Mastering Currency Farming in Path of Exile: Tips for All Stages of the Game

The most essential but surprisingly manageable part of Path of Exile is acquiring currency. Currency isn't just used for trading with other players — it plays a central role in crafting, enhancing maps, and upgrading gear. This guide will explore the best ways to farm valuable orbs at every stage of your journey, whether you're in the campaign, transitioning into maps, or deep into endgame content.

Core Strategies for Currency Farming in Path of Exile

Before diving in, consider your build choice: a specialized farming setup or a more traditional character. Farming-focused builds aim to generate currency efficiently from maps and generally require a modest investment to begin. Regular builds are often league-starter friendly and can adapt to many content types.

Farming builds vary significantly between leagues and depend on seasonal mechanics. Instead of focusing on specific builds here, we’ll share universal tips that work across all builds and all points of progression.

Prioritize Reaching Maps Quickly

When a league starts, speed through the acts and unlock maps as soon as you can. This opens up more profitable gameplay because:

• Item levels are higher in maps, increasing the value of drops.

• Maps can be upgraded using chisels, alchs, and other orbs to improve item drop chances.

• Higher-tier maps (yellow/red) sell for more currency.

• Linked items (4-5-6-links) drop more frequently, fetching solid prices.

• Additional content like Delve, Blight, or Harvest becomes accessible for even more profit.

Use tools like Awakened Sextants to enhance your maps by adding or modifying modifiers that improve currency returns.

Don’t Overlook Small Profits

In the early days of a league, even a few chaos orbs can make a big difference. Avoid undercutting too much when pricing your items. Set your prices around 20% higher than the lowest listed — there may be price fixers manipulating the market. If something doesn’t sell quickly, gradually lower the price.

Set up a stash tab with a fixed price (like 2 chaos orbs) and fill it with various items as you map. These smaller sales can add up over time and generate reliable income.

Use a Proper Loot Filter

While it may seem like basic advice, using a good loot filter is vital — especially early in a league. Your filter should highlight valuable gear like:

• 3-4 linked items during the campaign.

• Socketed items with all color combinations.

• High-tier bases and unique items.

Customize your filter to match your progress:

• White maps: use a strict filter.

• Yellow maps: shift to very strict.

• Red maps: switch to uber strict for maximum efficiency.

Popular tools like Filterblade let you tailor your filter to your current content, making looting faster and smarter.

Profit from Vendor Recipes

Many items in PoE can be combined and sold to vendors for currency — often more than what you'd get just vendoring them alone. For example, 3-socket items with all different colors provide Chromatic Orbs. Here are other key recipes worth knowing:

Recipe	Result
3-linked RGB item	1 Chromatic Orb
Full rare set (60-74)	Chaos Orb
Full rare set (75+)	Regal Orb
6-socket item	Jeweller’s Orbs

Vendor recipes are reliable ways to gain early resources without relying on other players.

Take Advantage of Atlas Passive Tree

Once you start running maps, your Atlas Passive Tree becomes just as crucial as your character's skill tree. Invest points wisely to increase drops and profits. For example:

• Blight nodes increase oil and item drops.

• Delve nodes boost sulfite and reward chests.

• Harvest can improve crafting yield and currency potential.

Tailor your tree to the mechanics you enjoy or find most lucrative. A focused approach often leads to more consistent returns over random mapping.

Explore Diverse Content Types

Path of Exile offers a wealth of side content. Don’t just spam regular maps — try alternate content like:

🔹 Delve:
Highly rewarding and scalable. Delve offers fossils and resonators used for crafting valuable gear. With the right build and planning, Delve can be a goldmine.

🔹 Blight:
Set up tower defenses and harvest loot. You can go passive (using only scout towers) or engage actively. Blighted maps often drop oils, currency, and high-value items if fully cleared.

🛈 Tip: Use oils wisely on maps for maximum benefit, and utilize tools like Blight Helper to optimize your strategy.

