Breath of the Wild Rupee Farming: How to Make Money Fast

A Lynel Guts sells for 200 rupees. Put four of them in a cooking pot with one Energetic Rhino Beetle and the elixir that comes out sells for 2,330, against 830 for the same five items sold raw. That is not a glitch and it is not a special shop. It is the selling formula Zelda Wiki publishes for Breath of the Wild's meals and elixirs, and nothing else in this guide moves a sale price as far.

Breath of the Wild is stingy with cash, so almost every rupee you hold was sold for, looted, or paid out by a quest. This guide is the money side of that: what sells for the most, what the pot does to a price, the gem buyer who pays over shop rate, the handful of things that still drop rupees directly, and which side quests actually pay.

Rupees barely drop in this game

Zelda Wiki's Rupee entry puts the economy in one line: in Breath of the Wild, rupees do not appear when cutting grass or defeating most monsters. You get them by selling items, by finding them under rocks, in barrels, crates and treasure chests, and from the three creatures the wiki names as droppers: Yiga Clan members, Treasure Octoroks, and Blupees.

Two ceilings are worth knowing before you start. The wallet holds 999,999 from the start, with no wallet upgrades to buy, and Zelda Wiki notes that you can keep selling at the cap but the counter will not move. Zelda Wiki names the fourth Great Fairy Fountain, at 10,000, as the game's most expensive purchase: the fountains cost 100, 500, 1,000 and 10,000 in the order you open them, whichever fairy she is, so all four come to 11,600 before a single armor upgrade. What the fairies do once they are open is in the armor guide. A replacement Hylian Shield from Granté in Tarrey Town is another 3,000.

What sells for the most

These are the sell values from Zelda Wiki's table of Breath of the Wild materials: everything worth 50 rupees or more, plus the column that decides what you do with it.

Just under the line sit Lynel Horn and Ancient Shaft (40 each), Hinox Tooth, the three elemental Lizalfos Tails, Raw Gourmet Meat and Raw Whole Bird (35 each). Amber sells for 30 and Flint for 5.

The "No" rows are two different rules. Zelda Wiki's cooking page lists the materials that turn any dish into Rock-Hard Food — Amber, Diamond, Flint, Luminous Stone, Opal, Ruby, Sapphire, Topaz and Wood — and Rock-Hard Food sells for 2 rupees. Dragon parts and Star Fragments do cook, but the same page says they count as a 1-rupee ingredient when it prices the result. A 300-rupee horn shard in a meal is 299 rupees of resale thrown away before the multiplier even runs. Cook with horn shards for the long buff the dragon farming guide describes, not for money.

The Giant Ancient Core row comes with a warning rather than a rule: it is the rare part in the Guardian guide's price list for Cherry's Ancient gear, so do not cook one for 200 rupees and then go looking for another.

The cooking pot nearly triples a sale

Zelda Wiki's Cooking in Breath of the Wild page gives the sell price of a meal or elixir as a four-step sum:

1. Add up the sell prices of every ingredient.
2. Multiply by a modifier set by how many ingredients went in.
3. Round down to a whole number.
4. Round up to the next ten.

Five ingredients is 2.8x, so a full pot of anything valuable is worth close to three times the raw stack. Here is what that does to the parts people farm. The arithmetic is mine, on the wiki's formula and its material prices:

Read the first and fifth rows together. Four single-gut elixirs would sell for 1,680 and burn four beetles; one four-gut elixir sells for 2,330 and burns one. Batching is where the money is.

Four rules for a sale pot

• An elixir needs at least one critter and at least one monster part. Zelda Wiki counts Ancient parts as monster parts for this: Screws and Springs are low-grade, Gears and Shafts mid-grade, and the Ancient Core and Giant Ancient Core high-grade, the same tier as every monster's Guts.
• The critter gets multiplied too. The Energetic Rhino Beetle is the priciest critter on the wiki's material table at 30 rupees; the butterflies, darners, Hot-Footed Frog and Hightail Lizard are 2 each. Swap a 2-rupee Hot-Footed Frog into the Lynel pot and it sells for 2,250 instead of 2,330.
• Keep Fairies out of the pot. The wiki says a Fairy turns a recipe that would have been an elixir into a Fairy Tonic, and Fairy Tonics, Dubious Food and Rock-Hard Food all sell for 2 rupees whatever went into them.
• Cook Bokoblin Guts for yourself and Lynel Guts for the shop. The wiki is explicit that monster parts of the same grade differ only in sell price: Lynel Guts add exactly the duration and critical bonus chance a Bokoblin's do. A 20-rupee gut does the job in your own elixir.

One trap goes the other way. Buying ingredients to cook and resell loses money: Zelda Wiki's Material page puts most shops' asking price at four times an item's sell value (Beedle charges five), and the biggest multiplier the pot applies is 2.8. The formula rewards what you farmed, not what you bought. The cooking guide has the rest of the recipe logic if you are cooking to eat.

Ramella pays about 10 percent more, ten at a time

A gem in the pot only makes Rock-Hard Food, which makes Ramella the markup that matters for them. She is a Gerudo gem wholesaler who wanders Goron City by day and sleeps at the Rollin' Inn at night. Once Divine Beast Vah Rudania is calmed, she starts restocking and asks for ten Amber, which opens the side quest "The Jewel Trade."

