OSRS DPS & Money Making 2026: Maximize Your GP Per Hour

If you have ever wondered why some players consistently pull five to ten million GP per hour while you are struggling to break two million doing the same bosses, the answer usually is not luck or secret methods. It is damage output efficiency. After years of grinding every major boss in Old School RuneScape and tracking my profit rates obsessively, I can tell you that understanding your damage per second properly is the difference between mediocre returns and genuinely profitable gameplay.

Most players approach money making backwards. They look for the highest GP per hour methods on guides like this one, buy the recommended gear, head to the boss, and wonder why their actual profits do not match the advertised rates. The problem is that those advertised rates assume optimal damage output, proper gear combinations, and efficient kill speeds. If your setup is suboptimal or your weapon choice is wrong, you are leaving millions on the table without even realizing it.

This guide focuses on something most money making guides completely ignore. The actual math behind damage efficiency and how it directly translates into gold. Whether you are grinding Vorkath, camping God Wars bosses, or doing Slayer for profit, your damage per second determines your real earnings far more than the activity itself.

Why Damage Per Second Is Your Real Money Maker

When players ask me how to make more money in OSRS, my first question is always about their damage output, not their bank value or total levels. You can own a Twisted Bow, but if you are using it with the wrong setup or at the wrong monsters, you will make less money than someone with a Blowpipe and proper optimization.

Damage Per Second is the combination of three critical factors that work together. Your maximum hit from Strength bonuses, your accuracy from Attack bonuses and weapon stats, and your weapon attack speed. Most players only pay attention to max hit because big numbers feel satisfying, but max hit alone tells you nothing about your actual damage output.

Real world example from my own experience. I spent two weeks camping Brutal Black Dragons testing different setups to find the most profitable approach. Setup one used full Bandos with an Abyssal Whip for fast attacks and decent accuracy. Setup two used Justiciar armor with a Dragon Warhammer for higher max hits but slower attacks. Setup one consistently made thirty percent more gold per hour despite having a lower max hit on paper.

The reason was simple. The faster weapon speed meant more attacks per minute, which translated into more total damage dealt over time. Even though each individual hit was smaller, the cumulative effect was far superior. This is the power of understanding DPS properly instead of just chasing max hit increases.

When you are trying to maximize money making efficiency, every single kill time matters. If you can reduce your average boss kill from two minutes to one minute thirty seconds, that is a thirty three percent increase in kills per hour. More kills means more drops, which means more gold. Even a ten percent DPS improvement can translate into hundreds of thousands of extra gold per day.

The problem is that calculating DPS manually is complicated and tedious. You need to factor in weapon speed measured in game ticks, accuracy percentages against specific monster defence levels, prayer bonuses, gear bonuses, and special attack rotations. Most players never do these calculations, which means they are making gear choices based on guesswork rather than actual math.

This is where using a proper damage calculator becomes essential for anyone serious about making money efficiently. The OSRS DPS Calculator handles all the complex formulas instantly and lets you compare different weapon and gear combinations to see which actually produces better gold per hour results.

I use this calculator before every major gear purchase now. If I am deciding between two weapon upgrades, I input both setups and immediately see the DPS difference. Sometimes a twenty million gold upgrade only increases DPS by five percent, which would take months to pay back. Other times a three million gold upgrade increases DPS by fifteen percent, paying for itself in weeks. Making these calculations has saved me hundreds of millions in wasted gear purchases.

Understanding Weapon Speed and Attack Cycles

Weapon speed is probably the most underestimated factor in money making optimization. The game measures attack speed in ticks, where one tick equals zero point six seconds. This might sound like a minor technical detail, but it has massive implications for your profit rates.

A weapon that attacks every four ticks makes fifteen attacks per minute. A weapon that attacks every five ticks makes only twelve attacks per minute. That is a twenty five percent difference in attack frequency, which often translates directly into a similar difference in damage output and therefore gold per hour.

The fastest weapons in the game are typically four tick weapons like the Abyssal Whip, Dragon Scimitar, and Toxic Blowpipe. These weapons might not have the highest max hits, but their speed makes them incredibly powerful for consistent damage output. Slower weapons like two handed swords or halberds attack every six or seven ticks, which means fewer total attacks even if each hit deals more damage.

This creates interesting optimization opportunities that most players never consider. Sometimes a faster weapon with lower bonuses outperforms a slower weapon with higher bonuses purely because of attack speed differences. The only way to know for certain is calculating the actual DPS of both options.

