Terraria: Money

Killing Bosses, Farming Events, and Crafting Ores/Bars for Profit

Reforging can be expensive - let's make some money in Terraria!

Terraria's players need money to Reforge Weapons, Tools, and Accessories, buy supplies, and make up for losses after a death in which you don't take the time to recover the dropped gold. In this guide, I'll look at several ways of earning gold and platinum in Terraria and answer some common questions - like whether it's better to craft ore to bars or simply sell the ore you found mining directly, how to farm bosses, and what really are the best ways to make money in the game.

Overall you should do a bit of everything - just play, and do things intelligently as far as crafting goes. As long as your weapons and tools are reforged to have good modifiers that you find useful, and you've got all the supplies you need, the amount of money on your character is not that important. This should help someone come up with some cash in a pinch, however, if they're relatively new to the game.

First! Stashing Money and Piggy Banks

Putting money in a piggy bank not only lets you access it while shopping or reforging gear, it also prevents you dropping it should you die.

It is worth noting that you will save yourself significant trouble if you buy a Piggy Bank from the Merchant NPC for 1. The funds are accessible from anywhere once it's stored safely inside - whether reforging or shopping, you can access this money. Whether you do this or not, socking your money away in a piggy bank, safe, or regular chest will prevent it being dropped on death. You can also buy a second, carry it along with a table, and be able to plop the piggy bank on the table to access it anywhere (they can't be put on the ground).

This is a sort of shared stash, as what is in one piggy bank is accessible in all of them. Safes have their own shared stash, but come later in the game (post-Skeletron). They do not require a table to be placed. All of these are good for carrying buff potions and storing things when you'd otherwise have to return to town or choose to throw them away, as you can carry items inside them and extend your inventory capacity. The Money Trough (PC only) drops during blood moons and will give you remote access to your Piggy Bank. Keep it emptied aside from coins and those will be protected, while also allowing you to carry more loot and earn more money on a run.

The Best Way to Earn: Farming Bosses & Events

Frost Moon may not be as profitable as Pumpkin Moon, but it's still a fun and engaging way to earn money in the game.

Rather than make this like some cheesy top 20 article with a clickbait title, I'm getting straight to the best way I've found: farming bosses and events. I'm also going to list the items you need to farm to summon or initiate them as a bonus. Farming a normal mode boss may yield upwards of 10 when ore is turned into bars. This may not seem like much, but is quite a lot to a player who has not yet defeated Wall of Flesh to Initiate Hard Mode. It is plenty to reforge all gear to warding/legendary if you simply do this a few times and have a bit of luck. It gets substantially better with the Mechanical Bosses. I'm listing these in the order you are likely to encounter them.

Farming Early-game Bosses and Events for Money

Bosses drop materials, materials go for gold. They're a great money maker in the early-game.

• Blood Moon - a good time to get Lenses, but also a chance to slaughter enemies for some profit - at least enough to buy some supplies and reforge a thing or two. The sheer volume of zombies and wandering eyes can be handy for a player who is new, though they will need gear and perhaps a campfire to help make it through the night.
• Eye of Cthulhu - 6x Lens, farmed from wandering eyes at night - especially a new moon (total darkness) or blood moon. Craft at a Demon/Crimson Altar. It is more profitable in a Crimson World, because the ore is worth more. It is the most profitable of the three early-game bosses given its guaranteed 3 drop along with ore, but given the night-time requirement for both farming lenses and summoning it, it's worth listing the other two. If you're setting out just to make money, head to the Crimson/Corruption during the day and collect mushrooms and the monster-specific drops, then head to a neutral biome at night to kill the eyes.
• Eater of Worlds - Summoned once every 3 Shadow Orbs you break with a hammer. Once you're out, you can summon it using 6 vile mushrooms at a potion crafting station to make 30 vile powder. You'll also need 15 rotten chunks from killing enemies in the Corruption, in order to make the Worm Food that summons it. Crafted at a Demon Altar and must be used inside the Corruption, but at any time of day.
• Brain of Cthulhu - Summoned once every 3 Crimson Hearts you break with a hammer. Once you're out, you can summon it using 6 vicious mushrooms at a potion crafting station to make 30 vicious powder. You will need 15 vertebrae as well. Craft the Bloody Spine from these materials at a Crimson Altar. Must be used within the Crimson or it does nothing.
• Other Bosses are either not as profitable or not as easy to farm repeatedly - for example there's a 'cooldown' on the Wall of Flesh battle due to the need for the Guide to respawn, and to craft an Abeemination for Queen Bee takes more materials. Skeletron is not profitable at all compared to the others, though it does drop 5. Like Wall of Flesh there is a cooldown to summon him.

