeloader. You need to let that slide.
- Location matters. ZG island and Booty Bay will get you a burst of customers and tips right after a buff goes off, but very little between buffs. Dire Maul North or Dark Moon Faire will have fewer customers at once, but potentially more consistency.
- Have no delusions that this mostly passive income will outperform an active farm. You are giving up gold per hour in exchange for a more relaxed activity.
Team Up for More Profit
- Team up with a warlock (and one other clicker) to offer a summoning and portal combo.
- You can charge a fee rather than take tips, up to twice what a summons costs.
- You’ll need to work out profit sharing with the other two players (less if one of you has a second WoW account for the clicker). But if you can bring in more customers you’ll both make more together than you would have alone.
Warlock Summons
Warlocks can get in on the world buff player services action by selling summons. The barrier to entry is higher than for a mage, but you can pull it off with a level 20 warlock alt if you wish.
Pros
- Desire to save as much world buff time as possible increases the demand for a summons to buff spots and current raid entrances.
- Can charge a set fee (5 gold on my server) and collect as soon as the customer zones in.
- Addons are available to make things easier.
Cons
- Need two other characters to click on the summoning portal. Unless you have three WoW accounts you’ll need to recruit and pay for help.
- Soul Shards are a big limiting factor, and you will need to go elsewhere to farm up more if not in a level-appropriate zone.
- Lower level warlocks will need help getting set up at many spots.
Offering Your Player Services
You’ll need to get ready to offer summoning services ahead of time. Prime raid hours are no time to be caught farming up Soul Shards.
- Invest in bag space. Four Soul Pouches are your best value per Soul Shard slot.
- Setup SteaSummon or a similar addon. It helps automate a lot of the process. Customers whisper your keywords for an invite and to request a summons. You get a window of requests and a single button to press fill the next one.
- Farm up as many Soul Shards as you can carry. When you run out you’re done earning gold for a while.
- Make arrangements to have two clickers to assist you. If you don’t have multiple WoW accounts ask guildies. If they help you farm up Soul Shards consider splitting all profits equally. If not then offer them a smaller share (1 gold each for a 5 gold fee).
Once ready the workflow for providing summons is fairly easy with the help of your addon.
- Form a raid with your clickers once in place.
- Advertise your service in the appropriate worldwide chat channel. On my server everyone uses LFG. Include instructions that will work with SteaSummon. Whispering you “inv” for an auto-invite and putting “123” in raid chat for summons.
- Invites and requests should be automated. Press SteaSummon’s button to summon the next customer.
- When the customer appears in front of you open trade. They will take longer to load on their end, so be patient. They should pay you your fee and then be on their way. You won’t need to worry about kicking them from the raid in most cases.
- Repeat summons as requested until either business slow down or you run out of Soul Shards.
Profit Potential
You can make 133-240 gold per session, assuming a full load of Soul Shards and sharing profits with your partners.
- Assuming you start with and use up 80 Soul Shards (four 20-slot soul bags) and charge 5 gold you’ll make 400 gold per batch.
- Depending on how you split with your clickers your share will be 133-240 gold.
- You can opt to farm more Soul Shards and see how demand holds up when you return. Or farm up for the next popular raid time and call it a night. Remember, there are 4-5 days a week where world buff summons is in demand.
- Keep in mind you might not get 80 customers before things die down, so gold per hour is still a good metric to track.
Team Up for More Profit
- If one of your clickers is a level 40+ mage you can offer a summoning and portal combo.
- You can charge up to twice as much for a combo setup and still keep customers over the cheaper competition.
- The mage will need a decent share of the profits, as they are using reagents and doing more than clicking. But if you can bring in more customers you’ll both make more together than you would have alone.
Tanking Dungeons
Any warrior, paladin, or feral druid with the proper gear and experience can turn their tanking into player services. You don’t need to be the main tank for your raid team, but you need to be a regular tank. This is not something a DPS warrior with little tanking gear and no pull experience should jump into. When players pay for a tank they expect a smooth run. This service can be more controversial than the others above. You would not be the first tank to want compensation for running a dungeon they don’t need. But some players take exception to the issue, so be aware.
Pros
- Use your in-game skills as a warrior, paladin, or feral druid tank. Raid tanks have the gear and experience to provide very smooth runs for customers.
- Lots of demand during peak times which aren’t also raid times. There are rarely enough free tanks to go around.
- In addition to your fee, you’ll collect a share of the raw gold and vendor trash.
Cons
- Some players take exception to the idea of having to pay for a tank. Expect some negative feedback and be ready to ignore anyone being abusive.
- You won’t be able to choose the dungeon or group. You can be hindered by the other players if they lack gear, skill, or experience.
- Demand for dungeon runs is down in Classic and will continue to fall as time goes on.
Offering Your Player Services
Primarily you’ll need to settle on a fee to charge. You have a couple of options and should go with what lands you the most jobs.
- Asking for gold upfront is an option, but will cause the most negative commentary in LFG or Trade chat.
- If asking for gold you need to see what other tanks are charging. Otherwise plan to adjust your amount to balance profit with demand. Better to do two runs for 50 gold each than one run for 75 gold.
- As an alternative to gold, you can hard reserve the first valuable drop, depending on the dungeon. For example, you get the first Dark Rune in Scholomance. Or the first Righteous Orb in Live Strat. You need to check auction house prices to see what options work for you.
Profit Potential
It depends on your chosen fee and how much demand you see. Don’t expect more than one dungeon run per hour. If you just want gold to try a more regular farm. If you love to the tank then the gold is a nice bonus.