For money making specifically, faster weapons usually win except in specific scenarios. Bosses with very high defence might favor slower, more accurate weapons. Monsters with low hitpoints might not survive long enough for weapon speed to matter. But for the majority of profitable activities, faster weapons with good accuracy produce better results.

I learned this lesson grinding Vorkath for hundreds of hours. Many players recommend the Dragon Hunter Lance because it has the highest bonuses against dragons. However, after calculating my actual DPS, I found that my Blowpipe setup was killing Vorkath almost as fast while costing less in supplies. The faster attack speed compensated for the lower bonuses, and the cheaper ammunition meant better profit margins.

Understanding weapon speed also helps explain why certain seemingly weak weapons are actually amazing for specific money making methods. The Bone Crossbow is technically a weak weapon, but its fast attack speed makes it excellent for low defence monsters in the Wilderness. The Abyssal Dagger is not as popular as the Whip, but its faster speed makes it superior for certain Slayer tasks.

Accuracy and Why It Destroys Profit at High Defence Bosses

Accuracy is the silent profit killer that most players completely ignore until they start doing endgame content. When you are killing low defence monsters, accuracy barely matters because you hit almost every attack anyway. But at high defence bosses, low accuracy absolutely destroys your damage output and your profit rates.

Every time you miss an attack, that is zero damage dealt during that attack cycle. If your accuracy is seventy five percent, you are missing one out of every four attacks, which is a twenty five percent reduction in your effective DPS right there. At high defence bosses, accuracy differences of ten or twenty percent translate into massive kill time differences.

God Wars Dungeon is where most players first experience accuracy problems. Commander Zilyana has very high Defence, and players with mediocre gear find themselves missing constantly. Each miss extends the kill time, which means more food consumed, more prayer points used, and fewer total kills per trip. This compounds into significantly worse profit rates compared to players with proper accuracy setups.

The solution is usually upgrading your weapon or improving your Attack level, but many players make the wrong upgrades because they do not calculate accuracy properly. They buy expensive Strength boosting gear when they actually need accuracy improvements. Or they train Strength when they should be training Attack first.

Prayer bonuses also affect accuracy significantly. Piety increases both your Attack and Strength levels, which improves both accuracy and max hit simultaneously. Rigour for ranged and Augury for magic do the same thing. Players who skip these expensive prayers are giving up enormous DPS improvements that would pay for themselves quickly through better profit rates.

Gear choices matter tremendously for accuracy. The difference between a Dragon Crossbow and an Armadyl Crossbow is mostly accuracy, not damage. Against low defence monsters, the difference is negligible. Against high defence bosses, the Armadyl Crossbow might produce twenty percent better DPS purely from hitting more consistently.

When I was learning Theatre of Blood, I struggled with inconsistent kills until I realized my accuracy was far too low for the boss defence levels. I had focused on max hit gear while ignoring accuracy bonuses. After recalculating my setup with a damage calculator and making targeted upgrades, my kills became much more consistent and my profit rates improved dramatically.

The key lesson here is that you cannot just assume expensive gear is better. You need to calculate how different gear combinations affect your actual hit chance against the specific monsters you are killing. A five million gold accuracy upgrade might improve your profit more than a fifty million gold Strength upgrade if you are fighting high defence content.

Slayer Optimization Through Damage Analysis

Slayer is one of the most popular money making methods in OSRS, but the profit variance between efficient and inefficient players is enormous. Two players with similar stats and gear doing the same Slayer tasks can have profit rates that differ by millions of gold per day, and the difference usually comes down to damage optimization.

Every Slayer task has an optimal gear and weapon setup based on the monster’s stats. Abyssal Demons have low defence, so fast weapons with decent accuracy work best. Gargoyles have higher defence, so accurate weapons matter more. Black Dragons are weak to specific weapons like the Dragon Hunter Lance or Dragon Hunter Crossbow that provide massive damage bonuses.

Most players use the same generic setup for every task, which means they are optimized for nothing. They might have a decent overall setup, but they are losing hundreds of kills per task by not specializing for the specific monster they are fighting.

The Slayer helmet provides a massive damage boost, but only if you are on task. This makes Slayer tasks one of the few activities where DPS calculations matter even more than usual. Every point of additional damage is amplified by the helmet bonus, so small optimizations compound significantly.

When I optimized my Slayer gear properly using damage calculations, my average task completion time decreased by about twenty percent. This meant I could complete more tasks per day, which meant more points, more drops, and significantly more gold. The difference was over two million gold per day just from better gear choices on the same tasks.