Hardmode Money - Boss Farming

Farming Hardmode Bosses can help you prepare for tougher challenges, particularly when you can kill them in less than a minute.

Hardmode Bosses are worth over 30 each, some more than others. The one you should farm depends upon your own build and that which you can kill fastest. Destroyer is likely easiest to farm - many find him the simplest of the bosses to face, especially on the surface, and the materials for him can be farmed at any time (thanks, kindly redditor!) Once you're in full Hallowed Armor, it is a very easy fight.

You can technically summon all three Mechanical Bosses at once and fight them, earning an achievement for doing so. However I wouldn't recommend this unless you've got great armor and a powerful weapon so you can bring them down quickly.

• Destroyer - Craft an an anvil 6 Rotten Chunk/Vertebrae (Crimson/Corruption Enemies), 5 Iron/Lead Bars, and 6 Souls of Night (Underground Crimson/Corruption kills) to make Mechanical Worm. Must be used at night.
• The Twins - Craft at an anvil 3 Lens (wandering eye), 6 Souls of Light (Underground Hallow enemies), and 5 Iron/Lead Bars to make Mechanical Eye. Must be used at night.
• Skeletron Prime - Craft at an anvil 30 Bones (Dungeon enemies), 5 Lead/Iron Bars, 3 Souls of Light and 3 Souls of Night to make Mechanical Skull. Must be used at night.
• Plantera - These two can be farmed as well, and are certainly worth doing. Plantera Bulbs will respawn in the Jungle from time to time, and if you've thoroughly explored it you can see these on the map. Go back every few days and there should be 3-6 bulbs available to summon it.
• Golem - Golem can be farmed, but it's not as reliable as other methods. For every 50 monsters you kill in the Jungle Temple, you might get one Lihzahrd Power Cell for use at the Altar. You can use Water Candles and Battle Potions to help increase the mob density inside so that you can score kills faster. One benefit of farming him is the Solar Tablets you'll also get, which can be used to trigger Solar Eclipses.

Farming Hardmode Events

Pumpkin Moon is arguably the most profitable event you can farm for Platinum in Terraria.

This is where the best money making in Terraria can be found - at least in the case of Frost Moon and Pumpkin Moon Events. Those two can net you 2-5 or more each due to the high silver drops of monsters and the price of items you'll receive for killing them. The upper limits are mainly reserved for those who create an arena with traps and the like to ensure maximum kills. It all depends how far you make it in terms of waves and if you can avoid any deaths (which eat into your killing time, which lasts from 7:30PM - 4:30AM). You can farm materials to trigger them yourself. These two are End-game, as Plantera must have been defeated in order to get Ectoplasm from the Dungeon.

• Pirate Invasion - Not that much money, though they will drop golden furniture that sells for 2 each, it pales in comparison to other farming methods.
• Solar Eclipse - Better than the Pirate Invasion, given the number of kills you can achieve in a night with Water Candles and a Battle Potion. Trigger these by farming for Solar Tablets and Fragments in the Jungle Temple.
• Martian Madness - It may be possible to make more from a Solar Eclipse, and this event is not something you can easily farm like with the Eclipse. The enemies are harder and, while they drop good for each kill, it's more for the gear than the money.
• Frost Moon - Monsters can drop 10-30 Silver each but the items can be worth upwards of 20. Make a Naughty Present using 5 Ectoplasm from the Dungeon, 5 Soul of Fright from Skeletron Prime, and 20 Silk, made from 140 Cobwebs at a Loom. Be prepared, however, for this event is harder than all others aside from the Lunar Events, which are not profitable but are intended to get end-game gear that makes farming these events easier.
• Pumpkin Moon - Listed this one last, as it seemed to net me the most profit with normal fighting. Harder than Martian Madness aside from the UFO, but with a substantial improvement for farming as with Frost Moon, below. It is 1. something you can make from renewable items in order to summon it, and 2. has waves rather than a normal progress bar, and lasts all night. Therefore, you can get to a high wave count and keep it going all night long. Summon the Pumpkin Moon by making a Pumpkin Moon Medallion with the following at a Mythril/Orichalcum Anvil:
  • 30x Pumpkin - buy seeds from the Dryad and grow them yourself, easy to get large quantities.
  • 5x Ectoplasm - farm in the Dungeon after Plantera.
  • 10x Hallowed Bar - farm from Mechanical Bosses, above. The best to farm for the purpose of event farming is Skeletron Prime, because he drops the bars needed for this one, and Souls of Fright for Frost Moon