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Sell Leveling Uniques

Many unique items are extremely valuable during the league's first days but fall off later. If you've outgrown early-game uniques that provide basic stats or resistances, sell them early. Their value is highest when other players are still in the leveling phase.

Bulk Is Better

Selling in bulk often yields more currency per item than selling individually. Save up 10 or more of an item — fossils, resonators, essences — and sell as a package. People pay premium prices to avoid farming small quantities themselves.

You can also buy low in bulk and resell high, especially for items like stacked decks or catalysts. Timing is key: prices shift quickly in the early league economy.

Use the Crafting Bench

The crafting bench in your hideout is a powerful, often underused tool. It allows you to add or modify affixes like resistances or life on gear, saving you from wasting orbs. For example:

• Instead of burning multiple Chromatic Orbs to get desired socket colors, use the crafting table to directly set them.

• Add resistances or flat life to rings or amulets before listing them. This can make an otherwise mediocre item visible in trade searches.

Crafted stats often help gear meet filter criteria in trade, increasing the odds of a sale.

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Farm Low-Level Contracts (Heist)

Heist is one of the fastest and easiest ways to earn early-game currency:

• Visit the Rogue Harbour as soon as you get markers.

• Buy low-level contracts and run them quickly.

• Contracts provide raw currency, gear, and blueprints.

• Higher level gear isn’t necessary to start making returns.

Running several contracts back-to-back can be surprisingly efficient and profitable, especially before maps.

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Sell Influenced Bases

Influenced items drop from conquerors and endgame bosses and are essential for high-end crafting. If you’re experienced enough to farm influenced content, do it regularly. Even clean influenced bases can be valuable.

• For example: Hunter-influenced Two-Toned Boots are a top-tier base.

• If you hit a mod like Tailwind on boots, you can sell them for an immense profit.

• Don’t reroll such bases unless you know what you're doing — they can be sold clean.

If you get a great result, remember: influenced rares can also be duplicated with a Mirror of Kalandra, adding even more value.

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Watch for High-Demand Essences

Certain essences, like Essence of Greed, Essence of Wrath, or Remnant of Corruption, are in constant demand — especially in the first few days of a league.

• Some players use essence crafting strategies early on.

• Others want specific prefixes/suffixes and will pay extra for rare essences.

• Keep an eye on their value and list yours accordingly.

Essences are one of the easiest early sources of income if you farm them intentionally.

Try Flipping Currency

Currency flipping is a staple for many experienced traders. The method is simple:
Buy currency at a lower rate and sell it at a higher one, especially in bulk.

• Monitor live rates on trade platforms or tools like poe.ninja.

• Look for opportunities — for example, buying Chaos Orbs in bulk and reselling them for Divine Orbs at a favorable ratio.

• Some players flip Essences, Fossils, or Scarabs just by trading in large quantities.

It requires some patience and market awareness but can be done entirely from your hideout with minimal gameplay.

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Profit from Stacked Decks

Stacked Decks are loot boxes that drop Divination Cards. These can be farmed, traded, or flipped:

• Buy them at a reasonable price (e.g., 1c each), then open or resell in bulk.

• Some cards you get will be worth far more than the cost of the Deck.

• Alternatively, bulk selling Decks for Divine Orbs can yield profit if market prices swing in your favor.

They’re also a great way to passively gamble if you enjoy chance-based profit.

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Final Advice for Currency Farming in PoE

To sum up the strategy:

• Prioritize reaching Maps quickly.

• Don’t ignore low-value items — chaos adds up.

• Use loot filters wisely to streamline drops.

• Learn and use vendor recipes.

• Use your Atlas Passives strategically.

• Focus on efficient content: Delve, Blight, Heist.

• Use your crafting bench before spending currency.

• Sell early uniques, influenced items, and essences when they’re in demand.

• Flip bulk items or currency if you’re good with trade.

With consistency and a bit of planning, you’ll gradually accumulate more wealth than most casual players.