Special attacks also matter significantly for Slayer profit optimization. The Dragon Warhammer special attack lowers enemy defence, which increases your accuracy and therefore your DPS for the rest of the kill. The Armadyl Godsword special attack reduces the enemy’s stats and heals you, extending your trip length. Knowing when to use these specials optimally requires understanding how they affect your damage output.

Cannon usage is another damage multiplier that many players underutilize. A well placed cannon effectively doubles your kill speed on many tasks, which can double your profit if the drops are valuable enough. However, cannon balls cost money, so you need to calculate whether the increased kills justify the supply cost.

I avoided using a cannon for months because I thought the cost would eat my profits. When I finally did the math properly, I realized that on high value tasks, the cannon more than paid for itself through faster kills and more drops. My effective profit rate increased by over a million gold per hour on certain tasks purely from cannon usage.

Boss Combat Mechanics and Profit Optimization

Different bosses have completely different combat mechanics that favor different damage optimization strategies. Understanding these differences is crucial for maximizing profit rates, but most guides never explain the actual math behind why certain setups work better.

Vorkath is primarily a DPS race where you want to kill it as quickly as possible to minimize damage taken and maximize kills per hour. Defence matters less than pure damage output. Players who focus on maximizing their DPS with weapons like the Dragon Hunter Lance or Blowpipe consistently make more money than players who prioritize defensive gear.

Cerberus is another pure DPS check where the entire fight is about dealing damage as quickly as possible. If your DPS is too low, the fight takes longer, you use more supplies, and your profit margins suffer. Prayer flicking can reduce supply costs, but higher DPS is always better for profit.

Zulrah has multiple phases with different defence levels and attack styles. Your optimal weapon switches between phases based on which style the boss is currently vulnerable to. Players who optimize their switches and calculate their DPS for each phase make significantly more kills per hour than players who use a single weapon the entire fight.

The Nightmare requires a team with coordinated DPS. Your individual damage contribution directly affects your chances of receiving drops, and the team’s total DPS affects kill speed. Optimizing your personal DPS is essential for both getting more drops and making the boss worth killing at all.

Chambers of Xeric and Theatre of Blood both scale based on party size and total stats. Your contribution to the team’s damage directly affects completion times and drop chances. In these raids, even a five percent personal DPS improvement can mean the difference between consistent completions and failed attempts.

From a profit perspective, knowing your exact DPS at different bosses helps you decide which ones are worth killing. You might assume the boss with the highest advertised GP per hour is your best option, but if your gear and stats are not optimized for that specific boss, you might make more money elsewhere.

I spent weeks camping Cerberus before realizing my setup was poorly optimized for the mechanics. My DPS was about fifteen percent lower than optimal because I had the wrong weapon and prayer combinations. When I recalculated everything properly using a damage calculator and fixed my setup, my kills per hour increased significantly and my profit rate jumped by over a million gold per day.

Gear Upgrades and Cost Benefit Analysis

Every gear upgrade has a cost and a benefit, but most players make upgrade decisions based on emotion rather than math. They buy expensive items because they look cool or because streamers use them, without calculating whether those items actually improve their profit rates enough to justify the purchase.

The correct approach is treating every gear purchase as an investment that needs to pay for itself through increased profits. A ten million gold weapon upgrade that increases your DPS by ten percent will pay for itself after you earn one hundred million gold using that weapon. If you plan to use the weapon frequently, it is a good investment. If you will rarely use it, the money is better saved or invested elsewhere.

Some upgrades provide massive value for relatively low cost. The Dragon Hunter Lance costs about sixty million gold but increases your DPS at dragons by twenty five percent or more. If you plan to kill Vorkath or any dragon content regularly, this upgrade pays for itself extremely quickly through faster kills and better profit rates.

Other upgrades are far less efficient. Primordial Boots cost around thirty million gold but only provide one more Strength bonus than Dragon Boots. That single Strength bonus might not even increase your max hit depending on your other gear and levels. The upgrade might take months to pay for itself through marginally better profit rates.

The trap many players fall into is upgrading everything equally without considering which upgrades actually matter. They spend a hundred million gold getting minor improvements across all their gear slots when that same money spent on one major weapon upgrade would have provided far better returns.

I personally track the payback period for every major gear purchase I make. My Dragon Warhammer paid for itself in less than a week of Chambers of Xeric. My Bandos armor took about a month to pay back through slightly better damage output. My Primordial Boots are still not paid back after months because the improvement was so marginal.