Tax Collector

(PC-only) The Tax Collector will net you 1 Gold per 10 minutes if you have all 20 NPCs in town.

PC players can take Purification Powder from the Dryad to the Underworld and use it on a Tortured Soul in order to get their own Tax Collector NPC for the village. You get an income of 50 per minute per NPC in town, up to a maximum of 10 gold. It's nice to be able to get the free gold, but not an amazing money-maker in and of itself. With 20 NPCs, you'll get about 1 Gold every 10 minutes. Still, free money is free money!

Which is Worth More: Selling Ores vs Bars

With a Spelunker Potion, mining can be a great money-maker. You must be willing to part with the ore as opposed to hording it, but it's still a lot less than simply farming bosses. You can perhaps meet those levels with Spelunker/mining potions helping you, but not without stripping your world.

Normal Ores
We all come to a point where the early-game Ores are no longer useful and just taking up space in the stash. Unless you're going to use them for some build that requires a metallic look, it is better to sell it than horde it and get nothing from it, though some are worth keeping - iron/lead and gold/platinum ores for potions. Keep in mind that you can always load up a new world, take your character with their great pickaxe and a mining potion and go to town tearing things up, then delete that world if you like. It's an honest way to make money in the game.

For everything under Crimtane/Demonite, it is better to just sell the ores - they stack higher, and the bars are worth an equivalent amount. However, with the transition to these better ores - which are infinitely farmable by the way of summoning bosses - the bars are worth more. Demonite ore is worth 8 and a bar is worth 32 yet it only takes 3 ore to make a bar. Crimtane is 9 vs 40. For Meteorite, which is not as easily farmed, the gap is even wider - but those do not come in quantity. Last of the pre-Hardmode ores is Hellstone, but you should keep that for ammunition and the great flask of fire. Hellstone and the obsidian used to turn it into bars cannot be sold, but the bars themselves come in at 40 - not as amazing as it seems given the need to enter lava while also farming obsidian to make it. The obsidian skull is good profit, mentioned below.

Hardmode Ores
Hardmode Ores are equal to bars up to Orichalcum, where selling the ore is worth more than the bars. The same holds true for Titanium - ore is worth 17 but it takes 5 to make it into a bar. Instead of the 85 you might expect if it were equal, you get 75.

Chlorophyte is the only ore other than Demonite/Crimtane that can be farmed infinitely within a single world, through the process of setting up Chlorophyte farms. While an ore, Chlorophyte is worth 6. It is much more profitable to turn it into bars, where they are worth 90 - in fact, you get over double by doing so because 6x6 = 36. Chlorophyte doesn't grow very quickly, but it can be helpful to pad your income. The time may be better spent simply summoning Eye/Brain of Cthulhu or Eater of Worlds every night and pocketing the profit.

Chlorophyte is unique in that it can be turned into two other types of bars - Shroomite and Spectre Bars. In both cases, you're better of to just sell the Chlorophyte. It takes 15 Glowing mushrooms plus the investment into an Autohammer for a marginal profit given the volume of mushrooms (15) one must come up with to make a substantial amount of Shroomite. Spectre bars are a flat loss. Ectoplasm (sells for 50) and 2 Chlorophyte (sells for 180) will get you 2 Spectre Bars that sell for 1 each. A loss of 30 - just sell the Ectoplasm and Chlorophyte, or else use the Ectoplasm for the profitable Pumpkin Moon Event!

