OSRS Buy Limits
Every tradeable item on the Grand Exchange has a buy limit: a cap on how many units you can buy in a rolling 4-hour window. The rule is simple; the timing is the part that trips people up.
The rule
You can buy up to a fixed number of a single item within any rolling 4-hour period, per character. The cap is per item, not per slot, so splitting a buy across multiple of your 8 GE slots does not increase the amount. Selling is not capped.
When the timer starts
The 4-hour timer starts when your first offer for that item begins filling, not when you place it. If your offer sits empty and never fills, no timer starts. If it partially fills, the timer starts at the first fill. Once the 4 hours are up from that first fill, your cap resets and you can start a new buy.
This means "I put my offer in at 15:00" is not enough information. What matters is when it first filled.
Typical buy limits by category
Buy limits are set per item by Jagex. Real limits vary; use these bands only as a rough orientation:
- Very high (5,000-25,000): raw materials like feathers, seeds, some runes, low-tier ores.
- High (1,000-5,000): potions, arrows, common food, mid-tier runes, common logs.
- Medium (100-500): mid-tier weapons and armour, uncommon potions, secondary ingredients.
- Low (10-70): higher-tier gear, rare skilling drops, unusual consumables.
- Very low (2-8): BiS armour, godsword pieces, high-value drops.
- Minimum (1-2): third-age, twisted bow, and other top-tier rare items.
The current per-item limit is in each item's page inside GE IQ and in the item's Wiki page.
Why buy limits matter for flipping
Margin per unit is only half the story. The real question is margin × buy limit: what is the profit ceiling for one full cycle? A 500k margin on an item with a limit of 30 (15M per cycle) beats a 2M margin on an item with a limit of 2 (4M per cycle), even though the 2M number looks bigger. GE IQ shows both figures so a small-limit high-margin flip can be compared to a large-limit low-margin flip on equal terms.
Staggering across the 8 GE slots
You have 8 buy/sell slots at once. To keep them all producing you can hold different items with staggered buy limits, so you always have something you can start filling. A common rotation is a mix of one or two high-value slow flips plus five or six high-volume small flips, cycled as their timers reset.
Common mistakes
- Assuming the timer starts when you place the offer. It starts when it first fills.
- Splitting a large buy across multiple accounts is not against Jagex rules per se, but the cap is per account.
- Ignoring the limit and picking flips only by margin. A 4M margin on a limit-of-2 item pays 8M per cycle; a 200k margin on a limit-of-100 item pays 20M per cycle.