How the OSRS Grand Exchange buy limit works
Every item has a buy cap and a 4-hour cooldown. Most flippers think they understand the rule. Most are wrong about when the timer starts.
The basic rule
On the OSRS Grand Exchange you can only buy a fixed number of any single item per rolling 4-hour window. Selling has no limit. The cap is per item, not per slot, so even if you split a buy across multiple GE slots, the total still counts against the same cap.
Examples of common limits, to give you a feel for the range:
| Item | Buy limit per 4 hours |
|---|---|
| Old School Bond | 2 |
| Twisted bow | 8 |
| Dragon claws | 70 |
| Saradomin brew (4) | 2,000 |
| Cooked karambwan | 11,000 |
| Cosmic rune | 25,000 |
The timer rule that everyone gets wrong
The 4-hour timer does not start when you place the offer. It does not start when the first unit ticks in. It starts when your offer first fills, meaning the first second a buy goes through. Until that point, the timer is dormant.
What this means in practice: if you placed a buy offer at midnight that does not fill until 7am because you priced too low, your 4-hour cooldown does not start at midnight. It starts at 7am. You can re-buy at 11am, not 4am.
What does not count against the limit
- Selling. Sales are unlimited. You can sell 100,000 of an item even if your buy limit is 25,000.
- Cancelled offers that did not fill. If you place a buy and cancel before any units come in, the cap is unaffected.
- Items received from drops, quests, skilling. Anything you obtained outside the GE does not count toward the limit. You can sell those freely.
Why this matters for flipping
The buy limit is the ceiling on how much you can profit per item per 4 hours. If an item has a 100k margin and a buy limit of 70, your maximum theoretical profit on that item is 7M every 4 hours, which is 42M in a perfect 24-hour day. Reality is lower because not every flip closes cleanly.
For low-bankroll flippers, the buy limit is rarely the bottleneck. Capital is. For mid-bankroll flippers (10M to 100M), it becomes the main constraint. You start needing 5 or 6 items active simultaneously to deploy your capital efficiently.
How to track timers without losing your mind
The in-game GE does not show you when each timer started. You have to remember it yourself. Most flippers use one of three methods:
- External tracker. Tools like GE IQ remember when each portfolio slot was added and count down from there.
- Discord reminder bots. Some clans run a bot you tell about each new offer.
- Habit-based timing. Place all buys at fixed hours of the day so you only need to remember a few moments.
Track your buy limit timers automatically
GE IQ tracks each item you have an active flip on, counts down the 4-hour window, and tells you the moment your slot is free again.
Open GE IQ