TL;DR - Good money, but not time-efficient
Overall you can make decent profits from the ore you collected while you were gearing up and selling it is not to be discouraged, however it's not very effective as a money-making method given the need for Mining/Spelunker Potions (tutorial) to truly make a lot of dough while out mining for metals. You will also eventually strip-mine the world and not have any more of that. While I hope the ore/bar selling profits above are helpful to you, it's not the best way to make money.

Crafting

For the most part, crafting for money is reserved for metal bars. You're far better off directing your energy toward better means of making money, since many of the items you can make are worth less than the materials used to make them.

In general, crafting weapons and armors expecting to turn a profit will cost you. Even if you roll a legendary item, it will not be worth much more than the ore itself. Losses are heavy in these cases, so heavy that it's just not worth doing, aside from the fact that they must be crafted one at a time. Certain decorations can sell for a lot, but they require loads of farming to make a substantial sum - like goldfish bowls, silk from cobwebs, and tiki torches. You're far better off farming bosses, though AFK farms are a thing in Terraria. See below for some good links to examples.

Fishing

Fishing can be extremely profitable, especially if you save up crates for Hard Mode. The crates will give you hardmode ore without you even smashing altars. Ultimately though, any ore you get from these is extra and can be sold. There are other things of value to be found inside as well, and some fish go for a few silver and can be profitable when sold in stacks.

Automated Farms

The best way to make passive income in Terraria. Statue AFK farms got nerfed in the PC 1.3 update, though they are still good for players on Console/Mobile. The process requires timers, wiring and thus the Mechanic NPC in order to hook up statues you find to make mobs spawn, and get their drops. Here is a link to the various types of statues on the wiki. I myself have done this only lightly to get gel and/or hearts from statues, but hear players make a decent sum per hour and some even farm the Pumpkin/Frost Moon events doing things like this. Given how profitable that can be, I'd rather guide you in that direction rather than piddly sums you might get from farming jellyfish necklaces.

For further reading on these types of farms and setting them up, see DicemanX's post about designing farms, farming key molds, and you'll learn a lot from one of the most experienced machine designers. The greats at the official Terraria Forum have a huge list of links in their Mechanical Engineering Corps here that can teach you all you'll ever need to know to make builds work for you! Below, you can find videos showing off what some of this can do, with a bit of time and imagination.

Zerogravitas Videos

This person comes up with amazing things using Terraria's mechanics - for example 'hoiks' that automatically move the player character. He has his own channel on youtube, which you can view here. Follow the links you find on the channel to learn even more. He post great tutorials on the Official Forum's guide section.

Pumpkin/Frost Moon/Boss AFK Farming

DicemanX showed me one of his videos in a thread i'd made on the Terraria subreddit (A great place to subscribe and get new content daily). In this video, you can see an elaborate AFK farm for Event and Boss farming. This is up to date for Terraria 1.3.

Pumpkin Moon Farm

Here is HappyDays going into detail on how he made a Pumpkin Moon AFK Farm. It's good stuff and should teach you a lot about how people do these things, so that you can come up with your own builds! Some of this is doable for players on the console and mobile versions of Terraria. You can check out HappyDays' Youtube Channel Here, where there are loads of Terraria videos that can teach you more.

Biome Key/AFK Money Farm

Another video by HappyDays, where he describes how to set up a farm for biome keys that will also generate money should you have the Lucky Coin (Pirate Invasion rare drop). It's a good AFK farm either way, and you may get the pirate map from enemies once you've set this up, so that you can earn money with the farm design. Good stuff!

In Closing

I'll continue to update this page and the whole site as I learn more to share about the game. I hope this is helpful to some of you cash-strapped Terraria players who just can't afford to reforge your gear. If you've never farmed bosses before, I suggest you start farming materials as there is a lot of money to be made. Later you can get all the money you'll ever need with the Frost and Pumpkin Moon Events. If you're interested in AFK/Automated farms you can look into that much deeper, though HappyDays provides some solid info in his tutorial.