Using a DPS calculator before making purchases helps you see exactly how much each upgrade improves your damage output. You can compare multiple upgrade paths and choose the one that provides the best improvement per gold spent. This systematic approach prevents emotional purchases and ensures your money is invested optimally.

Weapon choices are usually the highest impact upgrades for money making. A better weapon often increases your DPS more than multiple armor upgrades combined. This is why I always recommend players focus on weapon upgrades first, then fill in armor pieces later once the weapon is optimal.

Special Attacks and Advanced Damage Optimization

Special attacks are an often overlooked aspect of damage optimization that can significantly improve your profit rates when used correctly. Every weapon with a special attack effectively gives you burst damage potential that increases your average damage output if timed properly.

The Dragon Warhammer special attack reduces enemy defence by thirty percent, which increases your accuracy and therefore your damage for the entire rest of the fight. Against high defence bosses, this special attack can effectively increase your DPS by fifteen to twenty percent for the cost of fifty percent special attack energy. Used properly, it is one of the most powerful profit optimization tools in the game.

The Bandos Godsword special attack reduces all enemy stats and drains prayer. While less powerful than the Dragon Warhammer against high defence bosses, it provides more utility and can extend trip lengths through the stat drain effects. The decision of which spec weapon to bring depends on the specific boss and your goals.

Crystal Halberd and Dragon Claws both provide burst damage that can finish kills faster. These are particularly valuable when a boss is close to dying and you want to end the fight quickly to start the next kill. The time saved across dozens or hundreds of kills adds up significantly.

The Dragon Dagger special attack is often underestimated because the weapon itself is weak. However, the special attack provides a massive damage spike for very low special attack energy cost. Against low defence monsters where accuracy is not an issue, the Dragon Dagger spec is one of the most efficient ways to convert special attack energy into damage.

Learning when to use special attacks optimally requires understanding how they affect your total damage output. If you use a Dragon Warhammer spec immediately at the start of a fight, you benefit from the defence reduction for the entire kill. If you use it too late, you waste most of the benefit. If you never use it at all, you are leaving free damage increases on the table.

I track my boss kill times with and without special attack usage to calculate the actual benefit. At Corporeal Beast, proper Dragon Warhammer spec usage reduces my average kill time by about thirty seconds, which translates into roughly fifteen percent more kills per hour. This is essentially a free fifteen percent profit increase from just timing one special attack properly.

For Slayer tasks, special attacks can make certain tasks significantly more profitable. Using a Saradomin Godsword to heal during Gargoyle tasks extends trip length and reduces banking time. Using a Dragon Warhammer on high defence Slayer monsters increases kill speed. These small optimizations compound into major profit improvements over hundreds of tasks.

Prayer and Potion Management for Profit

Prayer and potion usage directly affects both your damage output and your profit margins. Using expensive potions and prayers increases your kills per hour but also increases your supply costs. Finding the optimal balance requires understanding exactly how these boosts affect your damage and calculating whether the increased profits justify the supply costs.

Piety increases your Attack and Strength by twenty five percent, which typically translates into about fifteen to twenty percent higher DPS depending on your base stats. The prayer drain cost is significant, but the damage increase usually more than justifies the prayer potion cost at profitable bosses.

Many players skip Piety because of the prayer drain without calculating whether the increased kills per hour justify the cost. When I finally did the math at Vorkath, I found that using Piety increased my kills per hour by about twenty percent, which more than paid for the extra prayer potions through additional drops. My actual profit per hour increased even though my supply cost also increased.

Super combat potions provide significant stat boosts that improve both accuracy and damage. The cost per dose is relatively low compared to the benefit, making them almost always worth using at profitable activities. Divine super combat potions provide even larger boosts but cost significantly more, so the cost benefit calculation becomes tighter.

Ranging potions and Divine ranging potions provide similar benefits for ranged setups. Magic potions are less commonly used because magic damage is less affected by level boosts, but they still provide accuracy improvements that matter at high defence bosses.

The key is calculating your effective profit rate including supply costs rather than just looking at raw drop values. Sometimes using cheaper gear and supplies with slightly worse stats produces better actual profit after accounting for costs. Other times using expensive consumables for maximum DPS produces much better profit despite higher costs.

I experiment with different supply loadouts and track my actual profit rates including costs. At some bosses, bringing extra prayer potions for unlimited Piety usage increases my profit significantly. At other bosses, the prayer drain is too fast and the kill time reduction too small to justify the extra cost. Each situation requires specific math rather than general assumptions.