Her offers, in her own words as Zelda Wiki and the Zelda Fandom wiki quote them, are always for ten:

The rules that come with her, per Zelda Wiki's Ramella entry:

• After the Amber quest she buys Topaz, Ruby, Sapphire and Diamond only. The Amber premium is the one-time quest payout.
• She picks the jewel, at random, and it is always ten. Sell her ten and she asks for ten more of the same, for as long as you have them.
• Do not try her with fewer than ten. She accuses you of pulling a fast one, and she stays locked on that jewel until you bring the full ten.
• Take the disguise off. Dressed in the Gerudo disguise, she takes you for a rival Vai buyer and will not trade.

The practical version: stockpile gems in tens and sell them in Goron City rather than at the first general store you pass. A 500-rupee premium on ten Diamonds pays for the second Great Fairy fountain outright.

Where rupees still drop as rupees

Three creatures drop cash directly, and one man in Lurelin will gamble with yours.

Blupees. Glowing blue rabbit-like spirits that live in forests across Hyrule. Hit one with an arrow, a Remote Bomb, a thrown boomerang or any melee weapon and it drops rupees; it cannot be killed, and it flees and vanishes in a flash of light once it notices you. Several gather on Satori Mountain on the nights the Lord of the Mountain appears, which the horse guide covers. Photograph one for Peeks in the Great Hyrule Forest and the "Legendary Rabbit Trial" side quest pays a Silver Rupee.

Treasure Octoroks. They bury themselves in sand or snow, disguised as a buried chest, and ambush whoever walks up. The Hyrule Compendium gives the Gerudo Highlands and Gerudo Desert as their common locations, and Zelda Wiki's habitat list adds beaches such as Aris Beach, Rimba Beach and Martha's Landing. The chest is part of the monster and is not magnetic, so Magnesis will not lift it, and a Remote Bomb pops the Octorok out confused and open to attack. A kill leaves rupees — anywhere from Green up to Silver on the wiki's list — plus Octorok parts.

Yiga Footsoldiers. They drop rupees and bananas when they teleport away. Zelda Wiki gives them two drop tables, Normal and High Rank:

Once Master Kohga is beaten they can also appear out of thin air to ambush you, so the money comes to you. The Yiga Clan Hideout guide covers the fight and the Hideout's own chests.

Numar's bet. On rainy days in Lurelin Village, Numar asks to borrow 100 rupees for the Treasure-Chest Game at Cloyne's shop. Come back the next day: if he won, he pays you 1,000; if he lost, he is broke and you are out 100. The next time it rains, he is back asking for another 100.

The farming loops that feed the pot

The direct drops above are small change next to what you can carry out of a fight and sell. These are the sources, what they drop, and where this site already covers the route:

Ore Deposits and Luminous Stone Deposits stay broken until the next Blood Moon, and then every one you cleared comes back. The Ruby off an ordinary Stone Talus is the easy one to forget: there is one on the Great Plateau, and it is worth 210 rupees before its second roll.

Side quests that pay in cash

Zelda Wiki lists 90 side quests for Breath of the Wild. These are the ones whose reward is a Gold Rupee, Diamonds, or a straight rupee payment:

Two of those are trades, and they point in opposite directions. Rushroom Rush! takes 55 Rushrooms, which sell for 3 rupees each (165 in total), and hands back a 500-rupee Diamond. Ledo keeps trading after his quest ends, one Diamond for every ten Luminous Stones — but ten stones sell for 700, so that repeat trade loses you 200 rupees every time (150 if Ramella is buying Diamonds). Take it only when you need the Diamond itself: Zelda Wiki lists Diamonds among what Harth, Rohan, Dento and Buliara need to rebuild the Champions' weapons.

If you are playing the sequel instead, the Tears of the Kingdom rupee guide runs the same question on its very different prices. More Hyrule breakdowns are on the Breath of the Wild coverage hub, and the rest of our coverage is on the Mythras blog.

Quick Action Checklist

• Do not sell valuable monster parts raw if you can fill a pot. Four Lynel Guts and one Energetic Rhino Beetle sell for 2,330 as an elixir and 830 raw.
• Batch to five ingredients. The sell multiplier is 1.5x for one ingredient and 2.8x for five.
• Put the most valuable critter you own in a sale elixir; its price is multiplied too.
• Keep gems, Luminous Stones, Flint and Wood out of the pot — they make Rock-Hard Food, which sells for 2.
• Sell dragon parts and Star Fragments raw. In a dish they are priced at 1 rupee.
• Keep Fairies away from a sale pot. A Fairy Tonic sells for 2.
• Cook your own elixirs with Bokoblin Guts; Lynel Guts give the same effect and are worth ten times as much at the shop.
• Do not buy ingredients to cook for profit. Shops charge about four times sell value and the pot tops out at 2.8x.
• Calm Vah Rudania, then sell gems to Ramella in Goron City in tens, without the Gerudo disguise on.
• Shoot Blupees in forests for rupees, and fight the Yiga Footsoldiers that ambush you once Kohga is beaten.
• Break a Stone Talus for its guaranteed Ruby, and sweep Ore Deposits again after every Blood Moon.
• Do Rushroom Rush! for a cheap Diamond, and skip Ledo's repeat Diamond trade unless you need the Diamond itself.