Ironman's money-making methods differ significantly from those you can do on a regular account. This is a natural consequence of the fact that you won't be able to sell any of your items on the Grand Exchange. Therefore, you can only get GP for your items by casting the High Alchemy spell on them or selling them to various NPCs or stores around Gielinor. Besides this, you can also obtain GP from drops in lower or higher quantities, by pickpocketing, or through various other means, such as a few of the minigames. However, you can only sell or alch some of the items, and a few categories are not worth alching even if you could do it.
Why You Need Gold As An Ironman
The good news is that you will only need a little GP on an ironman account as on a regular account since you will obtain all the items yourself. Still, there are a few money drains for ironman accounts. Unless you're an HCIM whose main struggles revolve around not dying on top of being unable to trade, you will probably spend a fair amount of GP on retrieving items from your grave or death coffer.
Another big chunk will also go on the Kingdom of Miscellania if you want extra herbs or mahogany logs to train your Herblore, Magic, and Construction. Closely related is the money you'll spend on creating planks to level your Construction, regardless of whether you are using the sawmill or the Lunar Plank Make spell.
Besides all this, as an ironman, you are allowed to buy one particular item from the Grand Exchange: the OSRS Bond. Depending on how many you're using at a time, it will give you a minimum of 14 days of membership. Regardless of what you’re spending your iron money on, you will also need to make money, and as you progress your account, it will become easier to do so, even though you might face higher costs here and there.
Beginner Methods
Stronghold of Security
If you're just starting out, completing the Stronghold of Security is the best way to get some initial cash. You will receive a one-time 10k GP.
Thieving
Stealing Silk and then selling it to the Silk merchant in Ardougne is another excellent and easy method to earn as a beginner. You’ll earn 60 coins per silk, but you must wait sometime before the merchant stops pointing at you as the thief. He forgets that you stole from him in around 20 minutes. You’ll also be able to make some cash by pickpocketing certain NPCs, such as the Ardougne knights at 55 Thieving. With both of these methods, you’ll also earn some Thieving XP.
Giants’ Foundry
The Giants’ Foundry minigame is another way to obtain gold and Smithing XP. You can either buy some equipment such as platebodies, platelegs, or scimitars from the specific sellers in Varrock or Al’Kharid or use your drops instead of high alching them. You can start with bronze and iron equipment at level 15 Smithing, and one of the rewards you’ll receive for completing the giant sword will be some GP depending on the tier of the sword and quality.
Mid-Level Methods
Slayer
The first thing to consider when doing Slayer is that you can get gold and other loot from Brimstone chests directly, but you’ll need Brimstone keys to open it. In the long run, it might be worth doing Konar tasks as they are the only tasks where the monsters also drop Brimstone keys, at the cost of having to go to specific locations to kill the task monsters.
You’ll need 75 combat to start receiving tasks from Konar, and you’ll only feel like you started earning after level 75 Slayer when you can receive Gargoyle tasks. This is because they drop a lot of alcheables, and on top of this, they have a pretty common 10k gold drop. Before 75, the best you can get is Dust Devils starting with level 65 since they also drop larger amounts of coins and alcheables. At level 70 Slayer, you’ll also unlock Kurasks, which can drop a decent amount of gold and who share the 10k GP drop.
Agility
The Agility Pyramid is another method to earn a profit. You can start doing it at level 30 Agility, but the higher your level is, the less you will fail and the more you will make per hour in terms of GP and XP. You can then sell the top of the Pyramid for 10k gold, and your investment is minimal as all you need is waterskins to prevent getting damaged by the desert heat.
High-Level Methods
Raids/Bosses
You can start doing Raids besides Slayer and regular bosses at high levels, provided you have unlocked good gear and earned reasonable amounts of gold directly as drops and even more items that you can cast high alchemy on.
Extra Tips
While some costs are unavoidable, others can be minimized with some strategy. For example, you can always have a kitten following you since you can trade it for death runes, especially early on, since you will eventually need death runes so that you will save the cost of those runes. Another great tip is always to train your Construction skill using the Mahogany Homes minigame since you will use drastically fewer planks than the traditional player-owned house method.