Combat Achievements and Permanent Efficiency Improvements

Combat Achievements are probably the most underrated money making investment in OSRS. Most players view them as optional prestige content, but they actually provide permanent efficiency improvements that increase your profit rates at specific activities forever.

The Slayer helmet upgrades from Combat Achievement rewards provide permanent damage bonuses against Slayer monsters. These bonuses increase your DPS on every Slayer task for the rest of your account’s lifetime. If you spend ten hours completing the required achievements, and those upgrades save you five minutes per Slayer task forever, the time investment pays back after just a few weeks of regular Slayer training.

The God Wars Dungeon teleports from higher tier achievements save massive amounts of time on repeated boss trips. Faster banking means more kills per hour, which directly translates into better profit rates. Players who have these unlocks consistently make more money at GWD bosses compared to players without them.

Boss respawn speed increases let you chain kills faster without waiting. This is particularly valuable at instanced bosses where you are the only person in the room. Even saving ten seconds per kill compounds into significant time savings over hundreds of kills.

From a pure profit perspective, completing Combat Achievements is an investment with a defined payback period. You spend time now to unlock permanent benefits that increase your future earning potential. The higher the tier you complete, the better the unlocks, but also the more time investment required.

I delayed Combat Achievements for over a year because I thought they were not worth the time investment compared to just grinding more bosses. When I finally calculated the actual long term benefit, I realized I had cost myself millions of gold by not doing them sooner. The permanent efficiency improvements have increased my profit rates at multiple activities, and those improvements will continue paying dividends for as long as I play the account.

Many Combat Achievement tasks are essentially DPS checks where you need to kill a boss within a time limit or without taking certain damage. Having properly optimized damage output makes these tasks significantly easier to complete. Players who understand their DPS can tackle higher tier achievements more efficiently than players who are guessing at their damage output.

Frequently Asked Questions About Combat Efficiency and Profit

Do I need BiS gear to make good money in OSRS?

No, but you need to optimize what you have. Budget gear with proper setup and good damage calculation often outperforms expensive gear used inefficiently. Focus on the highest impact upgrades first and calculate the actual benefit of each purchase.

How much does weapon speed actually matter for profit?

Weapon speed often matters more than players realize. A faster weapon with slightly lower bonuses frequently produces better DPS and therefore better profit than a slower weapon with higher bonuses. The only way to know for certain is calculating your actual DPS with both options.

Should I use expensive potions and prayers for maximum profit?

It depends on the specific activity and your profit margins. Calculate your kills per hour with and without expensive consumables, then compare the supply cost to the additional drops earned. Usually the increased kills justify the cost, but not always.

Can I calculate my exact profit improvement from gear upgrades?

Yes, by calculating your DPS improvement from the upgrade, estimating how it affects your kills per hour, and multiplying by average drop values. The math is tedious manually but damage calculators make it simple. Even rough estimates help guide better purchasing decisions.

Are Combat Achievements worth doing purely for profit?

Absolutely. The permanent efficiency improvements pay for themselves relatively quickly through better profit rates at specific activities. Higher tier achievements require more time investment but provide better unlocks. Calculate the expected payback period based on how often you do the relevant content.

Final Thoughts on Damage Optimization and Wealth Building

Understanding the relationship between your damage output and your actual gold per hour earnings completely changes how you approach money making in OSRS. Instead of blindly following guides and wondering why your profits are lower than expected, you can calculate exactly what matters and make informed decisions about gear and training.

Every weapon choice, every gear upgrade, every special attack usage, and every boss you learn affects your earning potential. The players who make the most money consistently are not the ones with the best luck or unlimited free time. They are the ones who understand damage mechanics deeply and optimize every variable systematically.

This is why using proper tools to calculate your damage output accurately is essential for serious money making. It removes the guesswork and lets you make purchasing and training decisions based on actual math rather than intuition or outdated advice. The OSRS DPS Calculator has personally helped me optimize my gold per hour rates across every major money making activity I do regularly.

Take time to analyze your current setup properly. Calculate your actual damage output at the activities you do most often. Figure out which gear upgrades or stat increases provide the biggest improvements per gold invested. Plan your progression strategically rather than emotionally. These small optimizations compound into massive profit differences over weeks and months of consistent gameplay.

The difference between making two million per hour and five million per hour doing the same boss is not luck or secret methods. It is understanding exactly how your gear and stats translate into damage output, and then optimizing every variable systematically based on actual calculations. Start calculating instead of guessing, and watch your profits improve consistently over time.